Carrie Severino: Biden Justice Department nominee Gupta too extreme for associate AG -- here's why
The associate attorney general is a powerful figure at the DOJ
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}During his inaugural address, President Biden waxed poetically about "unity not division." But not even a month later, he is delivering a steady diet of extremism – both in his policies and his top-level executive branch nominees.
One of these extremist nominees is named Vanita Gupta.
You may not have heard her name before, but she’s been nominated to be associate attorney general at the Department of Justice – the agency’s No. 3 official.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The associate attorney general is a powerful figure at the DOJ, "formulating and implementing Departmental policies and programs pertaining to a broad range of civil justice, federal and local law enforcement, and public safety matters," according to the DOJ’s website.
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So it’s a major problem that Vanita Gupta wants to defund the police.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}When talk about defunding law enforcement gained steam last summer, Gupta spoke approvingly of the "local conversations about budgets" that were then taking place in Minneapolis and "all over the country."
FILE-- Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled Police Use of Force and Community Relations, in Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, June 16, 2020. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images/POOL) (Getty Images)
Gupta has asserted that "Police reform is not going to solve the problem of police violence." Instead, she has said that we must "fundamentally look at what kind of investments" are made in law enforcement. Moreover, Gupta said the Justice Department must examine "not just using a policing approach" to keep communities safe.
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Consider the environment in which Gupta made these statements. Our cities were burning. Murder rates were soaring. Innocent people were witnessing their property and livelihoods being destroyed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Gupta could have stood up for the victims, but went the opposite direction. Is this who we really want developing and implementing federal and local law enforcement policy?
When Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked Gupta at a 2020 hearing on police reform if she believed "all Americans are racist," she replied, "I think we all have implicit bias and racial bias."
Disturbingly, the organization that she led, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, wants to reduce punishments for White supremacists and even terrorists.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Gupta has also shamefully criticized efforts by parents of violent crime victims to strengthen criminal laws, calling them "lawmaking by anecdote" and asserting, "States are too broke to afford emotion-criminal justice policymaking."
It’s hard to think of a more radical selection than Vanita Gupta to be associate attorney general.
If these statements sound like the words of a liberal activist more than someone who has been nominated to help lead the nation’s top law enforcement agency, you are on to something. Gupta is deeply entrenched in the world of left-wing activism and dark money.
After serving as the head of the Civil Rights Division in President Obama’s DOJ, Gupta became president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which has received funding from Arabella Advisors’ Sixteen Thirty Fund. Gupta also ran the Leadership Conference Education Fund, which received over $1 million from Arabella’s New Venture Fund.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Arabella Advisors’ network funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to dark money groups for the purpose of advancing countless far-left causes.
A review of Gupta’s career history suggests that she will be an enemy not only of law enforcement at DOJ but also of religious liberty as she wages the far left’s culture war from her government post.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In 2017, Gupta was critical of the position that came to be the Supreme Court’s holding in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, i.e., that a Christian baker could not be required to design and create a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage as a public accommodation.
After the court ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor last year, permitting them an exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate violating their religious beliefs, Gupta called it a "troubling decision." Given that Gupta will oversee DOJ civil rights policy and enforcement if she is confirmed, the faith community should be alarmed.
As the chief civil rights prosecutor at the Justice Department during the Obama administration, Gupta argued that prisons should be forced to use taxpayer dollars to pay for hormone treatments for transgender inmates. Last year, she asserted that transgender student athletes who identify as female must be allowed to compete in girls’ sports in school.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Lastly, Gupta has been a vocal proponent of packing the Supreme Court. In the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, she was asked about the likelihood of Democrats packing the courts if they took control after the November election.
Gupta, who was a leading voice of opposition to Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, responded that "nothing is off the table." It’s no wonder that Demand Justice (also funded by Arabella) named Gupta to its suggested list of Supreme Court nominees last year.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It’s hard to think of a more radical selection than Vanita Gupta to be associate attorney general.
Rather than following through on his promise of pursuing unity, President Biden instead is proving how willing he is to advance the far-left agendas of the dark money groups that elected him by nominating one of their own.