Wire reporting: (AP, via KSAT)

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday he had accepted the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, according to multiple news organizations that quoted his social-media statement^2,4,12.

Dhillon, a San Francisco-based conservative lawyer and longtime ally of President Donald Trump, was confirmed in 2025 and is described in several accounts as the first senior official to leave after this week’s midterm elections^2,12,20.

Blanche wrote that Dhillon had led the division “with conviction” over about 18 months and that the department was grateful for her service^4,12.

Outlets that could be read independently said her tenure redirected the unit away from many traditional discrimination and police-reform cases toward voting-list enforcement, challenges to campus diversity policies, and other conservative legal priorities^4,12,14.

CBS News said more than three-quarters of the division’s staff departed during that period; ABC7, carrying AP reporting, quoted Dhillon previously calling the exits a historic “self-purge” of lawyers she said were not enforcing federal civil rights law as she defined it^4,12.

Critics including former division lawyer Stacey Young, now at the Justice Connection network, issued a statement condemning her record; Dhillon did not immediately respond to requests for comment, ABC7 reported^4,12.

Al Jazeera tied the timing to a Democratic takeover of Congress and expected investigations of immigration-agent shootings and Jeffrey Epstein-related files; CBS described fights over whether the division would open civil-rights inquiries into those shootings^2,4.

ABC7, citing multiple reports, said Dhillon had told the White House of her plan weeks earlier and was asked to wait until after Election Day¹². What she will do next, and who will run the division, was not announced in the accounts reviewed^2,4,12.