Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, accepted the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Al Jazeera and Fox News Digital reported. Dhillon is the first high-ranking official to resign from the Trump administration since Democrats won both chambers of Congress in the Nov. 3 midterms, Al Jazeera reported.
Blanche announces the resignation
In a post on X, Blanche wrote, “Today, I accepted the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon,” Fox News Digital reported. Blanche wrote that Dhillon led the division with “conviction,” the Associated Press reported.
Dhillon said in a statement that the job had been “the honor of a lifetime,” NPR reported. In an email to division staff obtained by NPR, she wrote, “I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished during this time to ensure our nation’s civil rights laws protect every American.” NPR reported that she told President Donald Trump in early October that she planned to return to private practice after the midterms.
Dhillon says she was not asked to resign
“I wasn’t asked to resign,” Dhillon told Fox News Digital. “I resigned three weeks ago, and Susie asked me to please wait until after the midterms.” Fox identified Susie as White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Fox reported that Dhillon formally submitted her resignation on Nov. 5, according to a letter the outlet obtained.
Dhillon told Fox she believed she had “accomplished everything” she came to Washington to do and wanted to return to private practice. “My decision, my choice,” she said. “It’s time.” Fox reported that she moved to Washington after the deaths of her husband and father to “serve my country.”
First high-ranking exit after the midterms
The outgoing Congress faces a lame-duck session, and Democrats take control of the U.S. Congress in January. A Democratic-led Congress is expected to probe the Justice Department civil rights office’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and killings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Al Jazeera reported.
How Dhillon reached the Civil Rights Division
Trump nominated Dhillon in December 2024, and the Senate confirmed her in April 2025, Fox News Digital reported. Then-Attorney General Pamela Bondi swore her in on Monday, April 7, 2025, according to a Justice Department gallery.
Before joining the Trump administration, Dhillon founded the Dhillon Law Group and the Center for American Liberty, Fox News Digital reported.
Her tenure at the division
Fox News Digital reported that Dhillon’s tenure, which it put at about 19 months, shifted the division’s priorities toward DEI and race-conscious policies, religious discrimination, transgender participation in women’s sports, Second Amendment rights and election integrity. NPR put her tenure at 18 months.
NPR reported that Dhillon pushed out roughly 300 career attorneys. More than three-quarters of the unit’s workforce at the start of Trump’s second term have left, the Associated Press reported. The AP said Dhillon has called that the “biggest single personnel self-purge in DOJ history.”
Stacey Young, a former Civil Rights Division attorney who now leads a network of Justice Department alumni, called Dhillon “the most destructive, lawless and hateful” head of the division in department history, the AP reported.
Source: DOJ OPA, Fox News Digital, Al Jazeera; chart: The Boston Report. Approximate “~Oct 2026” mark reflects Dhillon’s statement that she informed Wiles about three weeks before Election Day.
Election monitoring and the Boston angle
The Boston Report previously explained what federal observers could and could not do at Massachusetts polling places in a guide to federal election monitors at Boston polls ahead of Nov. 3. Related political news coverage continues on The Boston Report’s politics and government desk.
What Dhillon said about Congress and pardons
Asked by Fox whether she would testify before Congress if subpoenaed after leaving, Dhillon said there would be limits because of executive privilege. “I would certainly take legal counsel and follow it in that regard,” she said.
Asked whether she expected Trump to pardon her or other officials, Dhillon told Fox: “I have no idea. I haven’t ever discussed that with him, asked for it. And I have done nothing, in my opinion, that would require that, but, you know, that’s up to the president.”
Sources
- Fox News Digital: Dhillon resignation interview (Nov. 5, 2026)
- Associated Press (via Anchorage Daily News): Harmeet Dhillon exits after radical overhaul of Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division
- NPR (via OPB): Head of Justice Department office on Civil Rights resigns
- Al Jazeera: Top U.S. civil rights official resigns (Nov. 5, 2026)
- U.S. Department of Justice gallery: April 7, 2025 swearing-in
Read next in Politics
Most read this week
- Abdul El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood Claims: What’s Confirmed and What Isn’t
- Stock Futures Erase a 2.4% Overnight Drop as Markets Digest Democrats’ Sweep of Congress
- Spain Transport Minister Óscar Puente Quits 26 Days Before Election Over Crash That Killed 69
- Boston Plans to Close 3 Schools in 2028 as Enrollment Drops as Much as 58%
- GM Korea’s Sales Jump 26.6% on Chevrolet Exports as Hyundai Slips 6.3% and Korean Factory Growth Cools
Latest
- UN Gaza Funding Timeline: A $4 Billion Appeal, Then Food Cuts, Then New Pleas for Cash
- Taiwan Detains Small Communist Party’s Chief Over Alleged Chinese Funding Before Nov. 28 Elections
- France Says Europeans Will Join U.S.-Mediated Ukraine Talks in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10–11
- Russian Strikes Cut Power to About 850,000 in Ukraine as Zaporizhzhia Plant Loses Outside Supply
- Heavy Rain Floods Tents Across Gaza as Aid Groups Warn of Worsening Conditions