CNN report suggests GOP senators oppose two Biden DOJ nominees because they're 'women of color'

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Grassley calls out Biden DOJ nominee Vanita Gupta for partisan attacks on GOP

Associate Attorney General nominee Vanita Gupta sits for confirmation hearing.

A CNN report on Tuesday suggested that Republican senators may be opposing the confirmation of two of President Biden's Justice Department nominees because they're women of color. 

There has been significant pushback from GOP lawmakers against Vanita Gupta, who is Biden's pick for associate attorney general, and Kristen Clarke, the nominee to head the  Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. 

Gupta has been under fire for her past hostile rhetoric toward Republicans, for which she expressed regret during her confirmation hearing.

Clarke, meanwhile, has been scrutinized for her past stances, including favoring some form of defunding the police, her declaration that Black people have "greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities," and once hosting Professor Tony Martin, who has faced allegations of anti-Semitism, to speak at Harvard when she was the president of the university's Black Students Association. 

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A report from CNN framed the GOP opposition toward Gupta and Clarke's nominations as unfair.

"Some Republicans seem to be laying the groundwork to stop [Biden's DOJ nominees] from being confirmed by resorting to what critics see is a decades-long practice Republicans use against Democratic officials from the civil rights community: misleading attacks," CNN anchor Jake Tapper led the report. 

CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip kicked off her reporting by stressing that the two nominees were both "women of color" who were "on the receiving end of some of the most expensive and intense attacks by conservatives of any of his nominees," playing a clip of an ad produced by the Judicial Crisis Network. 

"In false and misleading multimillion-dollar ads like this, Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, both seasoned civil rights attorneys, are being painted as radical choices," Phillip said. 

Throughout the segment, the chyron that appears on the bottom of the screen read, "UNDER ATTACK: REPUBLICANS ATTACK TWO BIDEN NOMINEES OF COLOR UP FOR TOP SPOTS AT DOJ."

CNN then quoted NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill, who referred to the GOP opposition as a "barrier that has been erected" that forces such civil rights appointees to "go through a gauntlet" in order to be confirmed. 

Phillip alleged that Republicans were using a "similar playbook" that had been used against past Democratic presidents, which is "conjuring fears about crime and accusations that they would implement preferential treatment for racial minorities."

"Gupta and Clarke are just two nominees of color who have faced difficult paths to confirmation in a narrowly divided Senate, leading to accusations that they are being targeted because of their race or gender," Phillip said while showing graphics of the two nominees alongside Health and Human Services secretary nominee Xavier Becerra, Interior Secretary nominee Deb Haaland, and withdrawn Office of Management and Budget director nominee Neera Tanden, ignoring the several nominees of color in Biden's cabinet that have already been confirmed. 

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The report adds a brief quote from Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, who firmly rejected the notion that opposing a nominee doesn't mean you're "racist or sexist."

Phillip concluded her reporting by telling Tapper, "A lot of people watching this say, 'This all seems to indicate that speaking frankly about race will be held against you if you're up for one of these civil rights posts' and it calls into question whether, you know, things have really changed very much since last year's supposed racial reckoning on race, on criminal justice after those protests last summer."