Trump picks purported Khalistani sympathiser to head civil liberties division in Justice department

US correspondent from Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday picked , a California lawyer and MAGA loyalist seen by some Indian critics as a , to head the US justice department’s .

Nominating her as an assistant attorney general, Trump said in a social media post that Dhillon has "stood up consistently to protect our cherished civil liberties, including taking on Big Tech for censoring our free speech." He also called her one of the "top election lawyers in the country" ostensibly because she worked tirelessly to overturn the 2020 election results in his favor.

Trump also noted she is a "respected member of the Sikh religious community" even as pro-India critics were in ferment over the pick, calling out her purported support for Khalistani elements in US and Canada such as Gurpatwant Pannun, and for backing for militant anti-government farmers agitation in India.

In multiple social media posts, Sanjay Lazar, a Harvard lawyer who lost family members in the Air India Kanishka bombing carried out by Sikh terrorists, said Dhillon's pro-Khalistani & anti-India stance "will be detrimental to India pushing for the indictment & extradition of Pannun and other Khalistani persons."

Other pro-Trump MAGA Indian-Americans also expressed concern over the pick saying it would complicate the convivial ties between right-wing establishments in both countries, but others were sanguine, arguing that Dhillon's activism would have to bend to higher bilateral priorities.

At the Justice Department, Dhillon will be the fourth -ranking official reporting to AG Pam Bondi. She's also the second Indian-American to occupy the post after Vanita Gupta, who headed the civil rights division during the Obama presidency.

Posting under her social media handle @pnjaban, Dhillon said she is extremely honored by Trump's nomination "to assist with our nation's civil rights agenda" and it has been her dream to be able to serve our great country."

She also recalled her family, saying she would "not be here today without my amazing mother and brother's support, and my beloved father Tejpal and husband Sarv, who did not live to see this day." She lost her husband Sarvjit Singh Randhawa, also a Republican Party activist, to cancer and Parkinson's in August this year, right in the midst of the election campaign.

Two weeks before his passing, Dhillon faced a backlash from MAGA radicals for offering ardas (Sikh prayers) at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. "ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE!! I have nothing but respect for Harmeet Dhillon but fire whoever invited her to pray to a foreign god, there is only one true God we pray to and his name is not whatever she said. His name is YAHWEH and his only begotten Son is Jesus Christ," a prominent MAGA social media warrior raged.

The Chandigarh-born Dhillon came to the US as a two-year old when her father, a doctor, left what she would later describe as a "Soviet-client state." Dhillon herself would later become enamored of Russian literature. After initial years in Bronx, NY, her parents moved to North Carolina, where they registered as Republicans and became supporters of then conservative Senator, the late Jesse Helms.

Dhillon enrolled at Dartmouth College, where she became the editor-in-chief of the school’s conservative newspaper, The Dartmouth Review, during the Reagan years. Although the political scuttlebutt is she was friends with Kamala Harris when she moved to California and even contributed to her early campaigns, she has been a Republican conservative for much of her career, and more recently, a MAGA hardliner unafraid to take on the mainstream GOP.

In fact, at one point in 2023, she challenged then RNC chairperson Ronna McDaniel for the top post in the party and lost in a secret ballot. She was persuaded to stand down from a second attempt, but Trump has finally rewarded her for her unswerving loyalty.