Nikki McCann Ramirez
View all posts by Nikki McCann Ramirez October 7, 2026 Add us as a Google Preferred Source
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Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for Civil Rights, on Friday, May 29, 2026. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images Amid an exodus of talent and mass firings, Donald Trump’s administration has been restaffing the Justice Department‘s Civil Rights Division with conspiracy theorists, right-wing activists, underqualified attorneys, and even convicted criminals.
According to a Wednesday report from The New York Times, the division — which was created to independently investigate alleged violations of civil rights law in the United States — has hired roughly 130 lawyers into the office. The surge comes as division head Harmeet Dhillon continues to reorient the department away from legitimate civil rights offenses and toward the culture war priorities of Trump and his administration.
According to the Times, recent hires include Barry Arrington — a gun rights activist who argued in favor of conversion therapy before the Supreme Court — to lead a newly created Second Amendment unit. Another is David Michael Levin, who was sentenced to 20 days in jail in 2016 after repeatedly hacking into election systems in Lee County, Florida. Last year, Bloomberg Law reported that another recent hire, David Vandenberg, displayed aggressive and volatile behavior toward colleagues while working as an assistant district attorney in El Paso, Texas. In a 2025 video, he flashes his DA badge before fleeing the scene of a crash in which he sideswiped a woman driving with her children. The department also hired James Breslo, who has promoted conspiracy theories about the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting and is currently suing the University of California at Los Angeles for alleged anti-white discrimination.
The list goes on, and is part of a larger reorientation of the department that has pulled the Civil Rights Division away from independent service. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, upon taking over the department, Dhillon froze or abandoned scores of active investigations — without notifying those involved. “I think of the people that I worked with who filed complaints [to the DOJ] and were looking for help from the U.S. government, and just kind of completely disappeared on them,” one former employee said in January. “It’s particularly impactful when [it’s] the U.S. government. When you’re a person facing discrimination, and you’ll go anywhere for help, and somebody actually answers, and then all of a sudden you never hear from them again.”
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Under Dhillon, the department has been used to investigate — and attempt to discredit — victims of potential civil rights violations by the Trump administration. Earlier this year, Dhillon declined to open an investigation into the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Dhillon’s signature was also on a DOJ letter authorizing Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s efforts to conduct a mid-cycle congressional redistricting of the states, after Trump demanded the creation of five new Republican districts. The division is currently investigating over a dozen schools for alleged anti-white discrimination in their admissions process.
In a statement to the Times, Dhillon defended the recent hires in her division, claiming that “the attorneys The Times singled out have collectively tried hundreds of cases, prosecuted those who prey on trafficked children, won at the Supreme Court and practiced law for decades. That is the experience this division needs to enforce civil rights laws for every American.”
