DOJ's New Direction: Inside the Civil Rights Division
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Harmeet Dhillon has spent decades defending American plaintiffs in their civil rights complaints. Now she's serving as the Assistant Attorney General leading the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice following four intense years of the Biden administration. In this episode, Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olihan sits down with Harmeet to discuss how she is using her role to defend the American public, the pushback she's received from both inside and outside the DOJ, and more.

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Sunday, June 29th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. The following is an interview between Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olihan and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.

Well, Harmony, thank you so much for letting us join you here at the Department of Justice. We'd love to hear a little bit about what your experience has been like coming into these well-known halls, this establishment that we've heard so much about, especially during the last administration. How has your reception been? I actually started here at the DOJ over 30 years ago as a summer intern defending the government of

against accusations of violating civil rights in federal cases. And so, you know, that was a very interesting experience. I think a lot of lawyers go to law school thinking that they want to work on civil rights issues because it's meaningful and it's helpful. And then I, you know, came to realize that that section of the DOJ was actually on the opposite side of what I wanted to be, which was enforcing people's civil rights. And so my career went in a different direction. And then when President Trump asked me to do this job, I

jumped at that opportunity because I am passionate about civil rights. I've spent much of the last many years on civil rights issues on behalf of different American plaintiffs. It's near and dear to my heart. So I've jumped in and it's been quite an experience and quite a change from being in charge of your own law firm and nonprofit. You know, I left the Dillon Law Group and Center for American Liberty, where I basically had my run of

cases that I could bring and people I could work with. And then you come here to the DOJ and it's very different. And you say you jumped at the chance, but before you jumped at the chance, did you think about how you'd be giving up a lot of your freedom and ability to, you know, make a lot more money?

Well, I had an opportunity in the first administration to do not this job, but a different job. And, you know, I was considered for other jobs here. And so it's something that we thought about, my husband and I as a family, and prayed on and decided in the first administration I was just starting this nonprofit. And we were very busy protecting the rights of Americans in so many different ways. It wasn't the right time.

And so this time around, it does seem like the right time. For one thing, I and other lawyers at my law firm fought very, very hard on the election side to make sure that we had election integrity in the last election. And so I felt like it was a very important crossroads that our country was at in the 2024 election. And so to really contribute to a better outcome for the United States,

I thought it would be appropriate for me to jump in and put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. But I do miss California. I miss the weather. I miss my home, my views, my garden, and certainly the economic freedom that comes from being in private practice. But it's totally worth it to be able to make this kind of impact here for America. What is your perspective on the last four years of the Biden administration and how that impacted so many Americans? What I came here and found in the DOJ is that

and before that, really the Obama administration, had really, I think,

I would say taken the laws and really put a very one-sided analysis on what kind of cases they were going to bring. So, for example, there's a law called the FACE Act that is used to protect health facilities and houses of worship. Well, the vast majority of prosecutions under the FACE Act over the last, you know, 20 plus years have been against pro-life protesters, sometimes just people praying outside a pro-life clinic.

which wasn't the intention of the law, and the occasional case on behalf of crisis pregnancy centers. But it was really very one-sided. You also look at the types of cases that the DOJ was bringing in what's called the special litigation section, which deals with some unique statutes, but it also deals with what is commonly known as police misconduct or police brutality cases.

And we've seen this happen in our streets in the United States, a narrative that the police are bad, that the police are violent, that we should defund the police. Well, your federal government is doing exactly that, using the weapon of the United States Department of Justice and dozens of lawyers to basically, during the COVID era, working from home, sitting in the comfort of their homes and looking at a dry paper record and

and cherry picking statistics, and then making the police out to be bad guys and setting up police departments and taxpayers all over the United States for civil lawsuits with very, in my opinion, flimsy to non-existent predicates. And so there may be cases, and there are cases,

a police misconduct in the United States. And we have tools for those, which include prosecuting those cops who are bad. What I don't think is effective and studies have shown is not effective is to take one or two incidents like that and then blame the entire community for it and all the police, force them to do volumes of paperwork to satisfy bureaucrats in D.C. or sitting on their sofas in, you know, the suburbs somewhere.

and basically impose high taxes on the people who live in these jurisdictions. The cities who have gone through these consent decrees are not more safe. They're significantly less safe. Crime goes up because everyone knows that the cops are not around to do their jobs. Cops quit, retire, or move to better jurisdictions. And so we're not fans of police consent decrees for the most part. I'm not saying we'll never do them, but one by one, I'm looking at the records that were left behind by my predecessors, many of whom quit in a huff.

when they learned that we are going to have different priorities here. The priorities are going to be the even-handed application of our federal civil rights laws and not weaponizing them in favor of one side or the other. And so that's been a refreshing change. And even just today, I met with a legal representative of a police department that's been under the lens of the DOJ for the last several years. And what I heard was really shocking. You know, the

the misuse of these laws to target law enforcement for a political purpose to defund the police. I don't agree with that. I want to backtrack a little bit to the FACE Act because as you know, this is something I've reported on extensively. I was covering this when the former leadership at the Civil Rights Division talked about how as a response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, they were going to enforce the FACE Act against pro-lifers. What's your reaction to that? The fact that the former administration was using this as a response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade?

I think that's gross and it's a misuse of the law. And I think that, look, first of all, we enforce the laws that Congress has passed. I agree with a lot of those laws. I don't agree with some of them, but I swore an oath to United States Senate that I would enforce the laws. You do get prosecutorial discretion. What do you do with the resources that you have? But

But what you don't do is do 95 or 99% cases in one direction and 1% token in the other direction. That's not right. You also don't use a law to punish First Amendment protected activity. The FACE Act does not supersede the First Amendment, and it does not make illegal conduct that would otherwise be lawful in most cases. And so if someone is not blocking an entrance and is not violating someone else's ability to go get health care, praying silently or attempting to persuade across the street is not...

illegal in our country. And so we're really seeing a lot of these types of instances where the administration didn't like something that was happening by election or by Supreme Court ruling. They decided to retaliate in this other way. It's really unfortunate we're unwinding

And I heard you were interviewing with the Daily Signal this week, I think, and you were talking about how you're going to be enforcing the FACE Act to protect pregnancy centers. Is that right? That's right. And one of the challenges we have now is for so many years, our DOJ has not been able to

done its job in enforcing the federal civil rights laws that protect crisis pregnancy centers, pro-life centers, that people have stopped coming forward. People are afraid that their complaints won't be heard. And so if I had a stack of cases ready to go with the evidence and the witnesses, I would be bringing those cases in court right now. What is lacking in many of those cases is you read in the press, graffiti happened or an attack happened or threats happened or

or a blockage happened or what have you. But unless we have witnesses and facts to bring those cases, we can't bring them. So for anyone watching this, if you run or were involved with a crisis pregnancy center in the last five years and you had a case or an incident that wasn't properly investigated,

We have an open door for that. We'd like to hear you. We'd like to get the FBI involved in it. And we'd like to bring where appropriate prosecutions where we can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. That's amazing because I remember when Capitol Hill Crisis Pregnancy Center, the one that's closest to the Supreme Court, was vandalized with a big bucket of red paint. They said if abortions aren't safe, then neither are you. Jane's revenged.

And I remember the head of the crisis pregnancy center told me maybe about two years ago that the police just gave up because they couldn't find anyone and they considered it not worth their time.

Right. Well, first of all, we are in a different time today. We've seen incidents of domestic terrorism all over the place. I've advised my Jewish friends to make sure that all synagogues have video cameras and surveillance around them in addition to hiring security. But the same goes, I think, for a lot of our health care facilities, including these types of crisis pregnancy centers. So

And where you have video evidence, it makes it easier to help track down the criminals when timely law enforcement reports are made. I can tell you that this FBI and this DOJ are absolutely committed to making sure that any woman walking into a health care facility in the United States is able to reach it and that they don't feel threatened no matter what their political viewpoint is. Okay.

Now, switching gears a little bit, because I know you've done so much when it comes to gender ideology in your own personal capacity. In your capacity here at the DOJ, what are you doing to help detransitioners and women who have men in their spaces?

So this is a project that's going on across the government, including in the DOJ. And, you know, other sections of the DOJ are doing things like looking into the off-label prescription of drugs that are used for so-called gender transition. I know other sections are also looking at fraud and other types of issues that happen with misrepresentations that happen across state lines.

What we're doing specifically with our jurisdiction in the Civil Rights Division is making clear that it's not appropriate for boys to take girls' trophies. And so I've already been sued for my first lawsuit as head of the Civil Rights Division for sending a letter to the California Interscholastic Federation reminding them that it is illegal

to prevent girls from having equal access to sports opportunities, which means letting boys take girls' trophies. That's illegal in our view. And I think increasingly the precedents are agreeing with that. And so the amazing decision this week, Scrimetti from the United States Supreme Court, really drove the dagger through the heart of some of the most ludicrous

ludicrous arguments that we were expected to believe in buying into all aspects of gender ideology now we can be against it but also be compassionate to the individuals and as you say i've represented numerous young women who've gone through falling for these lies and manipulations by adults they trusted and then thank god realizing that they'd made a huge mistake with their lives and now they're seeking to hold doctors and medical institutions accountable but

To be very clear, institutions that have peddled this gender transition surgery and treatment on mainly girls with some boys in the United States have committed wholesale fraud, wholesale malpractice, misconduct in so many ways, coercion against parents, manipulation, telling parent after parent that their child would commit suicide if they didn't sign off on this mutilation procedure or removing breasts or otherwise. And while...

people in my prior life are seeking to hold these folks accountable civilly. I do think it's a criminal matter in some instances, and that may be a state criminal matter that can be brought. But the pharma industry has a lot to answer for.

Big medical institutions like Kaiser in California have a lot to answer for. And, you know, we're doing our part in the Civil Rights Division to share our knowledge of these issues and be part of those resolutions. So if people are aware of a doctor, for example, that was part of this type of manipulation or therapist or anyone that said to the parents, if you're would you rather have a dead daughter or living son, that classic line.

They should be in touch with authorities about that kind of thing. They should be in touch with authorities and or hiring counsel. I was one of the first lawyers in the country to file a malpractice case involving this type of behavior. Now there are several lawyers and nonprofits have jumped on the bandwagon to do that work in addition to the work that we pioneered at Center for American Liberty. And that's good news for plaintiffs because there's a lot of lawyers now who can jump in and help. But

There are state attorneys general who have jurisdiction over these issues as well and licensing boards. And so, you know, what's so interesting is during the last administration and even before that, lawyers were reported to state bars for simply giving their private legal advice to their client, in some cases, the president or electors or what have you. I know friends who lost their licenses for just being lawyers or

Now, where are the people reporting doctor butchers to the state medical boards? I mean, I can't do that in the Civil Rights Division, but people can do that in their states. You see a doctor promoting an off-label use of a drug or lying to get patients and coercing them. Or you see a medical institution viewing it as a cost center to mutilate children.

that should be covered by state licensing laws and fraud laws. And in addition to, of course, civil malpractice laws. So I think it's a target rich environment out there. We've seen so much outrage from the liberal media, whether it's Washington Post, New York Times, NBC, CNBC, talking about you in this new position, trying to say that everyone is fleeing because you're in charge. What is your response to that? And why do you think that your appearance here at the DOJ is causing so much consternation? Well, it's...

came into this position and I made very clear that the priorities were going to change, which should happen frequently when there's a change in power in the government because the DOJ is part of the executive branch. And so the president really sets the tone and the agenda. We have federal laws that we enforce and we're not gonna go make up new laws or go offsides, but within those laws, we have different criteria that we can enforce. Literally while I've been in this job, which is just several weeks now, a little over 10 weeks,

The United States Supreme Court has ruled something that I already told the DOJ was going to be our policy, which is that

the majority plaintiffs in discrimination cases do not have a higher burden of proof than minority plaintiffs. And what we've seen in recent years throughout the United States is Asians and whites and men being discriminated against systematically in America's corporations, institutions of higher education for admissions and employment. And that's illegal. And we're going to go after that just like we're going after traditional forms of discrimination

And so that caused a lot of the ideologues here at the DOJ who wanted to make their whole careers suing the police and, you know, enforcing gender ideology and you name it, fill in the blank, woke concept. Suddenly, they decided they didn't want to do the job as redefined appropriately by the new administration. So I was a messenger of that. I'm not...

You know, I can't take all the credit, but I don't think it's a bad thing that people who don't want to do their jobs here left. And so it is whack-a-mole every day when I come into the office. Every day is different, and there's a lot of work left to be done. So we're really excited and honored to be here. I have a tremendous group of top deputies supporting me who came and left their high-paying jobs for all over the country to come here and serve their country in the DOJ. And so it's a joy and a pleasure to come to work every day here at the DOJ. ♪

That was Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olihan speaking to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. And this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.