# Brett Shumate **Status: stub — expand.** **Brett A. Shumate** has been Assistant Attorney General for the **Civil Division** — the [[Department of Justice]]'s largest litigating component — since June 11, 2025. The Civil Division is the office that defends the administration's executive orders and agency actions in court, which makes it the government's front line in every suit over the second term's restructuring. On taking office he directed the division's attorneys toward a set of enumerated administration priorities, including denaturalization referrals and litigation against diversity programs — an unusually explicit statement of political direction for a component whose docket is normally defined by whatever the government is being sued over. ## See also - [[Department of Justice]] · [[DOJ Component Tree]]