Former senior Trump administration official Ricky Gill is gearing up to run for a seat in Congress in 2022, sources close to the campaign told the Washington Free Beacon.
Gill is running to replace Rep. Josh Harder (D.) in California’s 10th District, which Republicans view as vulnerable for Democrats amid the Biden administration’s plummeting approval ratings. The National Republican Congressional Committee sees Gill as a viable candidate to defeat the incumbent and help the GOP’s bid to retake control of the House in 2022, according to sources close to the campaign. Gill, if victorious, would be the only Indian American in the Republican conference. He is set to formally file the paperwork for his run on Friday afternoon, a source close to the campaign told the Free Beacon.
Gill was a central foreign policy figure in the Trump administration and worked on signature achievements, such as moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. As a member of the State Department’s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Gill helped oversee the relocation effort, guiding the real estate process that secured a facility site in Jerusalem. He also managed the State Department’s massive real estate portfolio, which includes compounds in nearly every country across the globe.
Gill left the State Department in 2020 for the White House National Security Council, where he served under National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien as a director in the European and Russian Affairs Directorate. In this role, Gill worked to stymie progress on Russia’s NordStream 2 pipeline, which critics see as a way for Moscow to take control of Europe’s energy supplies. While serving on the security council, Gill also worked on Trump administration efforts to counter Chinese influence in Europe.
Since leaving government, Gill has worked as a pundit, pushing against NordStream 2 and Russia’s malign activities.
Harder was elected to his House seat in 2018 when he defeated Republican incumbent Jeff Denham by just 5 points. He was reelected in 2020 by an 11-point margin.
