President Trump is likely to make leadership changes involving two more top roles at the Justice Department, sources told CBS News on Saturday.
The changes are most likely to affect Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the No. 3 official at the Justice Department and Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.
Senior officials have discussed promoting Dhillon to one of the top department roles, while demoting Woodward, the sources added. It was unclear if final decisions had been made yet.
The discussions of a possible promotion for Dhillon come shortly after Mr. Trump ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this week, after frustrations that she had not aggressively pursued criminal charges against his political enemies.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on personnel matters.
Mr. Trump named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting attorney general earlier this week. It is unclear whether he will eventually be the permanent replacement. Other front-runners include Lee Zeldin, a former congressman who currently leads the Environmental Protection Agency, CBS previously reported.
Woodward previously 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 Associate Attorney General position oversees the Civil Rights Division, the Antitrust Division, the Civil Division, and the Environment and Natural Resources Division, as well as the department’s grant-making offices and the trustee program.
Dhillon currently serves as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and is known as a staunch loyalist to the president.
The Civil Rights Division has undergone a major shift under Dhillon’s leadership. More than 75% of its attorneys left over the past year, with most of them accepting buy-outs or early retirements, some due to concerns over new mission statements she issued for the office.
Dhillon has hewed closely to Mr. Trump’s policy directives, taking actions that have included launching investigations into diversity, equity and inclusion policies at universities, filing lawsuits to prohibit transgender athletes from playing on girls’ and women’s sports teams, and litigating against dozens of states in an effort to access unredacted copies of their voter registration lists.
She also created a new section within the division that is focused on gun rights. Last year, she upended efforts to reach consent decrees with police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, after previous Biden-era investigations found both departments were engaged in systemic constitutional abuses.
In an open letter last year, more than 200 former Civil Rights Division attorneys alleged Dhillon was destroying the Civil Rights Division, an office created by the 1957 Civil Rights Act. The law was originally enacted to help undo discriminatory Jim Crow racial segregation and protect the voting rights of Black people.
