'Senator, I Think You're Misinformed': Dhillon And Welch Have Tense Exchange About TX Redistricting

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At Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) had a tense exchange with Assistant AG Harmeet Dhillon about Texas redistricting.

Transcript

00:00I want to ask you a question about Texas redistricting. As you know, President Trump

00:16has recently encouraged, I'll use that, Texas Republicans to do mid-cycle redistricting in

00:22order to gain more seats in the House of Representatives. I understand that after

00:28the President made that decision or that announcement, you personally sent a letter

00:33on July 7 to Texas in your capacity as Assistant Attorney General, arguing that four Democratic

00:40districts violate federal law. Is that the case? It is the case that I sent a letter under my

00:49authority to administer the Voting Rights Act and indicate that in light of our analysis of four

00:56so-called coalition districts in Texas, that those districts were inconsistent with the Voting

01:02Rights Act. And the date of July 7 was just coincidental that it occurred after the President

01:08had called on the Texas legislature to do mid-decade redistricting? I don't remember what date,

01:15Senator. I probably sent 300 letters since I've been in this office. And so what I can say is that

01:20I send no letter or make no request without proper investigation. Have you sent any other state

01:27legislature a letter where you have indicated that districts within their state are in violation of

01:35federal law? Not yet. More redistricting to come? I don't know. I have to investigate the facts.

01:44Before you sent the letter on July 7, did you have any conversation with any representatives of the

01:51White House? Senator, as you're aware, there are privileges that are involved in all executive

01:57branch communications. And without, I'm not able to testify without breaching the Department of

02:04Justice's guidelines in that regard. So I'm unable to answer any questions about conversations I may

02:08have had with other executive branch officials. I'm not asking you what the content of the

02:13conversation was. I'm asking whether there was any conversation with anyone from the White House

02:20before you sent that July 7 letter. Senator, I have the same answer. I think you're aware of the scope,

02:26the broad scope of privileges that apply to lawyers' conduct. Well, here's what I'm aware of.

02:31The President made a directive, which is highly unusual, telling a legislature, the Texas legislature,

02:38mid-decade to do redistricting, when we do that every 10 years. And it just so happened that the

02:46Assistant Attorney General sent a letter to that legislature after the President made his announcement

02:52and said that your investigation suggests four districts are in violation of federal law.

03:00Is there a question, Senator?

03:02There's a point here that it's hard to believe that that wasn't coordinated.

03:09Well, let me draw your attention to a different fact that refutes your argument, namely the governor of the

03:16state that I called home for 25 years also called for redistricting in the state of California.

03:22And I haven't sent a letter to California. So correlation is not causation, Senator.

03:26Which four districts did you say are in violation?

03:31I did not come here to testify about that, but if you wish to have a follow-up with me about it,

03:35I'm happy to pull up my research. I'm not...

03:39Would I be surprised that those were Democratic districts?

03:45I don't know how to answer that, Senator. I'm not here to testify about that.

03:49I'm sure it's convenient to try to distract from the purpose of this hearing, which is to talk about DEI,

03:55but that is not what I'm prepared to testify about here today, Senator.

04:00You have put a freeze on activities that the Justice Department in your division had done before,

04:07and you have walked out of settlements.

04:13I'm going to talk about Lowndes County in Alabama.

04:17Senator, I think you're misinformed. There was a temporary freeze prior to my taking office.

04:22There's no freeze on activities.

04:24I filed numerous lawsuits, opened dozens and dozens of investigations,

04:28entered into numerous settlements,

04:30opened hate crime investigations involving numerous religious backgrounds.

04:33So I don't know what you're talking about, Senator.

04:35Senator.

04:36Well...

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