Harmeet Dhillon resigns as civil rights division's final remaining employee
The Trump ally's exit after the midterm rout leaves the Justice Department's civil rights unit with nineteen boxes of lost lawsuits and a staff of zero.
Facilities staff at the Justice Department unscrewed the Civil Rights Division's nameplate on Monday morning, there being no one left inside to read it. Harmeet Dhillon, the division's chief for 18 months and its final remaining employee, had resigned an hour earlier.
She is the first senior official out the door since Democrats took Congress in last week's midterms. Her exit interview was conducted by voicemail. Security logged her out at 9:40 carrying a cardboard box that contained a second, smaller cardboard box.
Dhillon leaves behind nineteen bankers boxes of casework, including the two dozen-plus suits demanding state voter rolls, all lost, several to judges appointed by Donald Trump. Incoming Democratic investigators will find the files sorted and labeled, in what aides called the division's most productive week on record.
A department spokesperson paid tribute to her tenure.
"Harmeet got this division down to fighting weight. You cannot lay off people you do not have."
Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the resignation in a post on X. A replacement will be named in due course. In the interim, officials said, the division's pending caseload of no active matters will be distributed evenly among its remaining lawyers.
