Trump taps SF legal firebrand to lead civil rights enforcement

Incoming President Donald Trump is tapping another Bay Area Republican for a spot in his administration, announcing Monday that he’s nominating the San Francisco legal warrior Harmeet Dhillon for assistant attorney general for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Justice.

Dhillon, 56, is a lawyer and Fox News commentator who worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign and Kari Lake’s 2022 bid for governor in Arizona. She also founded a private law practice and a conservative legal nonprofit that challenged Gov. Gavin Newsom’s shutdown orders during the pandemic and represented a formerly transgender activist.

In his announcement Monday on Truth Social, Trump praised Dhillon for her efforts “to protect our cherished Civil Liberties” and challenging “woke policies.”

“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,” Trump said.

Dhillon is the latest of several Bay Area figures Trump has tapped for his second administration, joining tech investor David Sacks, Stanford University health policy professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who also owns the former Twitter social media platform X, founded SpaceX and cofounded Neuralink.

Dhillon declined to comment for this story, said spokesperson and GOP strategist Matt Shupe.

“I’m extremely honored by President Trump’s nomination to assist with our nation’s civil rights agenda,” she said on X, where she has one million followers.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Dhillon would lead the Justice Department’s enforcement of civil and constitutional rights, including the Voting Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The division also prosecutes hate crimes and forces reforms upon police departments marred by misconduct.

Dhillon’s prominent role as a Trump attorney and Make America Great Again acolyte has long put her at odds with Newsom and San Franciscans in the famously liberal city, where she has lived for two decades.

And although Vice President Kamala Harris easily defeated Trump in Bay Area counties, Dhillon is one of several locals he’s tapping to work in his administration.

The incoming president appointed Silicon Valley tech investor Sacks as chief policy advisor on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. Sacks is an associate of Musk, who is co-leading a division in Trump’s administration to slash government spending.

To lead the National Institutes of Health, Trump nominated Bhattacharya, an economist and Stanford professor of health policy. An outspoken critic of the nation’s public health system, he also was a leading critic of government shut-down orders and mask mandates during the pandemic.

Dhillon was born in India and moved with her family to rural North Carolina as a child. She told Time Magazine in 2023 she was exposed to conservative politics by her parents, who saw alignment with the GOP’s values and their Sikh religion. Admitted to Dartmouth College at age 16, she landed a job at the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, and went to law school at the University of Virginia. She founded her own law firm in 2006, and later launched the Center for American Liberty, a conservative legal nonprofit.

On her watch in 2021, the nonprofit sued California to challenge its pandemic-era ban on indoor worship on behalf of a Pentecostal church in Gilroy.

The nonprofit also sued a Monterey County school district for allegedly encouraging a sixth grader to use different pronouns without parental consent, and represented Chloe Cole, a formerly transgender activist from the Central Valley who de-transitioned and now supports bans on gender-affirming care for minors.

“If you look at the cases that Harmeet takes on, especially the civil liberties cases, I think they really show her heart for people who are being oppressed,” said Center for American Liberty Executive Director Mark Trammell.

He added that Dhillon will defend the civil rights of all in her new post, without regard for someone’s identity or political orientation. But transgender activists and queer media, including the online site LGBTQ Nation, describe her as “anti-trans.”

Dhillon is also a longtime politico in national Republican circles, despite having never held office herself. In 2008 and 2012, she ran unsuccessfully to represent San Francisco in the Legislature and was trounced by Democratic candidates, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In 2023, Dhillon also fell short in her bid to chair the Republican National Committee.

She was an advisor on Trump’s 2020 campaign but didn’t personally participate in its legal battles to challenge election results, said Shupe, the spokesperson. Those efforts were widely dismissed as without merit.

“She did not do any of the lawsuits actually charging any of the results,” Shupe said.

Elsewhere, Dhillon represented Trump in a legal victory against pornographic actress Stormy Daniels last year, as well as former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who was accused of gender-based discrimination by producer Abby Grossberg.