Harmeet Dhillon Resigns as DOJ Civil Rights Chief After Midterms

Harmeet Dhillon resigned Thursday, Nov. 5, as assistant attorney general leading the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, ending a roughly 18-month tenure that remade one of DOJ’s most watched offices just after Republicans lost the midterm elections.

Attorney General Todd Blanche said he accepted the resignation and praised her service. “She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor,” Blanche wrote, according to Fox News and ABC News.

Why did Dhillon leave now?

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Dhillon said she was not asked to resign. She said she informed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles about three weeks before Election Day that she had “accomplished everything” she came to do and wanted to return to private practice, then formally submitted her resignation on Nov. 5 after Wiles asked her to wait until after the midterms.

“I wasn’t asked to resign,” Dhillon told Fox News. “I resigned three weeks ago, and Susie asked me to please wait until after the midterms.”

ABC News reported that sources said her exit had long been expected after Trump privately expressed frustration over court losses under her leadership, and that she was the first high-ranking Trump ally to resign after Tuesday’s midterms. Those internal accounts sit alongside Dhillon’s own statement that the timing was her choice.

Dhillon was nominated by President Trump in December 2024 and sworn in in April 2025, Fox News reported.

What changed at the Civil Rights Division?

Coverage across Fox News, ABC News and the Associated Press described a sharp shift in priorities: rolling back DEI-focused work, police consent decrees, transgender-sports litigation, Second Amendment and election-integrity cases, and university probes.

ABC News said an estimated 75% of the division’s career attorneys had departed as of earlier staffing numbers provided to Congress. Fox News said Dhillon told its reporters she recruited more than 130 lawyers while rebuilding the office, and quoted her saying, “We changed it, and that’s what we came here to do. And it’s done.”

Former Biden-era Civil Rights chief Kristen Clarke, now NAACP general counsel, said Dhillon “abdicated her responsibility” and “destroyed the crown jewel of the Justice Department,” ABC News reported. Dhillon’s allies cast the same record as a deliberate course correction.

What’s next for Dhillon?

Fox News said she plans to return to private practice. Asked about possible congressional subpoenas, she said she would take legal counsel on executive-privilege limits. Asked whether she expected a presidential pardon if Democrats pursue administration officials, she said she had never discussed it with Trump and did not believe she had done anything requiring one.

On X, ABC News reported, she thanked Trump and said her office “ushered in the downfall of illegal DEI” and fought to “protect women and girls’ sports.”

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Earlier coverage: Harmeet Dhillon Resigns as Head of DOJ Civil Rights Division After Midterms (Nov 5)