The Trump Justice Department took another major hit on Monday, as Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, the official who defended key pieces of President Donald Trump’s agenda in court, has stepped down. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the resignation on X, making Shumate the fourth senior department official to leave since Republicans absorbed their bruising midterm losses last week. Blanche’s sendoff read more like a tribute than a goodbye.
The Civil Division that Shumate led is the government’s main litigation arm in non-criminal matters, and it carried the courtroom load for much of the administration’s second-term agenda. His exit follows those of Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon, National Security Division chief John Eisenberg and South Florida U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones, whose departures were all announced in the days after the election. For an administration that has leaned on aggressive litigation to advance its policies, losing the lawyers who ran those fights comes as a blow.
Blanche used the announcement to run through the division’s record. “Under his leadership, the Division pursued important affirmative litigation to challenge sanctuary policies and delivered key wins in lawsuits against local policies that endangered federal law enforcement,” the attorney general wrote. “The Division also secured historic settlements to end illegal corporate DEI practices and shuttered dozens of clinics which were providing so-called ‘gender affirming care’ to minors.”
As Trending Politics reported, Blanche closed the post with a brief farewell. “We are grateful for Brett’s service at DOJ and wish him continued success,” he wrote. Shumate’s division handled the administration’s denaturalization efforts along with the legal fights over its policies involving transgender issues. Both fronts put the division at the center of the country’s fiercest political battles over the past two years.
Shumate also fronted the administration’s defense in the court fight over deportation flights that carried alleged Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador in March 2025. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had ordered the planes turned around, and the administration disputed that it violated his orders. Shumate later argued against allowing the judge’s contempt investigation to proceed.
Dhillon’s resignation was announced Thursday, the first of the post-election departures. During her tenure, the longtime Trump ally emphasized challenges to DEI programs, investigations into campus antisemitism, gun rights and election enforcement. She said she submitted her resignation in October and stayed on through the election at the White House’s request, meaning her exit plans were in motion well before the Republican losses piled up.
See Shumate discuss the Civil Division’s challenge to Virginia’s restrictions on federal immigration operations here:
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Blanche announced the resignations of Eisenberg and Reding Quiñones on Friday. Eisenberg headed the National Security Division, which oversees cases involving terrorism, espionage and other national security threats. Reding Quiñones led the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida, which oversaw the investigation into whether intelligence officials and other government figures conspired to violate Trump’s civil rights dating to his 2016 campaign.
The department these officials are leaving behind is stretched thin. As reported by The Hill, the Civil Division saw significant departures under Shumate, including in the Appellate Staff and the Federal Programs Branch, even as caseloads soared, with the Commercial Litigation Branch seeing an 84% jump, the most of any branch.
The resignations come as the administration prepares for Democrats to take control of both chambers of Congress and pursue investigations into the Justice Department’s work. A Justice Department spokesperson said after Friday’s departures that the agency remained focused on enforcing the law, fighting crime and protecting Americans.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.