CNN
—
Approximately 70% of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is expected to accept a second offer to federal workers that allows them to resign from their positions and be paid through September, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The division employs roughly 340 people, who had until Monday night to accept the offer. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the Civil Rights Division, said over the weekend that more than 100 attorneys had accepted the offer, but the final number is expected to be well over 200.
The mass exodus comes as the division is being converted into a unit that prioritizes the Trump administration’s goals like dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, reversing policies on transgender rights, and combating antisemitism.
CNN previously reported the division, which typically goes dormant during Republican administrations, would be one of the most active and important at the Trump Justice Department.
The Justice Department did not comment to CNN on the resignations.
Dhillon told conservative commentator Glenn Beck on his podcast over the weekend, “En masse, dozens and now over 100 attorneys decided that they’d rather not do what their job requires them to do.”
“I think that’s fine, because we don’t want people in the federal government who feel like it’s their pet project to go persecute, you know, police departments based on statistical evidence or persecute people praying outside abortion facilities instead of doing violence,” she continued. “That’s not the job here. The job here is to enforce the federal civil rights laws, not woke ideology.”
“We need to replace those people, because I have a very robust, affirmative civil rights agenda that I think many Americans will be pleased,” she said.
Dhillon went on to outline her desire to shift the department’s historic focus on fighting discrimination against minority groups to one dedicated to rooting out anti-Christian bias, antisemitism and what she called “woke ideology,” among other things.
CNN previously reported that Dhillon, a conservative San Francisco attorney who was confirmed by the Senate earlier this month, will use her position to reverse many of the Biden administration’s civil rights initiatives.
“No one has been fired by me since I came … But what we have made very clear last week in memos to each of the 11 sections in the Civil Rights Division is that our priorities under President Trump are going to be somewhat different than they were under President Biden,” Dhillon said earlier in the interview.
In December, President Donald Trump touted Dhillon’s work “suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers” when he announced her as his pick to lead the storied division.
“Throughout her career, Harmeet has stood up consistently to protect our cherished Civil Liberties,” he said. “In her new role at the DOJ, Harmeet will be a tireless defender of our Constitutional Rights, and will enforce our Civil Rights and Election Laws FAIRLY and FIRMLY.”
