Exclusive | Harmeet Dhillon praises the mass exodus of liberals from DOJ on ‘Pod Force One’

WASHINGTON — Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon gloated over the liberal “self-purge” in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division earlier this year during an interview on “Pod Force One” out Wednesday.

Close to 70% of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division workforce quit in response to generous Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) payouts and differences with the Trump administration, Dhillon claimed.

“I think there was some denial and they had crying sessions together,” Dhillon mused on the podcast episode in an interview with The Post’s Miranda Devine. “Frankly, it was shocking to them. They had unhappy hours. It was like a lot of drama and handwringing.

“They have a support group outside and a spokesperson who constantly goes on MSNBC and trashes me and what we’re doing, but I think this is the biggest single personnel self-purge in DOJ history.”

For context, the DOJ Civil Rights Division had over 400 lawyers at the start of the year. But around the time of the DOGE payout offer, over 200 quit. Then close to another 100 stepped down, according to Dhillon.

DOGE had worked with various government agencies to offer federal workers payout packages. DOJ employees were given “five-month packages,” which meant a six-figure lump sum, Dhillon explained.

“I didn’t fire anybody. I just told them they have to approach their job differently. They self-deported with a nice golden parachute from the government,” she said.

Motivating the mass exodus under her watch was the new instructions she had for her team on how to carry out President Trump’s agenda on civil rights.

After ascending to the top of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Dhillon had immediately blasted out letters to over four dozen institutions of higher education, demanding documents and previewing her plans to crack down on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (DEI).

“No one should cry for them. They are going to be doing just fine for the most part,” she stressed, noting that the former employees largely wound up at “pseudo nonprofits,” activism groups and more.

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Still, the exodus has complicated Dhillon’s civil rights work. The assistant attorney general described a “struggle to get the paperwork done to finally start hiring people” needed to implement the president’s agenda.

“I confronted this early in my career, but eventually made my own way and created my own civil rights organization and a firm that does all this good work,” she reflected.

“All the big law firms I’m talking about, they’re captured by the left, and so they will happily grant 100 or 1000 hours to a lawyer to go do a death penalty case on some technical foul that may have occurred, or pro-abortion work,” she added. “We do not have institutions like that, large institutions like that on the right.”

Prior to landing a position in the Trump administration, Dhillon helped launch the conservative nonprofit Center for American Liberty, which deals with civil rights cases. She also founded the Dhillon Law Group, which has done legal work for Trump.

She ran unsuccessfully to lead the Republican National Committee in 2023.

“I intend to do a kick ass job for the American people and for our President and our Attorney General, and then return to the fields of private practice and doing good in my career,” Dhillon said.