Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon torpedoed a Justice Department case against Portland police with a social media post a federal judge called a threat.
U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon on Friday denied the Justice Department's motion to enforce a 2012 Portland police reform settlement agreement.
The Justice Department had demanded 29 categories of documents from the Portland Police Bureau, claiming it needed them to assess whether the city was complying with the agreement, according to the ruling.
The trouble started Oct. 2, 2025, when Portland police arrested conservative influencer Nick Sortor outside the city's Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on a disorderly conduct charge, OPB reported. The charge was later dropped.
The following day, Dhillon reposted Sortor's account of the arrest and added her own message. "Portland: It's FO time. Buckle up," she wrote on X, signing the Justice Department's demand letter to Portland the same day.
"That is neither language nor tone of a good faith investigation by the United States Department of Justice," Simon wrote in the ruling. "Instead, it exhibits all the hallmarks of a threat and attempted intimidation."
Dhillon's post and the demand letter landed on October 3, 2025 — the same day Portland police officers were testifying in a separate federal case against the Trump administration's deployment of the National Guard to the city, according to the ruling.
"[T]his reasonably appears to be a not-so-subtle signal from the United States Department of Justice to the Portland Police Bureau that if it continued to assist the plaintiffs... the United States Department of Justice could make matters quite difficult, burdensome, and expensive," Simon wrote.
The 2012 lawsuit had nothing to do with political viewpoint discrimination — it was about the Portland Police Bureau using excessive force against people in mental health crisis, the ruling noted.
"It is difficult to accept the United States' current assertion that alleged political viewpoint discrimination is within the scope of the current action," Simon wrote.
The judge found "by clear and convincing evidence" that "the purported reasons for the 29 requests are pretext."
Courts have thrown out all 15 of Dhillon's voter roll lawsuits, according to Democracy Docket. She also moved to cancel federal police reform agreements with Minneapolis and Louisville reached after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Dhillon is rumored to be under consideration for associate attorney general — the number three post at the Justice Department — according to The Guardian.
The 2012 settlement agreement between the Justice Department and Portland remains in effect. Judge Simon has not entered a final termination order.
