DOJ Lawyer Defending Trump’s Defiance of a Judge on El Salvador Deportation Flights Quits After Midterms

Brett Shumate, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, has resigned, making him the fourth senior DOJ official to walk out since Republicans took a beating in last week’s midterm elections.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the exit Monday in a post on X, writing that he had accepted Shumate’s resignation. Blanche did not give a reason for the departure and did not name a replacement.

Shumate joins a fast growing list. Harmeet Dhillon, who ran the Civil Rights Division, announced her resignation Thursday. John Eisenberg, head of the National Security Division, followed Friday. Henry Whitaker, a veteran litigator who served as a key aide in the attorney general’s office, also left in recent days. All four exits came after Democrats posted big wins on Election Day, leaving Trump to finish his term with a Justice Department that is losing its top lawyers one by one.

The Civil Division is the government’s team for civil court, meaning lawsuits rather than criminal charges. When someone sues the federal government over a policy, or when the government sues a city, a state or a company, the Civil Division is usually the one in the courtroom. That made Brett Shumate, who took the job in June 2025, the lead lawyer defending many of Trump’s most aggressive moves.

The most explosive of those fights involves the deportation flights to El Salvador. Last year the administration sent more than 130 men it accused of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to CECOT, a maximum security prison in El Salvador known for harsh conditions. A federal judge had ordered the administration to halt the removals. The planes landed anyway. Shumate was involved in the decision to let those flights land despite the order, and he has led the administration’s defense as Chief Judge James Boasberg pursues a contempt investigation. Contempt is the power a judge has to punish people who defy court orders, and in this case it could reach the officials who made the calls that day.

That was not the only high stakes case on his desk. Brett Shumate also defended the administration’s denaturalization push, which is the effort to strip citizenship from people who became Americans through naturalization. He defended its attempt to give the U.S. Postal Service a role in overseeing mail ballots, and he led the government’s side in court fights over the rights of transgender people.

In his announcement, Blanche credited the division under Shumate with suing over sanctuary policies, which are local rules that limit how much cities and states cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Blanche also claimed the division won key cases against local policies he said endangered federal law enforcement, secured what he called historic settlements ending illegal corporate DEI practices, and shut down dozens of clinics that provided gender affirming care to minors. He thanked Shumate for his service and wished him continued success.

The cases Brett Shumate led do not leave with him. The contempt investigation before Boasberg, the denaturalization cases and the mail ballot fight are all still in court, and whoever takes over the Civil Division will inherit every one of them.

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Dee Dee Henderson

Dee Dee Henderson is a Poli Alert journalist covering national politics, elections and the policies that hit closest to home for Black communities, from voting rights and the economy to the courts. She reports the facts first and isn't afraid to say what they mean, and her commentary pieces are clearly labeled as opinion. Her midterm coverage breaks down deadlines, ballot measures and the races that will decide who holds power in Washington.

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