San Francisco lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, President Donald Trump’s nominee for assistant attorney general for civil rights, emphasized her career in defending vulnerable populations at a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing that covered everything from voting rights to U.S. history.
Questions fell Wednesday morning along party lines during the approximately three-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where Republicans praised Dhillon on her record and Democrats pressed her and two other Trump nominees on whether they and the president would follow court orders.
Dhillon sat before the senators with nominees Dean John Sauer for solicitor general, the attorney who represents the U.S. government at the U.S. Supreme Court, and Aaron Reitz as the assistant attorney general overseeing the Office of Legal Policy.
U.S. Sen. Dirk Durbin, D-Illinois, told the nominees that people in legal and academic professions are worried that Trump would defy court orders and put himself above the law, at least in the president’s eyes.
Sauer, who was Trump’s personal lawyer for almost two years, said he doesn’t believe that’s a plausible scenario.
And before Durbin and other senators commented, Dhillon made an opening statement in which she stressed she would respect statues and court rulings even if she disagreed with them.
“What I will never do is use the DOJ (Department of Justice) Civil Rights Division as a partisan tool to a push a political agenda,” Dhillon said.
In response to a question from the committee chair, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Dhillon said Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump have made it clear they oppose diversity, equity and inclusion policies. She said the Department of Justice will be closely examining such policies “and enforcing the law equally for all Americans.”
She added that language in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act makes it clear that “racial discrimination is inappropriate in hiring.”
Democrats on the committee pressed the nominees to guarantee court orders would be followed, but Republican senators noted there have been immoral U.S. Supreme Court decisions. They cited cases such as U.S. v. Korematsu, the 1944 ruling that allowed the internment of Japanese Americans.
U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, asked Dhillon, a former vice chair of the California Republican Party, if she would carry out illegal orders from Trump.
Dillon, who has represented Trump as his attorney, said, “The president has never asked me to do anything that I would find to be morally reprehensible and illegal.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, raised the issue of voting rights and said the goal should be “to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”
Dhillon told Blackburn the National Voter Registration Act requires states to properly maintain their voter rolls.
“Many states are woefully behind in doing so,” Dhillon said.
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, told Dhillon she planned to reintroduce the Citizen Ballot Protection Act, which would allow states to verify that only citizens are voting in federal elections.
Dhillon thanked Britt for backing the legislation, noting courts have banned states from requiring proof of citizenship. She said the bill would assure people that only citizens are voting and that they’re only voting once.
“It would cause more Americans to come out and vote, which all of us want on both sides of the aisle,” she said.
Dhillon, who was born in 1969 in Chandigarh, India, and emigrated to America with her family at age 2, said the current system has led many illegal immigrants to unknowingly cast a vote, which could later put their efforts to become citizens at risk.
In response to questions from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, Dhillon said she would enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which protects groups that have historically faced discrimination based on religion and minority status.
Dhillon noted she has done many pro bono cases for people who would not otherwise have a lawyer.
“In the civil rights division, there is a long and storied history of doing the same thing, of standing up for the most disadvantaged individual and ensuring equal justice for all,” Dhillon said.
She said her Sikh faith emphasizes respecting people of all beliefs and to protect the defenseless.
She added she would work to protect Jewish students, who she said are currently being mistreated by professors and other students at universities because of their religion.
Dhillon also pointed to her 2002-2005 work as a member of the board of the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. She said her experience at the ACLU and earlier taught her the importance of protecting free speech and the right to protest, regardless of whether she agrees with what’s being said.
