After Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon acknowledged she is expanding the mission of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to include a sharp focus on protecting and enforcing the Second Amendment, as noted by the Daily Caller, the establishment media went on the attack.

Instead of even mentioning her interest in gun rights, major media news outlets portrayed her as endangering voting rights and protecting minorities from discrimination. For example, MSNBC’s spin was to report what appears to be a mass exodus of Civil Rights Division attorneys, blaming Dhillon’s political agenda and referring to her as a “MAGA lawyer.”.

“Rather than execute the Trump administration’s oppressive plans to weaponize the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division against political enemies, dozens of DOJ attorneys have chosen to walk off the job instead,” MSNBC reported.

“When MAGA lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, a key figure in Donald Trump’s bogus attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss, was nominated to lead the DOJ’s civil rights efforts, it seemed clear the division was poised to abandon — if not outright attack — the rights it has historically stood to protect,” the report added.

It is as though the networks decided if they ignore Dhillon’s comments about protecting gun rights, and concentrate their energy on smearing her unpopular politics, her Second Amendment remarks either never happened or the story will just go away.

Here’s what Dhillon said during an interview with conservative commentator Glenn Beck: “The new project I’ve got going in the civil rights division to the surprise of many people on both sides is the Second Amendment.” That interview is featured in a new YouTube post by attorney Mark W. Smith at the Four Boxes Diner.

“Who is protecting the Second Amendment in the federal government,” she asked rhetorically. “Prior Republican administrations haven’t paid a lot of attention to affirmatively doing that, but in the wake of clear guidance from the United States Supreme Court, to own and use firearms…city after city or state after state are eviscerating those rights. They are mocking the Supreme Court by passing laws that make it virtually impossible.”

But does this interest the Los Angeles Times? Evidently not, as the newspaper led its 1,241-word report with this: “California’s two U.S. senators have joined with Democratic colleagues to demand answers from the Trump loyalist and Californian now heading the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, amid reports that she and other officials have pushed out senior leaders and imposed hard-right policies at odds with the department’s mission.

“In a letter sent Friday to Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon,” the Times continued, “seven senators — including Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California — cited reports that Dhillon had emailed directives changing long-standing enforcement goals to employees, including in sections that are ‘meant to protect voting rights, prevent discrimination by federal funding recipients, investigate illegal bias in housing, prohibit discrimination in education, and defend the rights of those with disabilities.’”

Essentially, defending all rights except the Second Amendment seems to be the media’s mission.

CNN reported, “Approximately 70% of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is expected to accept a second offer to federal workers that allows them to resign from their positions and be paid through September, according to a source familiar with the situation.”

One paragraph later, CNN added, “The mass exodus comes as the division is being converted into a unit that prioritizes the Trump administration’s goals like dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, reversing policies on transgender rights, and combating antisemitism.”

Once again, not a word about Dhillon’s intent to protect the Second Amendment from state and local restrictions.

The Washington Examiner reported, “Dhillon’s sharp pivot toward curbing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and combating antisemitism and anti-Christian sentiments is driving what reports say will amount to a loss of around 70% of the Civil Rights Division’s roughly 340 employees.

“But Dhillon,” the Examiner continued, “a conservative attorney who has long focused on civil liberties, told the Washington Examiner she is unfazed by the exodus, which has largely involved employees accepting buyout offers to resign.”

In her interview with Beck, Dhillon criticized recent news that California agencies will now accept carry permit applications from non-state residents. “California is, wink-wink, nudge, nudge allowing you to apply for a concealed carry in multiple places and then they don’t staff the departments to do the interviews,” she said.

“I came here to DC,” she noted. “I have firearms, I’m a firearms owner. I inquired about the process. It’s months before I can get an appointment with the chief of the police or the department to even apply to exercise my Second Amendment rights. Well…I’m not happy about that, and I might be doing something about that.

“New York has a host of laws,” Dhillon observed, “that are different in upstate New York and different in New York City and they all violate the constitution, so we will be working together to make this a focus of the Civil Rights Division.”

Could this new focus be causing alarm in states where gun rights have been under relentless attack for years? Could that focus also be bothering the media, which has been traditionally unfriendly toward the Second Amendment?

When Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in early April that she was forming a “Second Amendment Task Force” to investigate possible 2A infringements, the establishment media also didn’t give it much attention. The Hill, the newspaper covering all things relating to Capitol Hill and government, headlined its story, “DOJ establishing task force to push Trump gun agenda.” The story’s lead paragraph read, “The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday created a Second Amendment Task Force to advance President Trump’s agenda on gun legislation while easing regulation on ownership laws.”

All of this amounts to increasing evidence that the Trump administration and the Bondi Justice Department are serious about protecting the Second Amendment and putting the heat on anti-gun states and politicians. It is a confrontation that has been decades in the making.

RELATED:

• Gun Owners in Embattled States Beg for Bondi’s ‘2A Task Force’ Attention
• Gun Rights Group to Bondi: Target 2A Violations in 12 Specific States
• CCRKBA Launches Petition to Bondi for ‘Dirty Dozen’ Investigations

About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.