Harmeet Dhillon turned the DOJ’s crown jewel into a MAGA disaster

Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division under President Donald Trump, is steering the unit away from its traditional role protecting voters just as the midterms approach, MS NOW reports. Her division pressed states to hand over complete voter rolls and sued Democratic-led ones that balked, but it has lost all 23 of those cases. This summer she also warned state election officials of possible criminal penalties if they fail to keep noncitizens from voting, though only a negligible number of such cases have surfaced.

Staffing has collapsed. The division typically employed about 380 lawyers, and Dhillon has said roughly 300 left after she took over, about 75% of the total. The New York Times reported that 130 replacements have arrived, some with résumés that once might have barred them and others with a record of conspiratorial public statements. Dhillon told the Times the earlier hiring pool consisted of progressive activists, and she defended her recruits' experience.

Election monitoring has drawn scrutiny too. Monitors went to New Jersey and California contests lacking federal races, and in Wyoming two of them questioned voters and inspected machines, prompting a rebuke from the Republican governor.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →