The division of the Department of Justice in charge of enforcing federal civil rights laws of the Nation has recently seen a massive exodus of “more than 100” lawyers, said the newly confirmed official who leads the division in an interview this week.
“What we have made very clear last week in the notes for each of the 11 sections in the Civil Rights Division is that our priorities under President Trump will be somewhat different from what President Biden were,” said the Attorney General of the DOJ, Harmet Dhillon. An interview with conservative host Glenn Beck. “And then we tell you that these are the president’s priorities, this is what we will focus on, you know, govern you accordingly. And in mass, dozens and now more than 100 lawyers decided that they prefer not to do what their work requires that they do.”
The resignations occur when Dhillon and the Attorney General Pam Bondi have made it clear that the priorities of the division, which were established following the movement of civil rights in the 1950s, would move away from the priorities such as enforcing the laws of voting rights and taking energetic measures against the unconstitutional police to the problems of the war of culture.
Harmet Dhillon, nominated for President Donald Trump for the Attorney General of Civil Rights, prepares for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judicial Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office building in Capitol Hill on February 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. A civil liberty lawyer who served Vice President of the California Republican Party, Dhillion led numerous demands without success to stop the implementation of orders that remain at home and other restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. (Photo of Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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In recent weeks, the department has said that it would follow legal actions against states that allow transgender athletes to participate in girls and women’s sports, retired from a demand from the Biden era against Georgia’s voting laws and convened a working group to investigate incidents of “anti-Christian bias.”
Of the recent resignations, Dhillon said in the interview that he believes that he is “well” that the lawyers chose to leave.
“We do not want people in the federal government to feel their pet of pets to persecute, you know, the police departments based on statistical evidence or chase people who pray outside the abortion facilities instead of making violence,” said Dhillon. “That is not the work here. The work here is to enforce federal civil rights laws, not arouse ideology.”
The headquarters of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, DC
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At the same time, Dhillon said in the interview that he was trying to be in the division staff to find problems such as the actions of the administration directed to Harvard University.
“You need more lawyers, researchers and commitment to do the job, and need people in the United States to identify these things for us,” Dhillon said. “We are going to run out of lawyers to work on these things at some point.”
Several Democrats sent a letter to Bondi, Dhillon and the Inspector General of the Doj Michael Horowitz on Monday raising concerns about what they described as the “politicization” of the civil rights division of the Department of Justice.
