U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon may be promoted to Associate Attorney General, according to a report from the conservative Daily Wire news outlet.
The report, which Daily Wire is claiming as an exclusive scoop, seems to confirm an earlier report from CBS News stating that senior DOJ officials “have discussed promoting Dhillon to one of the top department roles,” while demoting current Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward.
If the reports turn out true, it would appear that Dhillon is being rewarded for, as Democracy Docket has reported, shifting DOJ Civil Rights Division priorities from protecting voting rights to attacking them.
After commandeering a string of mostly unprecedented and, in some cases, unconstitutional, anti-voting measures – which includes attempting to force states to hand over sensitive voter data – a promotion to associate attorney general would empower Dhillon to do even further harm to democratic norms.
As the third most senior official in the Justice Department, an Associate Attorney General Dhillon would oversee not only the Civil Rights Division, but also the Civil Division, the Office of Justice Programs, Office of Information Policy and several other programs. She would also advise and assist the Attorney General “in formulating and implementing Departmental policies and programs pertaining to a broad range of civil justice, federal and local law enforcement, and public safety matters,” according to the Justice Department website.
Since former Attorney General Pam Bondi was fired on Thursday, MAGA boosters were hoping that Dhillon would actually win the top award as her replacement. Dhillon’s name is still being floated as a possible Bondi successor.
However, if there is one thing that has marked Dhillon’s legacy as DOJ’s civil rights chief – other than her consistent attack on voting agenda – it has been the string of blunders committed under her watch that has prevented the division from effectively executing that agenda.
This includes Dhillon’s erratic social media posts that often undercut her own legal strategies, as well as her division blowing court deadlines, sending voter rolls demands to wrong email addresses and filing lawsuits in the wrong courts – all significant mistakes that otherwise wouldn’t scream promotion to a top ranked position in the department.
As former DOJ civil rights chief Kristen Clarke recently told Democracy Docket, the Justice Department’s prior historical work as a sentinel for voter protections “has been decimated,” and “its ranks are now being filled by people who are inexperienced, who don’t know what they’re doing, who’ve never enforced federal laws before.”
This story has been updated to clarify Dhillon’s role at the DOJ.
