Harmeet Dhillon to Receive Big Promotion at the DOJ: Report
According to the sources, Stanley Woodward — whom Dhillon would replace if confirmed by the Senate — resigned on Saturday.
Sources told The Daily Wire that President Donald Trump plans to nominate Harmeet Dhillon as Associate Attorney General this week, the No. 3 position at the Department of Justice. Dhillon currently serves as the U.S. Assistant Attorney General overseeing the department’s Civil Rights Division.
According to the sources, Stanley Woodward — whom Dhillon would replace if confirmed by the Senate — resigned on Saturday. An earlier report from CBS News indicated that Trump had planned to demote Woodward.
SCOOP: President Donald Trump plans to nominate @HarmeetKDhillon to be DOJ’s Associate Attorney General this week, @realDailyWire has learned. Source familiar also says Stanley Woodward, who previously held the position, resigned earlier on Saturday.
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) April 5, 2026
Dhillon is a well-known and highly respected attorney within the conservative movement. In the immediate aftermath of former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s abrupt firing last week, her name was among several bandied about as possible replacements.
Following the Republicans’ underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms, she challenged then-incumbent Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel in January 2023, “campaigning on a platform of leadership change.”
At the time, Dhillon expressed concern over Republicans’ repeated “failure to win elections” during McDaniel’s tenure — a critique that was well founded. She would have made a strong RNC chair, but ultimately lost the race by a 111–51 margin. One year later, under pressure from then-candidate Trump and other Republican leaders, McDaniel resigned.
According to Dhillon’s DOJ bio:
Dhillon founded both the Dhillon Law Group, Inc., a successful legal practice with offices in California, Florida, Virginia, and New Jersey; and the Center for American Liberty, a nonprofit organization dedicated to pursuing civil liberties legal claims. Her law practice focused on First Amendment / free speech, civil rights, and campaign and election law issues. Among her many notable cases, Ms. Dhillon brought legal challenges against the University of California, Berkeley over its free speech policy, against an Antifa organization for an assault on a conservative journalist, against several states for their restrictive responses to Covid-19, and against various large tech companies for a host of civil rights issues.
Assistant Attorney General Dhillon was born in Chandigarh, India, and lived in London before moving to The Bronx, New York. Her family ultimately settled in rural Smithfield, North Carolina. After graduating high school at age 16, Ms. Dhillon attended Dartmouth College where she became editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Review. After earning her bachelor’s degree in Classical Studies, she attended the University of Virginia School of Law and served on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. She later clerked for the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Baltimore, Maryland.
CBS News reported that prior to his role at the DOJ:
Woodward served as a defense attorney representing many prominent Trump allies in the past, including White House adviser Peter Navarro, FBI Director Kash Patel and Walt Nauta, who was charged by Special Counsel Jack Smith in the classified documents case.
He also represented Kelly Meggs, one of the Oath Keepers who was convicted for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, before Mr. Trump later commuted his sentence.
He has come under attack from some of Mr. Trump’s allies, notably far-right influencer Laura Loomer, over his wife’s support for progressive causes.
The Daily Wire reported that the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
I smell big spin in CBS’s report. You don’t jettison somebody with a CV this supportive just because his wife is a flake (cf. Kellyanne Conway). So what’s the real reason for the breakup?
Maybe, though it could be continued housecleaning at top of DoJ to being in far more aggressive leadership unafraid to rattle DC Establishment cages by conducting prosecutions the prior leadership was too timid to undertake. Many folks want to see d/prog, lefty, wokiesta scalps collected to include at NGOs, antifa and other rioters along with the financiers of the chaos. In the absence of scalps collected some will wonder why they should bother showing up in the mid terms if all their vote earns them is the establishment GoP giving d/prog half of what they want instead of DC working to give the base what they want.
What I have seen of Dhillon impresses me, however, we often think we “know” people because we have seen them on TV or read their writings. I hope she is the person she appears to be.
I am unimpressed with her. She did a horrible job in AZ with all the voting abuses, leaving in the middle of the storm after literally doing nothing
Many important races were stolen including Kari Lakes
That’s a bit harsh. The way to win legal disputes in elections is to do the heavy lifting PRIOR to the election. That’s on the local folks,.who have standing, to sue and force the voter registration rolls to be cleaned up. Remove the dead, those who moved out of State or even those who moved across town and didn’t update their physical address. All those registrations are invalid.
Add to that a demand for strict compliance, oversight by election observers with ability to make meaningful challenges, constant transparency, unbroken chain of custody of ballots, zero deviation from established election procedures, adequate preparation and dry run rehearsals for election day operations, severe penalties sufficient to deter shenanigans and/or weaponized incompetence by election officials and a public sentiment invested enough in ensuring all the above that they are established and maintained.
If the locals do that then elections will be far more secure with every little room for monkey business. When the locals or anyone else refuse to make sufficient efforts to solve their election issues by doing these or similar reforms and instead pin their hopes on someone/anyone riding in from outside like the cavalry to ‘save’ them…well …hope isn’t an effective strategy and put try he entire burden on an outsider to do the heavy lifting after the fact seems very unfair.
The way to win legal disputes in elections is to do what the Democrats do –keep fighting until you win.
The Republicans have simply stood aside ‘for the good of the country’, ‘to ensure the process’ for far too long. Nixon did it when the election was stolen from him so that shanty irish boy could be the first Catholic president.
Why does anyone believe that allowing a coup –because that’s what letting the cheaters get the thing they cheated for means– is good for anything?
No kidding, but it won’t work after the fact as a reaction to d/prog shenanigans. In the real world there’s not many (if any) judges who will overturn an election or throw out ballots once cast and mixed.
Instead we need to be proactive. Remove the dead, those who moved, those whose registrations are otherwise legally insufficient and the universe of ballots available for d/prog shenanigans shrinks dramatically.
IOW – hit the d/prog and leftists FIRST before the dang election begins. Make them fight on ground we choose and react to battlefield conditions we set that are unfavorable to them by following the very achievable path I laid out
OR
we can continue to keyboard warrior tough guy slogans and hope some Judge will throw out masses of ballots and overturn elections (not happening no matter how much wish for it).
Yes fight BUT fight smart by fighting on ground we choose within a battlefield environment we have shaped to our advantage.
Take a look at her life and overall career. I’ve been following her for years. She has done impressive work, and was (when working privately, not in a government position) providing legal support for Chloe Cole(detransitioner) and many other cases when Civil Rights were/are being violated in States that were using questionable practices.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big Harmeet fan. Trump should be putting her in charge of all of DOJ, and left the other guy in place. I don’t understand all the shuffling ado at the lower levels.
She should DEFINITELY been made RNC chair over the porkulent McDaniels of the Trump hating Romney clan.
She’s not ruthless enough.
shes one I have been rooting for for a longgg time
make us proud
dudes wife is blmplo
theres no way she isnt getting info from him
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