Meet the newly-confirmed DOJ official who will serve as a bridge between progressives and the Biden White House
- The Senate has confirmed Vanita Gupta to be associate attorney general, the DOJ’s No. 3 leadership position.
- Gupta is a civil-rights advocate who has supported giving law enforcement more resources to do its job.
- Her experience in civil rights and advocacy work has made her a favorite among progressive groups.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
The president of one of the country’s top police unions braced himself for a phone call in February that he expected wasn’t going to be easy.
On the other end of the line was Vanita Gupta, a well-known civil rights champion, who at the time had just been nominated to serve under Attorney General Merrick Garland as the third highest-ranking official at the Justice Department.
But Larry Cosme, the national president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, recounted in a recent interview that his conversation with Gupta turned out to be anything but contentious.
“She was very straightforward,” he told Insider. “She fielded every question that I presented to her, and I thought that was very impressive.”
Their call lasted for a little under an hour, and the two people who have been on opposite sides of a longstanding national debate over law enforcement in the US found themselves in a productive dialogue about policies surrounding police reform and the need for more de-escalation training for law enforcement officers.
Contrary to all the 2020 presidential campaign talk about defunding the police, he said they also found common ground on giving law enforcement agencies a bigger budget.
It signaled to Cosme that Gupta, who the Senate confirmed on Wednesday to be associate attorney general, could be an important ally to police unions and other groups who may not share her same point of view. That’s critical if Biden is going to make progress on some of the issues that go to the core of the grievances raised last summer during nationwide protests over law enforcement’s treatment of people of color in the United States.
“I truly believe that she’s willing to work with us,” Cosme said.
‘Open and accessible’
Gupta’s extensive experience in civil rights and advocacy work has also made her a favorite among progressive groups. That’s due to her time working in the Justice Department during President Barack Obama’s second term, when she was known for having phone calls similar to the one she had with Cosme.
“She is open and accessible and willing to talk to people who have differing perspectives and to help share their concerns with the larger group of which she is a part of,” said Wade Henderson, the interim president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Progressive and civil rights groups say Gupta will serve as a bridge between their world and the White House to achieve criminal justice reform.
The 46-year-old attorney’s nomination has enjoyed broad support from several police unions and even conservative crusaders like Grover Norquist.
Vanita Gupta served asPresident Barack Obama’s chief civil rights prosecutor at the Justice Department.The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights
‘Relationship builder’
Gupta’s civil rights work dates back nearly two decades.
She established herself working at NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, helping exonerate dozens of Black residents from Tulia, Texas, who were wrongly convicted on drug-related charges due to uncorroborated testimony by a police officer.
She later led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division for the final three years of the Obama administration and oversaw several investigations into police departments that at the time were going through their own high-profile controversies.
The list included the Ferguson Police Department in St. Louis County, Missouri, which had come under fire when one of its officers shot and killed Michael Brown Jr., an 18-year-old unarmed Black man.
During a joint confirmation hearing for Gupta and Lisa Monaco, Biden’s nominee to be the deputy attorney general, Gupta described herself as a “relationship builder.”
“When approaching the most entrenched problems of our time, I have been able to forge alliances across the political spectrum and build relationships of trust,” Gupta told the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 9.
Norquist, the conservative icon who runs the group Americans for Tax Reform, ventured into unfamiliar policy terrain when he worked with Gupta in Ferguson to help reform policing practices in the city. He told Insider he witnessed firsthand her ability to form across-the-aisle partnerships.
“She has worked with many different people in the broad coalition on criminal justice reform and has treated the people that she worked with respect and understood their arguments and didn’t try to railroad people,” he said.
Norquist added that he never witnessed Gupta trying to coerce individuals into adopting her perspective on police reform. Instead, she would spend her time finding common ground and creating policies where both she and the other person could agree.
Police unions have welcomed Biden’s nomination of Vanita Gupta to be the DOJ’s No. 3 official.Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images
What to do about the Minneapolis PD
Progressive groups see Gupta’s confirmation as a testament to the Biden administration’s commitment to implementing bolder criminal justice reforms.
Gupta previously called on Congress to eliminate qualified immunity, a Supreme Court doctrine that protects law enforcement officers from civil lawsuits under certain conditions.
In June, following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by police while under arrest, she published a Washington Post op-ed calling for the Justice Department to open a “pattern and practice” investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Tuesday that the DOJ will open that very kind of probe into the Minnesota department following the guilty verdict against former police officer Derek Chauvin.
Pattern and practice investigations are authorized under a 1994 crime law signed by President Bill Clinton that Biden played a key role in writing while serving as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It allows the Justice Department to sue law enforcement agencies that are engaged in work that “deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
“While criminal accountability is essential, it alone is insufficient because prosecuting an individual officer or officers will not address the underlying systemic issues plaguing the Minneapolis Police Department, even with a chief who has pushed some reforms,” Gupta wrote in her op-ed.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle also pressed then-Attorney General William Barr to open a review into the Minneapolis police department. But their efforts were unsuccessful.
A ‘dangerous appointee’?
Gupta will oversee several key Justice Department agencies, including the civil rights, antitrust, and tax divisions.
But she’s faced off against Senate Republicans who have criticized her over past statements made about the police and on Supreme Court justices appointed by GOP presidents.
“She called the confirmation of now Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett ‘illegitimate.’ She called Judge Kavanaugh a ‘privileged lifelong partisan,'” Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said during Gupta’s confirmation hearing.
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz complained that Gupta had extremely partisan views during her Senate confirmation hearing.
“As I look at your record on every single issue, the positions you’ve advocated for are on the extreme left and you’ve demonstrated an intolerance for and hostility to anyone that disagrees with the extreme left political positions,” he said.
Conservative organizations also went hard after Gupta while she awaited Senate confirmation. The Judicial Crisis Network in one of its attack ads called her a “dangerous appointee.”
“She supports defunding the police and led a group that wants to reduce punishments on white supremacists, even terrorists. While our cities burned Gupta could have stood for law and order for victims. Instead, she advocated to let convicts out of jail,” the 30-second ad said.
Gupta is the first woman of color and the first civil-rights lawyer to serve as the associate attorney general. Many of her supporters saw the conservative attacks against her as a last-ditch effort to block another one of Biden’s nominees of color.
They note how Neera Tanden, Biden’s first pick to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget, couldn’t get confirmed amid criticism from Republicans and some Democrats that she’d been too aggressive in her social media posts. And then there’s California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Biden’s appointee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. He squeaked through his Senate confirmation in mid-March with a final floor vote of 50-49.
“Sadly, I’m not surprised at all,” said Damon Hewitt, acting president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “It’s frankly a part of how systemic structural racism works.”
“It’s troubling to see at a professional level,” he added of Gupta, “because I know the bonafide of her record, and on a personal level, as someone who has known her and her wonderful family for many years.”
This story originally published on March 15, 2021. It’s been updated upon Gupta’s Senate confirmation.
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