BREAKING: Harmeet Dhillon has resigned as the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, sources told Fox News on Thursday, making her the first senior DOJ official reported to exit after Democrats’ sweeping midterm wins.
Dhillon was nominated by President Donald Trump in December 2024 and sworn in in April 2025 after Senate confirmation. She led the Civil Rights Division through a sharp shift toward conservative priorities, including religious liberty work, a Second Amendment section, and litigation over state voter rolls, immigration, and alleged campus antisemitism.
Bloomberg Law earlier reported Thursday that Dhillon had told allies she would leave after the midterms and that an official announcement was expected as soon as Thursday, according to people familiar with her plans. Fox News later reported that she resigned Thursday, citing sources. Dhillon and DOJ spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment in the Bloomberg Law report.
Former officials told Bloomberg Law the department is bracing for more political appointees to leave in the lame-duck period before the new year. Dhillon would be the second Senate-confirmed DOJ official to depart in recent weeks, following Patrick Davis’s resignation from the Office of Legislative Affairs last month.
In the run-up to the midterms, Dhillon publicly defended the Trump administration’s probes into noncitizen voting, including in a “60 Minutes” exchange with Lesley Stahl. She previously indicated she planned to return to her California firm, Dhillon Law Group, when her government tenure ended.
Her departure lands days after Democrats flipped the House and Senate, setting up divided government for the final stretch of Trump’s term and intensifying scrutiny of the Justice Department’s direction under Republican leadership.