The Trump administration took advantage Craig Trainor to be the new Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to replace Harmeet Dhillon, who left last week in a series of shakeups at the Justice Department after the midterm elections, according to an administration official familiar with the matter.
Since last October, Trainor has served as assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he has overseen enforcement of the civil rights laws that HUD oversees nationwide.
It is unclear whether he will be appointed to this position permanently. Before joining HUD, he was Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education. Before joining the Trump administration, he worked for the House Judiciary Committee and the America First Policy Institute and spent more than a decade as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney in New York.
Dhillon, a loyal ally of the president Donald Trumpwas confirmed to the position in April 2025. Under Dhillon, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has undergone a transformation, critics and allies say. The department ousted hundreds of longtime lawyers; ended investigations into police departments for alleged constitutional violations; and sued UCLA and Harvard University for allegedly allowing an anti-Semitic environment to prevail on their campuses.
Gn headline
