President Donald Trump has appointed Craig Trainor, a senior housing official, as acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Tuesday evening.
Trainor has served since October 2025 as the Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he oversaw nationwide enforcement of federal fair housing and civil rights laws. Blanche said Trainor had cut the backlog of fair housing cases left over from the previous administration in half.
He replaces Harmeet Dhillon, who resigned on 5 November after 18 months running the division. Dhillon, confirmed by the Senate in April 2025 by 52 votes to 45, was the first senior Trump administration official to leave since Democrats retook both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections.
Dhillon said she had decided to leave weeks before the election and had stayed on at the White House’s request until after polling day, intending to return to private legal practice. Other accounts of her departure differ: CBS News reported that she was pushed out after an appearance on 60 Minutes last month, while the New York Times reported conflicts with department leaders over legal strategy. The reason for her exit is therefore disputed, and no single account has been confirmed by the department.
In the days between Dhillon’s resignation and Trainor’s appointment, her principal deputy, Jesus Osete, ran the division.
Trainor is no stranger to the civil rights brief. Before joining HUD, he served as acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, where in February 2025 he wrote the letter warning schools and universities that they risked losing federal funding over diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He previously worked as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee under its then chairman, Jim Jordan, and at the America First Policy Institute.
Under Dhillon, the division shifted sharply from its traditional mission. It pursued state voter rolls, challenged diversity programmes, ended police reform investigations in several cities and brought lawsuits accusing Harvard and UCLA of allowing antisemitism on campus. Trainor will inherit those cases, as well as the division’s Second Amendment section, which Dhillon created.
It is not yet clear whether Trump intends to nominate Trainor for the post permanently, which would require Senate confirmation. For now, he takes charge of a division remade in the administration’s image, at a moment when Democrats in Congress are expected to scrutinise its work closely.
Sources: Bloomberg Law, Washington Examiner, Politico (via Tickle the Wire), Inside Higher Ed.
