Vanita Gupta makes historical past as the primary feminine civil rights lawyer to function Affiliate Legal professional Normal

Gupta has was the goal of Nearly $ 1 million worth of attack ads She was also attacked by the far-right judicial crisis network and a group of Republican attorneys general, focusing on her work at the Obama Justice Department, where she led an investigation into police departments after white officials killed blacks. These attacks came despite the ardent endorsements of many law enforcement officials. “She has always worked with us to find common ground, even when it seemed impossible,” wrote the head of the country’s largest police union.

At their confirmation hearing, Senator Tom Cotton sneered at Gupta for having the nerve to believe implicit bias is a real thing and tried to reverse it by asking, “What races are you racially biased against?” Cotton also alleged that Gupta supported the “decriminalization of all drugs,” which she did not, and that she misled the Senate Judiciary Committee about her stance on decriminalization, which she failed to do.

The republican attacks were not carried out there. On Wednesday, as the Senate headed towards a vote on Gupta’s nomination, minority leader Mitch McConnell painted Gupta as “a record of amazingly radical positions”. The notoriously dishonest McConnell also attacked Gupta’s honesty, accusing him of “attacking members of this body and using the loosest interpretation of her oath to bear honest testimony during the verification process.” The attacks on Gupta’s truthfulness essentially come because she said she would represent the positions of the Biden administration as it has represented other organizations in the past, be it the Obama Justice Department or the ACLU. This is a standard position for a candidate to take, but when it comes from a woman of color it is portrayed as a character problem.

Gupta is by no means the only black woman whose endorsement has met with cruel republican attacks in recent months. Home Secretary Deb Haaland, the first ever Indian cabinet member, was also labeled “radical” during her approval process. Former Sens. Tom Udall and Mark Udall commented, “Was either of us the nominee to run the Home Office? We doubt anyone would threaten to hold up the nomination or launch a scorched earth campaign warning of “radical” ideas. “

Many of the same Republicans who had failed to hear Donald Trump’s most outrageous tweets in four years were extremely knowledgeable about every highly worded tweet ever from Neera Tanden, a former candidate for the management office and budget. Her nomination was ultimately sunk by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, allegedly because of those tweets, even though Manchin had voted to confirm the full-on misogynist Twitter troll Richard Grenell as ambassador to Germany under Trump.

Most recently, Republicans Kristen Clarke, Biden’s candidate to head the Department of Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, brought out almost the same game book they tried against Gupta: She’s a civil rights radical – how dare she! In fact, she is the true racist, be it because she wrote a satire on The Bell Curve as a student or because she demanded accountability for police killings of civilians.

If Republicans were to distribute their poison evenly among Biden’s candidates, you’d say they just hate all Democrats. But that’s not what happens here. There is a very clear pattern of particularly violent, personal opposition to women of skin color, and it doesn’t seem like Senate Republicans mind how obvious it is either.