No shakeup yet at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division

The Biden Civil Rights Division persists

To say that the Trump administration hit the ground running would be an understatement. But the running — sprinting, actually — isn’t uniform. At the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, the administration isn’t really moving at all.

This matters because the Civil Rights Division is a key component in the administration’s war on DEI. After all, along with the EEOC, it’s the primary federal unit that enforces key anti-discrimination laws.

One might have thought, therefore, that on Day One the administration would have a team at the Civil Rights Division ready to take control of that vital unit. Unfortunately, three weeks into the administration, there is no such team on board or in sight. Indeed, the highest ranking member of the Division is a career employee who, I’m told, is scheduled to be moved out of the Division as part of a purge.

As I understand it, the only political appointee in the Civil Rights Division is Leo Terrell. He’s a Los Angeles attorney turned television pundit. Terrell began his punditry career as the liberal voice on a local point-counterpoint show. He then became a house liberal on various Fox News programs.

In 2020, at age 65, Terrell reinvented himself as an outspoken conservative and MAGA adherent on Fox News. He began referring to himself as Leo 2,0.

Frankly, neither incarnation of Leo impressed me. Team Trump, though, was sufficiently impressed to name Terrell senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

One problem with this arrangement is that Terrell has no real authority. The other problem is that, at least according to my sources, he’s incompetent.

From what I hear, Terrell, has done nothing of consequence to implement Trump’s DEI agenda. Instead, he spends a fair portion of his day yelling about his computer. I can relate to that, but it’s not going to move the needle on DEI.

As things stand now, Kathleen Wolfe is the highest ranking member of the Civil Rights Division. As noted, she’s a career employee, having spend her entire 23 legal career in the Division. She served as a trial attorney and manager before joining the Office of the Assistant Attorney General — the abhorrent Kristen Clarke — in 2022.

By all accounts, Wolfe is a good attorney and not a leftwing ideologue. But she is, I understand, a liberal and an unlikely candidate to lead an effective charge against DEI. Thus, we’re stuck with a continuation of the Biden-Garland-Clarke Civil Rights Division.

Team Trump agrees with me about Wolfe. That’s why she apparently is slated to be moved out of the Civil Rights Division. (The administration has already sent four appellate attorneys from the Division to its anti-sanctuary city unit, Siberia as far as they’re concerned. But Wolfe not only remains, but apparently is in charge.)

The distrust implicit in planning to move Wolfe may or may not be justified. But it’s obviously inconsistent with that distrust to have her running the Civil Rights Division.

Trump has nominated Harmeet Dhillon, another Fox News talking head, to lead that Division as Assistant Attorney General. She will be confirmed. But this will likely take a few months.

Thus, valuable time is being lost in the legal battle against DEI. Trump only has 47 months left in his term, and the months in which he’s likely to accomplish the most are at the front-end of this period.

I understand that the Department has received excellent resumes from applicants who could fill in until Dhillon is confirmed. Among them, I’m told, are lawyers who have clerked for leading conservative judges and Supreme Court Justices.

Unfortunately, DOJ leadership has not selected any of them. I don’t know why. Maybe no applicant has appeared on Fox News. Maybe none is on record as saying Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

I understand why, this time around, Team Trump wants key jobs to go to loyalists. In principle, I have no quarrel with this.

But the focus on appointing loyalists should not, and need not, come at the expense of competence. Trump’s Executive Orders on DEI are well and good, but they are not self-executing. They need to be carried out by people who agree with them and who know what they are doing.

Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case, for now, at the Civil Rights Division.