One of Trump’s most destructive MAGA warriors steps aside

Harmeet Dhillon is leaving her post as assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and MS NOW columnist Charles F. Coleman Jr. argues that the damage from her tenure will be slow and difficult to undo. He also warns that the bigger concern is whom Donald Trump names next.

Dhillon, a conservative who once represented Trump as a private lawyer during the House committee's January 6 inquiry, used the job to advance the administration's push against civil rights protections, Coleman writes, undoing work by her predecessor Kristen Clarke. Her office ended police consent decrees reached with Ferguson, Louisville and Minneapolis, the cities tied to the deaths of Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and stepped back from new police cases by pointing to local control. It also dropped more than 50 longstanding school desegregation cases and pressed for election data before the Texas redistricting fight.

Coleman adds that a July photo of over 100 new division hires seemed to show nearly all white attorneys, and that Dhillon said in August roughly 300 lawyers had left. Reversing course, he says, could take years in court and would face legislative hurdles, including likely presidential vetoes.

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