Ranking member Peter Welch questioned Assistant Attorney General Harmit Dhillon during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing about a July 7 letter she sent to Texas asserting that four so-called coalition districts were inconsistent with the Voting Rights Act.

“Is it the case that you personally sent a letter on July 7 to Texas in your capacity as assistant attorney general arguing that four Democratic districts violate federal law?” Welch asked during the hearing.

“It is the case that I sent a letter under my authority to administer the Voting Rights Act and indicate that in light of our analysis of four so called coalition districts in Texas, that those districts were inconsistent with the Voting Rights Act,” Dhillon replied.

Welch pressed further about timing and possible coordination with the White House after President Trump encouraged mid-decade redistricting in Texas. Dhillon declined to say whether she had spoken to White House officials before sending the letter, citing executive branch privileges. “There are privileges that are involved in all executive branch communications and without, I'm not able to testify without breaching the Department of Justice's guidelines,” she said.

Dhillon added that she sends letters only after proper investigation and said she had sent many letters since taking office: “I probably sent 300 letters since I've been in this office. And so what I can say is that I send no letter or make no request without proper investigation.”

Welch said he found it “hard to believe” the letter’s timing was not coordinated, citing the president’s public call for mid-decade redistricting. Dhillon disputed the implication by noting that other governors had requested redistricting and she had not sent similar letters in those cases, saying “correlation is not causation.”

The exchange did not produce documentary confirmation of coordination; Dhillon maintained that she could not disclose executive-branch communications and that her office acted on its analysis of the districts. The subcommittee record includes the letter as an action described by Dhillon but the hearing did not establish whether privileged communications occurred.