Harmeet Dhillon, the Donald Trump ally who spent 18 months leading the justice department's civil rights division, is leaving her position - a departure that has surprised approximately zero people familiar with the situation.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the resignation on X, the platform where Dhillon herself was known to occasionally drop news of civil rights investigations, startling longtime department lawyers who had labored under the quaint assumption that investigations are typically not announced via social media posts. "Today, I accepted the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Civil Rights Division with conviction the past 18 months," Blanche wrote. "She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor." The statement did not elaborate on which specific civil liberties, or whose.

Dhillon is the first high-ranking justice department official to leave after the midterm elections, in which Democrats took control of Congress. Those Democrats are expected to use their new power to aggressively investigate executive agencies, including the justice department - a prospect that may have factored into the timing of Dhillon's exit, though officially everyone is being very gracious about it. Bloomberg Law first reported the departure.

In her year and a half at the helm, Dhillon dramatically transformed the civil rights division, reorienting its mission away from the work it had traditionally done protecting the civil rights of minorities. Under her leadership, the department dropped many cases alleging discrimination against racial minorities in voting, housing, employment and education. Scores of career lawyers left the division, resulting in what can only be described as an exodus of expertise in civil rights enforcement. More than three-quarters of the division's lawyers departed, according to Stacey Young, a former civil rights division lawyer who now leads Justice Connection, a group for justice department alumni.

Dhillon aggressively pursued claims of discrimination at universities, including claims that minorities were unfairly favored in admissions and claims of antisemitism against Jewish students. A whistleblower has said that investigations into the schools were conducted with a predetermined outcome and that lawyers were told to find a reason to file a lawsuit - a practice that, in legal circles, is generally frowned upon.

The civil rights division also oversaw investigations into the killing of US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good by federal agents in Minnesota during an immigration enforcement surge. Neither investigation has resulted in criminal charges.

The division also had some high-profile failures under Dhillon's watch. It sued more than two dozen states for voter roll information and lost every single case. Several of the judges who ruled against the department were appointed by Donald Trump - a detail that suggests even the former president's own judicial picks found the legal arguments wanting.

"Harmeet Dhillon has been the most destructive, lawless and hateful head of the civil rights division in DoJ history," said Young. "After she upended the division's mission-critical work, the civil servants who dedicated their careers to protecting vulnerable communities were instead told to target them - and more than three-quarters of the division's lawyers left. Dhillon wielded the enormous power of the justice department to threaten universities, state and local officials, and election workers in spurious cases that rarely won in court."

A prolific poster on X, Dhillon sometimes revealed civil rights investigations on the platform - a move that startled longtime justice department lawyers because the department has a longstanding practice of not speaking publicly about investigations. She has also publicly used a slur for people with disabilities, whose civil rights her division was charged with protecting. She has also described conservative influencers as "hoes." The civil rights division, it should be noted, does not typically concern itself with the latter.

Dhillon grew up in Smithfield, North Carolina, after being born in India and then living in the UK and New York. "There were Klan signs on the highway where I grew up. I'm used to being an outsider. My superpower is not really caring what people think about me," she told the Dartmouth alumni magazine last year. Before joining the government, Dhillon ran her own law firm and was vice-chair of the California GOP. After the 2020 election, she worked on lawsuits contesting the election results - a background that, in retrospect, might have been a clue.