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‘Unprecedented’: Harmeet Dhillon On Weaponized Lawfare Against Trump & Conservatives
The following is an edited transcript of an interview between Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley and founder of the Dhillon Law Group, Harmeet Dhillon on a Sunday Extra Edition of Morning Wire.
Republicans have increasingly sounded the alarm over the use of the justice system against not just President Trump, but his associates, his legal counsel, and even his supporters. From the handling of the January 6 cases to federal and state-level lawsuits against Trump and his allies, conservatives say the era of politically-driven “lawfare” is upending American principles and having a widespread chilling effect on free speech and freedom of association.
JOHN: Joining us now to discuss the “lawfare” trend is Republican Party official and Dhillon Law Group founder, Harmeet Dhillon. Thank you for coming on. First, let’s start at the top, with Donald Trump. We’ve seen an unprecedented series of cases brought against a former president and the leading presidential candidate. Are the “conspiracy theorists” correct? Is this a concerted effort to take down a presidential candidate coordinated at the highest levels of his rival political party?
HARMEET: You start with the January 6 committee investigation. That was used as, first of all, an extended commercial for Democrats producing primetime theater out of hauling citizens, including prominent advisors and supporters of President Trump in front of Congress to answer staged questions as if it’s a TV show. It was produced like that. In fact, some of the production included Nancy Pelosi’s daughter being there and at the January 6 proceedings somehow coincidentally filming a documentary.So you start with that and then the evidence that was gathered in that whole process was ultimately used and parceled out to other prosecutors. So first of all, it was all handed off to the special counsel appointed through Merrick Garland, who is, of course, answerable to the president. And he’s gone on to do two different prosecutions in two different courts.Of course that’s also purposeful to give the maximum amount of effort to have multiple proceedings happening at the same time — tying up the president, his team, his supporters with lawfare in that regard. And then you have the two state criminal prosecutions and one civil prosecution in New York, both of which are on the criminal side, incredibly flimsy. In one case, the Georgia prosecutor and her team are shown in logbooks as having made multiple visits to the White House. And in the Alvin Bragg prosecution in New York that just concluded, you have a very senior United States Department of Justice —a number three official — Michael Colangelo, sort of lent out, second to the DA’s office in New York to help them. And so all of this points to DC, points to coordination at the highest levels of the Democratic Party and points to using the events of (now almost four years ago) January 6, as a way to block Republicans from getting elected and specifically to convict President Donald Trump. And timing it all to have a crescendo during an election year.
JOHN: From what you’ve seen in terms of reception from the public of these lawsuits, the conviction in New York, the ongoing lawsuits, including a lot of the setbacks for the prosecution, with appeals and delays on these lawsuits, including in Georgia, is this tactic working against Trump?
HARMEET: Well, it’s working in one sense, which is it’s given Democrats a talking point and the hope is to persuade non-committed voters, and certainly Democrats and Independents, to stay away from him. And that’s a talking point that is resonating with some people, I’m sure. At the same time, I think the overreaching aspect of it and the coordinated aspect of it and the multiple attempts to use extremely flimsy efforts to “get Trump” has created a sympathy backlash, certainly amongst wavering Republicans. And I would say from what we’ve seen, he has increased support in certain minority communities that he hasn’t had before. I think people are viewing president Trump as being the unfair victim of persecution here.
JOHN: Now it’s not just Trump who’s faced what many say is legal persecution. A lot of people associated with him, including former attorneys have been indicted. Can you speak to that? What have we seen in terms of lawyers targeted for what appears to be political or ideological reasons?
HARMEET: Well, this is unprecedented in the United States. What we have seen is multiple attorneys being prosecuted. First of all, indicted in some of these criminal cases involving the alternate electors. And you’ve seen that in Wisconsin, you’ve seen it in Arizona with multiple electors and you’ve seen it in Georgia. In some cases you have the same person getting indicted multiple times, including after they plead guilty. This has happened to Jenna Ellis, for example, and Kenneth Chesebro as well. They’ve still, after pleading guilty in Georgia, been indicted in other courts. That’s unprecedented. You’ve seen Bar investigations being brought against lawyers for President Trump.
LISTEN: Hear the full interview with Harmeet Dhillon on a Sunday Extra Edition of Morning Wire.
JOHN: Right.
HARMEET: Again, we have not seen that in the past. In California, John Eastman has lost his Bar license in the trial here, and in addition to being indicted in other courts. Sidney Powell has also been dragged into Bar court, although she just survived a challenge in Texas. Doesn’t mean she’ll survive it in other jurisdictions. So the purpose here is, first of all, yes, they painted with a broad brush and indicting people, but I think the intention of that effort is to scare lawyers away from representing President Trump. And every lawyer in the litigation world pretty much has partners and employees, and pressure is brought to bear on these lawyers who want to support President Trump as a lawyer by saying, you know, you might get indicted, you might lose your license, you might lose your livelihood if you do this. and so the easiest thing for a lawyer to do in that circumstance is to decline the representations.It’s not worth it for most people. That is not something we’ve seen in prior years. We’ve had some very shady behavior by leading Democrats, and no one went after the Bar licenses of the lawyers who did their faithful duty under our legal system to represent them. So, that is extraordinary demagoguery from the top in the Democratic Party.
JOHN: Could this have a broader chilling effect on attorneys representing conservative clients — high-profile conservative clients writ large?
HARMEET: Oh, I think it has had that effect. 100%. From a risk management perspective, a lot of the law firms you saw step up to represent President Trump, in 2016 for example, won’t have anything to do with him today. And it’s become controversial amongst lawyers. I’m one of President Trump’s lawyers, I’ve been representing him for several years now, and so are many, many lawyers at my law firm. There are very good lawyers representing him who’ve come together to do that, but the pool is definitely narrower than it used to be. And so, that’s the goal. And when you see the lawyers who were indicted and the electors who were indicted in these multiple jurisdictions — Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia — some of them have had a hard time finding counsel. Nowhere has this been more acute than in D. C., where the folks who were indicted for participation in January 6 have had a very difficult time finding lawyers in D.C. who can represent them. I probably get requests on a rolling basis every month from people, and there’s just a very small handful of lawyers to choose from. It’s deliberately done in such a way that people are not getting fair trials.
JOHN: You mention the J6 cases. Broadening this out, we have seen the prosecution of people who are average citizens and we’ve also seen some whistleblowers on the Right. For example, Dr. Eithan Haim from Texas, who blew the whistle on trans procedures being conducted at a hospital there. We’ve also seen some journalists that lean Right who the DOJ and other major entities have gone after. Is this truly a broader trend in terms of prosecution of conservative citizens?
HARMEET: Yes, it’s extraordinary. And you can contrast what’s happened starting with January 6. We protect peaceful protest in our country and if it gets out of hand, yes, as a protester, you may be prosecuted, arrested, certainly. usually ticketed. You might have to answer for minor misdemeanor offenses. Or not. If you were a BLM protester in the summer of 2020, for example, where there was significant property damage, rioting in multiple American cities, nothing really happened to you. There was no accountability. That includes protests in D.C., where protesters even created disturbances in the Capitol. But the way the January 6 protesters were treated, including folks who simply just walked through open doors with no evidence of having pushed a cop, broken a window, or done anything even remotely violent. Some people I know have been indicted and prosecuted and convicted of oral conduct, just saying words on the steps of the Capitol. That’s unprecedented. And that has definitely been used on a rolling basis to really terrorize supporters of the Right. That’s just one example. I mean, you’re seeing journalists get prosecuted. You’re seeing this physician, Dr. Eithan Haim — in Texas of all places — be prosecuted for an alleged HIPAA violation. Who knew that one could be prosecuted for that? In fact, one can only be prosecuted for it if the whistleblowing happens to target a sacred cow of the Left, which is the lie that you can change your sex through surgery and that children are appropriate vehicles for that experimental procedure. So, today, anybody who seeks to challenge liberal orthodoxy barriers — and is smart, and is reading the media — is pausing and thinking twice because we have crossed so many different barriers in our civil and criminal conduct today that never were crossed before. Prosecuting lawyers, prosecuting whistleblower physicians, prosecuting journalists. We’re becoming desensitized in a way to the shocking excesses of the Biden administration and its supporters.
JOHN: In your view, what can be done to reverse this trend?
HARMEET: Well, some conservatives would like to turn it back by threatening similar retribution when we have power In my view, two wrongs don’t make a right. There may be some need to prosecute officials who exceeded their constitutional bounds – I think that’s fair – who conspired to deny Americans of their right to free speech. That’s appropriate. We have conspiracy law in this country. But overall, I think the way we win this is to stand up to it. Make ourselves too numerous. We have to win elections. And then we have to govern fairly and appropriately. That may seem Pollyanna-ish, but I am a profound believer in our United States Constitution and in freedom of speech, including the freedom of speech of people who disagree with me. So I would not recommend that a Republican administration ignore the Constitution. But I do think the officials who conspire to suppress truthful speech about vaccines, about the pandemic, about the 2020 election, about BLM rioting and violence — I think that’s illegal. We should stop it, we should punish it, and we should make sure it doesn’t happen again in our country. And we should not be afraid to get to the bottom of it. I think our Republican leaders in Congress have been too shy to really do hard hitting probes and demand accountability. For example, people are being prosecuted in our country, advisors to President — Trump, Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon — are being prosecuted for the identical conduct as the current Attorney General himself, refusing to respond to a subpoena from Congress. The Biden Attorney General did the same thing, just simply ignored subpoenas. Well, the guys and gals in Congress have inherent criminal contempt authority. I understand that Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has introduced a measure that says if the current Attorney General doesn’t respond by next week, then they can go after him and arrest him through the Sergeant at Arms. I’d love to see that, because fair is fair. I don’t think anyone should have been prosecuted, certainly either of the two presidential advisors. They had immunity, and they were prosecuted and convicted in, I think, rigged proceedings nonetheless, and we really can’t have that. So hopefully at least that particular wrong is righted. That’s what I think we need – we need to really get smart on the Right and be prepared for these tactics and understand the rules of engagement have changed and meet those changes.
JOHN: Well said. In the end, I think a lot of Americans are shocked and very troubled by what has taken place over the last few years. And it really shaken the confidence in the justice system, the courts. And it’s sad to watch. Thank you so much for coming on.
HARMEET: Thank you. All right, take care.
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Catch the full interview with Harmeet Dhillon on the Sunday Edition of Morning Wire.
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