Justice Department sees wave of senior resignations after midterms

The U.S. Justice Department confirmed that three senior officials stepped down in the days after the November 2026 midterm elections. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as a personal lawyer to former President Donald Trump, said he accepted the resignation of Harmeet Dhillon, the department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights. Dhillon had led an effort to pull voter‑registration data from roughly 30 states ahead of the vote, a move that failed as the elections handed large losses to Trump’s party. In the resignation letter she filed in October, Dhillon agreed to stay on until election day. On November 6, Blanche also announced that John Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for national security, and Jason Reding Quinones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, would leave their posts. Quinones had been supervising a probe into former intelligence officials whom Trump claimed tried to remove him from office. The department’s strategy under Trump has involved filing cases against perceived opponents, and several prosecutors have lost their jobs when they could not or would not bring charges. In a separate high‑profile case, former FBI director James Comey was indicted in April for allegedly threatening Trump’s life in an Instagram post featuring seashells.

Context

The resignations highlight growing turmoil inside a Justice Department that is under pressure after a sweeping electoral defeat, and they may affect the handling of ongoing politically sensitive investigations.