Trump Selects CA Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon As Assistant Attorney General For Civil Rights

President-elect Donald Trump selected California attorney and former California Republican Party (CAGOP) Vice Chairwoman Harmeet Dhillon as the next Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights on Tuesday.

Originally born in Chandigarh, India in 1969, Dhillon’s family moved to the U.S. when she was a child so her father could pursue a career as an orthopedic surgeon. A graduate of both Dartmouth and the University of Virginia, she began her legal career by clerking for Appellate Judge Paul Victor Niemeyer. As her legal career took off, she quickly became one of the most prominent conservatives in the state and began to dabble in politics.

While Dhillon lost elections in the San Francisco area for Assembly in 2008 and the state Senate in 2012, she did get some inter-party and non-political victories. This included becoming the Chairwoman of the San Francisco Republican Party and serving on the Northern California ACLU Board for three years, with the later post being held so that she could help fight against Sikh discrimination after September 11th. These positions only served as a catalyst for becoming the CAGOP Vice Chairwoman later on in the 2010’s, as well as being selected as a Republican National Committeewoman in 2016 in time for the 2016 Republican National Convention. There, she made national attention for saying a Sikh prayer during the opening of the convention.

Dhillon’s next several years were busy. Within California, she helped lead lawsuits over California violating federal law over not verifying voter citizenship, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, sued the state and Governor Gavin Newsom over COVID school closings and re-openings, as well as over the state giving unemployment funds to illegal immigrants. She even made national headlines once again for helping defeat an outdoor dining ban in Los Angeles County in 2020. In addition, she started up her non-profit group, Center for American Liberty in 2018, taking on many cases that involved violations of free speech and civil liberties.

On the national front, Dhillon found herself closer and closer to the first Trump administration. While passed over for the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights position in the first term, she still assisted the Trump administration with many things, including becoming co-Chairwoman for the group Women for Trump. In the past few years Dhillon became best known for nearly becoming Chairwoman of the national Republican Party in 2023, narrowly losing to Ronna McDaniel.

This year, Dhillon has once again shown favorability towards Trump. Once again, she led the Republican National Convention in a Sikh prayer, assisted Tucker Carlson with legal matters, helped the Arizona Republican Party with their election integrity operation, and finally moved past past criticisms of her donating to Kamala Harris in a DA race over a decade ago. This all led to Tuesday when Trump selected her as the next Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under the presumptive next Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Dhillon nominated

“Throughout her career, Harmeet has stood up consistently to protect our cherished Civil Liberties, including taking on Big Tech for censoring our Free Speech, representing Christians who were prevented from praying together during COVID, and suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers,” said President-elect Trump on Tuesday. “In her new role at the DOJ, Harmeet will be a tireless defender of our Constitutional Rights, and will enforce our Civil Rights and Election Laws fairly and firmly.”

In response, Dhillon accepted the nomination, saying on X, “I’m extremely honored by President Trump’s nomination to assist with our nation’s civil rights agenda. It has been my dream to be able to serve our great country, and I am so excited to be part of an incredible team of lawyers led by Pam Bondi. I cannot wait to get to work!”

Republicans praised the pick and Democrats denounced it charging that Dhillon has little experience in civil rights and that she would likely move away from the strong stances that the Biden and Obama administrations took on civil rights.

“It’s petrifying. She is about as extreme a choice as you could have for this role,” said Assemblyman Rick Zbur (D-Los Angeles) on Tuesday. “Having her in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is just astonishing, given her long history of opposition to everything that the division is charged with protecting.”

In contrast, former CAGOP executive director Jon Fleischman noted that “There’s nothing meek or mild or moderate about Harmeet Dhillon. The same street fighter that wanted to be the chairman of Republicans in ultra-liberal San Francisco is going to take on the liberal establishment of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department.”

Overall, both Republicans and Democrats did agree that there would be very little middle ground with Dhillon in charge.

“This is the woman who fought against wokeness in California, sued UC Berkeley over civil rights, and went after Governor Newsom many times,” legal consultant Helena Reyes Gordon told the Globe on Wednesday. “Also, Democrats had been wondering if he was punishing blue states with some of his picks. So he finally started picking people from blue states. His choice of Dhillon yesterday quieted those people real quick.”

Dhillon will not only become the first Republican party member to hold the post, but will be the first woman of Indian descent in the position.