Indiana attorney general wants Biden to pull nomination of lawyer for Justice Department job

(The Center Square) – Indiana’s new attorney general, Todd Rokita, signed onto a letter to President Joe Biden on Monday, asking him to pull his nomination of a critical race theory lawyer to be one of the top attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice.

“As the chief legal officers of Indiana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, we write today to urge you to withdraw the nomination of Vanita Gupta for Associate Attorney General,” the letter says, “Ms. Gupta’s past comments and track record have demonstrated her disinterest in meaningful police reform in favor of destructive policies that would defund the police. Her nomination will further divide our nation instead of implementing policies to protect our communities and support law enforcement.”

The letter goes on to say that given Gupta’s recent comments about police, putting her in a senior position at the Department of Justice would “seriously damage” the relationship the department has with law enforcement agencies.

“Now more than ever,” it says, “the public ought to be fully confident and reassured that the relationship between the federal government and local law enforcement exudes mutual cooperation and respect.”

Vanita Gupta was head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice under President Barack Obama, from 2014 to 2017. She left after Donald Trump won election in 2016 and appointed Jeff Sessions the new attorney general. Before the Justice Department, she was the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In Rokita’s letter, dated March 1, he references comments Gupta made to NPR in December of 2020 in which she appeared to say that the Department of Justice needs be moving away from enforcing laws following the death of George Floyd, saying, “The Justice Department is going to have to do something deeper to look at, not just using a policing approach, but creating public safety for people in crisis.”

As Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Gupta led the investigation into the Baltimore Police Department following the death of Freddie Gray in a police transport vehicle, finding that the department’s actions had a disparate impact on black people.

In testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2020, she said that she believes racism in American is widespread.

“I don’t think there is an institution in this county that isn’t suffering from structural racism given our history,” she told the senators.

Gupta was born in Philadelphia. Her parents are immigrants from India.

When asked at the Senate hearing by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, specifically about her views about Americans, she said she believes all Americans have biases toward people of color.

“I think we all have implicit bias and racial bias, yes I do,” she said.

Gupta has expressed support for critical race theory, which posits that the United States is racist by design.

In the letter to Biden, Rokita also criticized Gupta for saying she wanted to “decrease police budgets.”

“Ms. Gupta has a history of making radical statements that do not support providing law enforcement with the resources needed to succeed,” he wrote. “Instead, she wants to shift scarce resources to other priorities rather than hire more police.”

The letter went on to say that Gupta “has demonstrated a hostility to rank and file law enforcement” and that if confirmed by the Senate, the country will see “higher crime rates, more families torn apart by homicides and other violent crime, and neighborhoods where kids feel like they have no choice other than to take part in a life of crime.”

It also cited Gupta’s support for allowing biological men who consider themselves transgender to compete in women’s sports.

“Her worldview and low esteem of Americans are far outside the mainstream in the United States,” it says in closing.

The U.S. Senate will hold a hearing March 7 to consider Gupta’s nomination, and will likely vote on her confirmation that same day.

Rokita, since taking office as Indiana’s attorney general in January, has taken a strong stand against tech censorship, pledging to investigate it, and to do whatever he can to stop it.

Rokita was Indiana’s Secretary of State from 2002 to 2010 and was a member of Congress representing Indiana’s 4th congressional district from 2011 to 2019.

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