The Justice Department’s Harmeet Dhillon is creating headaches and alienating White House insiders with her abrasive demands as she seeks to advance her career.
According to a report from the New York Times, Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, has been insisting that President Donald Trump fire one of his trusted advisers he plucked from Fox News.
After noting that Dhillon has been forcefully lobbying for Attorney General Todd Blanche’s old job as number two in the department, the report notes that she keeps rubbing people the wrong way — and ends up being ignored.
According to the Times, she is “an outsider even on the inside,” who has been running a relentless and "bitter" war against ex-Fox News pundit Leo Terrell, who advises Trump on antisemitism issues.
"Mr. Terrell repeatedly complained to Ms. Bondi and other department leaders about Ms. Dhillon’s disrespectful treatment of him, at times forwarding testy email exchanges. Ms. Dhillon, for her part, told Ms. Bondi and others that Mr. Terrell was not qualified for his job, according to former officials," according to the report.
The conflict escalated further: in mid-2025, a Dhillon aide reportedly warned Terrell he could be fired for appearing on Fox without permission, with Terrell firing back that the attorney was "punishing him because she was not getting enough airtime, a coveted commodity, on Fox."
A career official in Dhillon's division later told Terrell's top aide she'd have to transfer off his staff. When Terrell complained directly to Trump, the aide stayed — but was later summoned again and asked, according to the Times' sourcing, whether Terrell had ever asked her to "follow him into a bathroom to take notes." She said no.
The Justice Department's press office did not respond to the Times' requests for comment.