Harmeet Dhillon, California civil rights attorney, has been tapped for a top legal position in Trump’s cabinet. She is most well known for defending churches during the pandemic. Donald Trump, who was recently elected to his second term, nominated Dhillon, as the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Trump said “Harmeet is one of the top election lawyers in the country, fighting to ensure that all, and ONLY, legal votes are counted. 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.” She previously served as the vice chair of the California GOP.
The President-Elect continued to explain why he chose Dhillon. “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.”
Dhillon accepted the nomination on her X account. “I am extremely honored by President Trump’s nomination to assist with our nation’s civil rights agenda,” she wrote. “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.” She added that I would not be here today without my amazing mother and brother’s support, and my beloved father Tejpal and husband Sarv, who did not live to see this day. I hope I will honor their memories, with God’s grace.”
As a lawyer, she gained prominence for defending conservative clients. She represented a Google engineer fired after criticizing the company’s diversity policies. Most importantly, she led a number of lawsuits against the state of California for their Covid policies. Since graduating from Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia Law School, she has been a strong advocate for religious freedoms and free speech.
Dhillon is a practicing Sikh who was born in India. She moved to the United States as a child. Dhillon has been a vocal member of the Sikh community and made history in 2016 as the first Indian-American to deliver a Sikh prayer at the Republican National Convention. She made an unsuccessful bid for chairperson of the Republican National Committee. Dhillon served as RNC National Committeewoman for California and Western Region Vice Chairwoman of the RNC.
However, she has remained controversial in conservative. At the 2024 Republican Convention, she opened a prayer with the phrase “Dear Waheguru, our one true God.” Explaining her thoughts, she said she ” has sat through thousands of prayers of other denominations over the years” and believes her prayer was part of a key effort to “get as many votes as possible from Jews, from Sikhs, from different kinds of Christians, Hindus, Muslims” ahead of the election.
“I think it is important that I communicate to my community that we are welcome in this party, and our votes are welcome, and our support is welcome. Our candidacies are welcome, and we are welcome,” she added. “And how do you make that clear? And I think one of these ways to do that is to show that there are people of our faith on the stage and that we are welcome.”
Featured image: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons