President-elect Donald J. Trump mentioned on Monday that he would nominate Harmeet Ok. Dhillon, a California lawyer who has lengthy championed Mr. Trump in public, in court docket instances and on social media, to run the Justice Division’s Civil Rights Division.
In declaring his alternative on social media, Mr. Trump mentioned Ms. Dhillon “has stood up consistently to protect our cherished civil liberties.” He praised her authorized work concentrating on social media corporations, restrictions on non secular gatherings throughout the pandemic and “corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers.”
Ms. Dhillon has been a conservative activist so dedicated to Mr. Trump that she was prepared to assault not solely Democrats but additionally fellow Republicans, together with her finally unsuccessful problem final 12 months to the chairwoman of the Republican Nationwide Committee on the time.
She was additionally the co-chairwoman in 2020 of a bunch, Attorneys for Trump, that challenged the outcomes of that 12 months’s presidential election.
It’s not uncommon for Republican administrations to considerably reduce the work within the Civil Rights Division. In Ms. Dhillon, nevertheless, Mr. Trump has chosen a lawyer lively within the tradition wars whose agency focuses on championing the precise’s causes.
“I’m extremely honored by President Trump’s nomination to assist with our nation’s civil rights agenda,” Ms. Dhillon posted on social media. “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, Mr. Trump’s alternative for lawyer normal.
The division, which enforces voting rights legal guidelines, investigates police departments and brings charges for violations of individuals’s civil rights, is spending the ultimate days of the Biden administration ending as a lot work as potential on instances involving patterns or practices of police misconduct.
Earlier on Monday, the division introduced findings extremely vital of the police division in Worcester, Mass. Such findings, nevertheless, could not quantity to a lot, provided that these investigations will quickly be handed over to the Trump administration.
In the course of the first Trump administration, the Justice Division walked away from a number of high-profile instances involving misconduct by main metropolis police departments, and legal professionals who concentrate on such instances have mentioned they count on the second Trump administration to do a lot the identical.
