Privacy official resigns at DOJ’s Civil Rights Division as Trump menaces midterms

An official in charge of privacy issues at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which oversees voting rights laws, resigned last week as the Trump administration continues to pursue sensitive voter data for its voter suppression efforts.

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NPR reported Friday on the resignation of Kilian Kagle, who worked in the division led by far-right lawyer Harmeet Dhillon:

Kilian Kagle was the chief FOIA officer and senior component official for privacy for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division before leaving his post in recent days. His resignation has not been previously reported. For nearly a year, the DOJ has been making unprecedented demands for sensitive voter data from most states — includ ing voters’ driver’s license numbers, partial Social Security numbers, dates of birth and addresses — that some say violate privacy law.

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In the past year, President Donald Trump has suggested that “we shouldn’t even have” midterm elections in 2026 and that Republicans should “take over” elections in parts of the country controlled by Democrats. And to help implement his autocratic ambitions, the president has installed election-denying zealots at the Justice Department, which has demanded sensitive voter information from states to feed into the administration’s error-prone SAVE voter eligibility tool. More than a dozen Republican-led states have complied with the demand, while other states’ attorneys general are suing in court — with good reason.

Kagle confirmed his departure to NPR but declined to comment. Neither Kagle nor the Justice Department responded to MS NOW’s request for comment.