By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) – US Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, head of the Justice Department’s civil division, has resigned, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Monday in a post on X.
Shumate is the fourth senior Justice Department official to resign since President Donald Trump’s Republicans suffered significant losses in the midterm elections last week. Here’s what to know about his tenure:
• Shumate, who also served in the Justice Department in Trump’s first term, oversaw a division that challenged corporate diversity initiatives, healthcare clinics that served transgender minors and local governments that did not cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
• Shumate also defended Trump’s efforts to revoke citizenship from naturalized immigrants in court.
• Like other divisions in DOJ, the Civil Division has lost significant staff since Trump won reelection two years ago, including in the unit that defends Trump’s policies in court. Under Shumate, the division recently offered signing bonuses of up to $25,000.
• It was not immediately clear why Shumate was resigning. Other senior DOJ officials who have recently left include Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Civil Rights Division; John Eisenberg, who headed the National Security Division; and Jason Reding Quiñones, a US attorney who pursued probes into past criminal investigations of Trump.
(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Andy Sullivan, David Ljunggren and Bill Berkrot)
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