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Harmeet Dhillon is a Trump loyalist whose career is antithetical to the mission of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Dhillon emerged as a “fierce advocate” for Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and was a part of efforts to overturn the election. Dhillon has also devoted time to helping Republicans roll back voting rights across America. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division oversees voting rights cases. Before her Trump stardom, Dhillon was known for helping conservative figures under fire. However, backing Tucker Carlson in a discrimination lawsuit that alleged racist and sexist behavior, helping a former Google employee who said women were worse programmers because of biology is not the legal experience necessary to protect all American’s rights and liberties and targeting doctors that provide gender-affirming care. During her time representing controversial conservatives, Dhillon started a nonprofit from which she received a $120,000 salary for working two hours per week. Though a spokesperson claimed Dhillon was actually working forty hours, what is undisputed is that the nonprofit paid Dhillon’s law firm over $1.3 million in what experts called a clear conflict-of-interest. Dhillon’s penchant for controversy even stretches all the way back to college. At Dartmouth, Dhillon was the Editor-In-Chief of a campus newspaper known for offending minorities. Dhillon’s paper published an article that compared Dartmouth's Jewish President to Hitler. The article also claimed that Dartmouth’s conservatives were “deported in cattle cars” along with other references to the Holocaust. Dhillon seemed shocked by the controversy but acknowledged the article “possibly” offended Jewish people. With her loyalty to Trump and career-long disregard for opposing viewpoints, Harmeet Dhillon is the wrong choice to protect American’s rights. |
Harmeet Dhillon Was A “Fierce Advocate” Of Trump’s False Claims Of Voter Fraud In The 2020 Election. According to the Washington Post, “She emerged as a fierce advocate of Trump’s baseless assertions of widespread election fraud in 2020 while serving as a legal adviser to his presidential campaign, calling on the Supreme Court to intervene in favor of his attempts to overturn the results in several key swing states. Dhillon reiterated her unproven allegations of fraud in the lead-up to November’s elections, questioning how elections were being administered in Democratic-leaning cities in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.” [Washington Post, 12/10/24]
Harmeet Dhillon Has Challenged Voting Rights Laws Throughout Her Career. According to the Washington Post, “Through a private law firm she founded in 2006, Dhillon has been involved in cases challenging states over voting right laws, redistricting and other election-related issues on behalf of Republicans.” [Washington Post, 12/10/24]
The Civil Rights Division Oversees Voting Rights Cases. According to the Washington Post, “If confirmed by the Senate, Dhillon would oversee hundreds of civil rights attorneys charged with antidiscrimination and voting rights cases, though she is expected to preside over a broad shift in enforcement priorities from the Biden administration.” [Washington Post, 12/10/24]
Dhillon Represented A Woman Who Detransitioned And Sued Her Medical Providers For Providing Her Gender-Affirming Care When She Was A Minor. According to The Washington Examiner, “She has blasted ‘transgender ideology being pushed in schools’ and described one of her transgender cases, representing plaintiff Chloe Cole, as ‘perhaps the most important human rights case’ she has handled in her life. Cole, a woman who identified as a boy during her teenage years, sued her medical providers, alleging they caused her irreversible harm by recklessly giving her puberty blockers and performing a mastectomy on her when she was a minor.” [Washington Examiner, 1/5/25]
Dhillon’s Firm Sued To Block California Efforts To Prevent Schools From Requiring Teachers To Notify Parents About Their Child’s Gender Identity. According to Politico, “In the last few years, Dhillon has leaned into culture-war battles over transgender rights in California and elsewhere. Her firm has sued to block the state’s efforts to prevent school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents if a child comes out as trans at school.” [Politico, 12/12/24]
Dhillon Called Maine’s Safe-State Law, Which Prevented Care Provided Within The State From Being Subpoenaed By Out-Of-State Actors, “Unconstitutional.” According to Truthout, “In response to Maine’s designation as a refuge for trans people fleeing anti-trans crackdowns in red states, Dhillon claimed such a law would be unconstitutional. Safe-state laws like Maine’s have grown increasingly common, explicitly preventing care provided within the state from being subpoenaed by out-of-state actors seeking to prosecute individuals under laws that do not apply in blue states. These laws safeguard residents from interstate legal attacks over actions such as traveling to access gender-affirming care, abortions, or other reproductive healthcare.” [Truthout, 12/11/24]
Dhillon’s Nonprofit, The Center For American Liberty, Represented Several Anti-Transgender Cases In Blue States Including Challenging A School’s Use Of A Transgender Student’s Preferred Name, Forcibly Outing Transgender Students, And Denying Foster Care Licenses To Families Refusing To Comply With Nondiscrimination Policies. According to Truthout, “Harmeet Dhillon’s most prominent work includes founding the Center for American Liberty, a legal organization that focuses heavily on anti-transgender cases in blue states. The organization’s ‘featured cases’ section highlights several lawsuits, such as Chloe Cole’s case against Kaiser Permanente; a lawsuit challenging a Colorado school’s use of a transgender student’s preferred name; a case against a California school district seeking to implement policies that would forcibly out transgender students; and a lawsuit against Vermont for denying a foster care license to a family unwilling to comply with nondiscrimination policies regarding transgender youth.” [Truthout, 12/11/24]
Dhillon Wanted To Make Giving Gender-Affirming Care “Unsafe” In Order To Stop People From Transitioning. According to Truthout, “In another post, she responded to Glenn Beck by calling gender transition a lie, writing, ‘Make it unsafe for American doctors to destroy young American lives through the lie of sex change aka ‘gender transition.’ Expand the statutes of limitation. Make insurance paying for these procedures also pay for detransition. Make it stop.’ In that interview, Dhillon doubled down, declaring that hospitals providing gender-affirming care must be ‘made unsafe’ to do so.” [Truthout, 12/11/24]
Dhillon Represented Trump’s Campaign’s Lawsuit Against A California Law That Required Presidential Candidates To Release Their Tax Returns. According to Politico, “Her ties to Trump go back much further. In 2019, Dhillon represented Trump’s campaign in a lawsuit to block a California law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, that would have required presidential candidates to release their tax returns to appear on the primary ballot. Trump won on constitutional grounds.” [Politico, 12/12/24]
Dhillon Called On The Supreme Court To Help Trump Overturn The Results Of The 2020 Election. According to The Washington Post, “She emerged as a fierce advocate of Trump’s baseless assertions of widespread election fraud in 2020 while serving as a legal adviser to his presidential campaign, calling on the Supreme Court to intervene in favor of his attempts to overturn the results in several key swing states.” [Washington Post, 12/10/24]
2020: Dhillon Spread Unfounded Allegations Of Voter Fraud In Blue States And Called For The Supreme Court To “Step In And Do Something.” According to Democracy Docket, “As a legal advisor to the Trump campaign, Dhillon went on Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs Tonight as votes were still being counted in key swing states, rattled off unfounded allegations of voter fraud being committed by Democrats and called on the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and help Trump win. ‘Meanwhile, we’re waiting for the United States Supreme Court, of which the president has nominated three justices, to step in and do something,’ she said. ‘And hopefully Amy Coney Barrett will come through and pick it up.’” [Democracy Docket, 2/28/24]
Dhillon Represented Trump In His Fight Against The Colorado Decision To Remove Him From The Primary Ballot For Engaging In An Insurrection. According to The Washington Examiner, “Dhillon’s firm successfully represented Trump in his fight against Colorado after the state’s highest court kicked him off the primary ballot, ruling he engaged in an insurrection and was therefore ineligible to serve as president. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision, forcing the state to keep Trump on the ballot.” [Washington Examiner, 1/5/25]
Dhillon’s Firm Appealed The Colorado Decision To The Supreme Court And Called It Democratic “Election Interference Shenanigans.” According to Democracy Docket, “Most recently, Dhillon is integral to Trump’s 2024 campaign as part of his legal coalition to keep him on the ballot. In late December, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that, under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Trump shouldn’t be allowed on the state’s ballot due to his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. The Maine Secretary of State removed him from the state’s ballot shortly thereafter for the same reason. Dhillon’s firm is part of the legal team that appealed the Colorado decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will have an enormous impact on the 2024 presidential election. ‘From where we sit, the historical and factual record is very clear,’ Dhillon tweeted after the Supreme Court agreed to take up Trump’s ballot eligibility case. ‘It’s time to put a stop to Dems’ election interference shenanigans!’” [Democracy Docket, 2/28/24]
1988: Harmeet Dhillon Served As The Editor In Chief Of A Campus Newspaper That Published An Article Comparing Dartmouth’s Jewish President To Hitler. According to the New York Times, “A column in the Oct. 19 issue of the weekly, The Dartmouth Review, appeared under the headline ‘Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Freedmann’ a play on a Nazi slogan, ‘One Empire, One People, One Leader,’ but substituting and misspelling the name of James O. Freedman, the president of the school in Hanover, N.H., for ‘Fuhrer.’ Using the analogy of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, the column by James Garrett describes how ‘Der Freedmann’ and his associates rid the campus of conservatives. A drawing on the cover of the next issue, on Oct. 26, also depicted Mr. Freedman, who has been critical of The Review, as Hitler. ‘The fact that President Freedman is Jewish raises the stakes in a rather frightening way,’ the faculty members wrote. ‘The comparison of the Dartmouth president to Hitler is so wildly inappropriate that one can only assume insidious motives.’ [...] Harmeet Dhillon, editor in chief of The Review, denied that the column was anti-Semitic, saying its point had been misinterpreted by people ‘trying to twist the issue to their own ends.’” [New York Times, 11/6/88]
1988: Controversial Article Stated Dartmouth’s Conservatives Were “Deported In Cattle Cars In The Night.” According to the New York Times, “Among the specific objections that are being raised are references in the column to the ‘ 'Final Solution' of the Conservative Problem’ and to ‘survivors’ of the Dartmouth ‘holocaust.’ Mr. Garrett described Dartmouth friends and colleagues who were ‘deported in cattle cars in the night.’ A note at the end of the column described Mr. Garrett as ‘a survivor’ and The Review's social critic.” [New York Times, 11/6/88]
Newspaper That Harmeet Dhillon Served As Editor-In-Chief Of Had History Of Offending Minorities. According to the New York Times, “The Review has been no stranger to controversy. In its eight years of publication, it has offended blacks, women, homosexuals and others.” [New York Times, 11/6/88]
Harmeet Dhillon Received $120,000 Salary From Her Nonprofit While Only Working Two Hours Per Week. According to The Guardian, "Dhillon began receiving a $120,000 annual salary without increasing her two-hour weekly commitment to the organization, according to that year’s 990 filing. Together, then, Dhillon and her law firm were taking just over 37% of CAL’s program expenses that year." [Guardian, 6/12/23]
Harmeet Dhillon’s Law Group Received Over $1.3 Million In Legal Fees In Two Years From Her Nonprofit. According to The Guardian, "In 2020, Dhillon Law was listed as the largest single contractor in CAL’s 990 IRS filing, receiving $814,714 in legal fees, which was over 45% of all program expenses that year, and 30% of its total expenses of almost $2.8m. In 2021, Dhillon Law received $507,469 in fees from CAL, making it the second highest earning contractor.” [Guardian, 6/12/23]
Harmeet Dhillon’s Role As CEO Of Center For American Liberty And Head Of Law Group Who Was Nonprofit’s Largest Contractor Was A “Conflict Of Interest.” According to The Guardian, "Dhillon’s position as CEO in a non-profit whose biggest contractor is Dhillon Law Group is a 'conflict of interest', according to Joan Harrington, a fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at the Santa Clara University, and an expert on non-profit law and ethics. Harrington added that non-profits can navigate this, and that 'the board can accept conflicts of interest if they are brought to the board’s attention annually'." [Guardian, 6/12/23]
Dhillon Represented Tucker Carlson In A Gender Discrimination Lawsuit From A Former Producer. According to NBC News, “More recently, Dhillon has defended ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a gender discrimination lawsuit brought by a former producer.” [NBC News, 12/14/24]
Dhillon Urged Republicans To Stop Appearing On Fox News After They Issued A Cease And Desist Letter To Carlson. According to Newsweek, “On Monday, Dhillon issued a tweet decrying Fox News's cease and desist letter to Carlson and urged Republicans to stop appearing on the conservative network, claiming, without evidence, that its current offerings are censored and that her client's firing was due to the network having ‘caved into pressure.’” [Newsweek, 6/12/23]
2018: Harmeet Dhillon Represented Google Employee Who Said Biological Differences Made Women Less Effective Programmers. According to TIME, "Lawyers for Damore and David Gudeman, another former engineer, filed a lawsuit in Santa Clara Superior Court in Northern California that charges Google 'discriminated against employees for their perceived conservative political views.' Harmeet K. Dhillon, the committeewoman of the Republican National Committee for California, is representing the two men. [...] In August, Google employees spoke out against Damore‘s internal memo, which said that biological gender differences make women less effective programmers and argued the company suppressed conservative voices. Google condemned Damore’s document, and he was subsequently fired." [TIME, 1/8/18]
Dhillon Challenged Governor Newsom’s Stay-At-Home Orders During The COVID-19 Pandemic, Saying That Businesses Like Gun Stores And Churches Should Be Considered “Essential” And Allowed To Reopen. According to Politico, “Newsom on March 19 became the first governor to issue a statewide stay-at-home order that shut down nonessential activities. Dhillon’s lawsuits have focused on how the state defines ‘essential.’ She has filed more than a dozen lawsuits through her own law firm or her nonprofit, the Virginia-based Center for American Liberty, that challenge Newsom’s orders on constitutional grounds. She has questioned his criteria and ability to determine what activities and businesses are necessary. Some conservative states deemed gun stores and churches essential early on. But California forced them to close until Newsom on Monday allowed houses of worship to reopen.” [Politico, 5/26/20]
Dhillon Filed Lawsuits Over COVID-19 Restrictions Which She Called A “Civil Rights Crisis.”
According to The Washington Examiner, “Dhillon went on a high-profile legal spree in 2020 and 2021 in which she targeted COVID-19 restrictions. She later said the lawsuits, while mostly unsuccessful in court, pressured government officials to tame their overreach. She described her efforts at the time as an ‘extended triage’ to address a ‘civil rights crisis.’” [Washington Examiner, 1/5/25]