Harmeet Dhillon had a vision for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under Trump: “turning the train around and driving in the opposite direction.”
Mission accomplished.
As head of the DOJ division created to fight segregation, Dhillon ended more than 50 school desegregation cases, dropped the police reform deals struck after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and declined to investigate the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis.
About 75% of division’s career lawyers were disgusted and hit the exits. “Every day as I turn up the ante... more people are quitting,” Dhillon chuckled. Their replacements, including a gun rights chief known for opposing the theory of evolution, more aligned with Dhillon’s new civil rights vision.
First, she turned to elections, suing 34 states and DC for voters’ Social Security and driver’s license numbers. Dhillon and team lost 29 of the 30 cases that went to rulings, nine of them before Trump-appointed judges.
Dhillon told Texas that four majority-minority Democratic districts had to go. Governor Greg Abbott happily obliged, redrawing the map in hopes of handing Republicans five more seats. (Oh, the best laid plans: The GOP won just one of them.)
Her Ivy League campaign was every bit as triumphant, arguing Harvard’s admissions were biased against white applicants. She lost.
But it wasn’t her less-than-stellar litigation record that earned her a side-eye from the White House. It was when she assured 60 Minutes viewers that would should be “no interruption in the usual course of counting and certifying [votes in the 2026 mid-terms],” even though her own department was in court trying to ensure precisely that.
Trump was reportedly not amused and wanted her fired. Dhillon insists she quit. poe-TAY-toe, poe-TAH-toe. Either way, she’s out.
But hold your tears. She’s back at her family firm, Dhillon Law Group, which has raked in more than $20 million from Republican candidates and committees since 2019.
