A former prosecutor forced off a high-profile murder case for peeking at the defense team’s strategy documents. A onetime gambling executive who promoted conspiracy theories about the Las Vegas massacre in 2017. A Florida activist who once served 20 days in jail for hacking a local elections system.
They are among the 130 lawyers who have recently joined the Justice Department’s short-staffed civil rights division as the Trump administration has struggled to fill the depleted ranks of a unit that was once a magnet for legal talent. Since early 2025, upward of 300 nonpolitical career employees, representing decades of experience, have left the division after its leader, Harmeet Dhillon, repurposed it to pursue President Trump’s agenda. As a consequence, the division has opened its doors to recruits, many of them conservatives, some with education and work histories that might have disqualified them from being hired in the past, former officials said.
Some have left a trail of hyperpartisan, conspiratorial and, in some instances, bizarre statements, according to an examination of about a dozen recent hires based on court records, social media posts and interviews. Department officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said they have rejected nearly as many applicants as they have hired, 126. Any ideological tilt in the career ranks, they added, reflected the Trump-era applicant pool, which includes conservative activists and recent law school graduates.
Dhillon praised the quality of the new lawyers, and said she was revamping a division that had been dominated by liberals for far too long. That is the experience this division needs to enforce civil rights laws for every American.” Among her top hires: The gun rights activist Barry Arrington, the acting chief of a new Second Amendment unit, is a high-profile opponent of the theory of evolution and same-sex marriage. Last year, he successfully argued before the Supreme Court against Colorado’s ban on so-called conversion therapy.
The person she appointed to temporarily lead the voting section — the epicenter of the department’s aggressive actions ahead of the midterm elections — is Eric Neff,who tried more than 50 criminal cases during a 12-year career as a prosecutor in California. His stint as a prosecutor in Los Angeles County ended in rancor. Neff was placed on administrative leave after the office withdrew his indictment of an executive at a software company for storing data on poll workers on a Chinese server.
His bosses cited irregularities in the case. The county ended up paying the company $5 million in a settlement. Neff was reinstated in 2024 and has filed a whistle-blower claim against the county, which remains unresolved.
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