Harmeet Dhillon to Newsmax: DOJ Civil Rights Division Protects All

The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has done an about-face in President Donald Trump's second term, focusing on protecting the rights of all Americans, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told Newsmax on Tuesday.

"The Civil Rights Division has made a 180-degree turn from the weaponized agenda under the Biden administration, under [former Attorney General] Merrick Garland to what we're focusing on today, which is not just protecting the narrow few, or whoever's in power or the cause du jour, but really enforcing civil rights for all Americans," Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division, told "Rob Schmitt Tonight."

"And this is consistent with Supreme Court precedent. This is consistent with our federal civil rights laws."

Dhillon said the Biden administration used diversity, equity, and inclusion policies to "openly discriminate against many Americans" and the DOJ was weaponized to "to punish the police and all the taxpayers and jurisdictions where one cop might have made a mistake."

She said her division is dedicated to listening "to all the different constituents out there and enforce laws equally — which is a novel concept, unfortunately, to many of the lawyers in the Civil Rights Division, who chose to leave rather than pursue our open and equal agenda at the DOJ today.

"I have been a lawyer for over three decades doing a lot of this type of work from the outside, including fighting the crazy COVID restrictions and winning those cases at the Supreme Court," Dhillon said.

"So I took my deep commitment to the federal civil rights laws, recruited top lawyers to join me in the front office of the DOJ. And together, we're working around the clock.

"We are taking our direction from the president's agenda, which itself is taking its direction from the American people and from our constitutional values. And we're applying that lens to all the cases that we bring," she said.

Dhillon said her division has brought cases on behalf of various religious organizations and against "bad cops" and to dismiss "unnecessary consent decrees that are punishing cities and taxpayers around the country." She said the "big-ticket item" is going after discrimination that is rampant in U.S. institutions of higher learning.

Dhillon said another focus is on protecting voting rights through the Help America Vote Act, National Voter Registration Act, and the Voting Rights Act.

"We've opened up investigations and even filed lawsuits in each of these areas in just the first 100 days — states that refuse to clean their voter rolls for federal elections, states that take federal money but discriminate," she said.

"You have the case of Hennepin County, Minnesota, where they're using race-based plea agreement sentencing, which is insane. You have Chicago, which has discrimination in hiring permeating all aspects of the government. You have Rhode Island schools, which have similar problems, and on and on.

"So our job is to hold each of these states accountable to the federal civil rights laws where applicable. And, again, some of them are shocked that anyone is asking any questions. They're used to just getting a free pass from the DOJ. And that is over now," Dhillon said.

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