Arya Hariharan (2012)
Chief Oversight Counsel, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives
About
Arya Hariharan is Chief Oversight Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee. She has worked on Capitol Hill since 2015 serving in multiple roles, including Legislative Director to Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), and covering a wide-ranging policy issues.
Arya joined the House Judiciary Committee in 2017. She managed the Committee’s team through the two impeachments and senate trials of President Trump. She also helped lead the Committee’s investigations into obstruction of justice by President Trump; political interference in the Department of Justice; the policy of family separation; competition in digital markets; the FBI’s actions surrounding the 2016 election; foreign election interference; and FISA abuse. Her legislative portfolio for the Committee include anti-corruption, transparency, privacy, surveillance, cybersecurity, drones, consumer protection, election security, hate crimes, and counterterrorism.
When she joined Rep. Johnson's office as Legislative Director & Senior Counsel in November 2015, Arya managed his legislative agenda and supervised the DC office. She covered his work on the Judiciary Committee and Armed Services Committee in addition to his cybersecurity, telecom, tech, environment, healthcare, election security, foreign affairs, and energy policy portfolio. This included developing the first bill designating election systems as critical infrastructure and passing legislation to safeguard Americans from the disparate disposal of coal ash in disadvantaged communities.
Prior to working on Capitol Hill, Arya was an Associate Legislative Counsel for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, with a focus on access to the courts, regulatory reform, and judicial nominations. Before that she was the State Affairs Counsel for the American Association for Justice, where she lobbied on state and federal issues related to access to the courts, civil litigation, and consumer protection matters.