“I Will Strongly Oppose Confirming Vanita Gupta to Serve as Associate Attorney General”
‘This nominee contrasts sharply with the resume and reputation of Attorney General Garland, whom I voted to confirm. The White House needs to make a better choice for this key post. The Senate should create that opportunity by voting “no” today.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding nominations:
“Over the past few months, Senate Republicans have made clear that we believe a President is entitled to choose qualified, mainstream nominees to staff the executive branch and receive prompt and fair treatment from the Senate.
“I would say the 50 Senate Republicans have treated President Biden’s nominees more fairly than Senate Democrats treated the last president’s.
“But the nominee we’re considering this week is way outside the mainstream.
“I will strongly oppose confirming Vanita Gupta to serve as Associate Attorney General, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
“Ms. Gupta has spent her career, in large part, as an activist for left-wing causes. Her work for high-profile liberal interest groups and the Obama Justice Department have left a record of astoundingly radical positions.
“Those far-left positions were loud and proud until the prospect of this promotion seemed to change the nominee’s tune.
“Previously this nominee stated that, quote, ‘states should decriminalize simple possession of all drugs’. But now Ms. Gupta claims her position has ‘evolved’.
“At her confirmation hearing, she refused to say she’d accept any limitations on abortions, up to and including partial-birth. That puts her at odds with nearly 70% of Americans across the political spectrum.
“Recently Ms. Gupta has insisted she can be trusted to oppose efforts to defund law enforcement. But she told the Judiciary Committee just last year that state and local leaders should ‘heed calls’ from groups demanding that they ‘decrease police budgets’.
“This nomination has revealed a lengthy trail of radical claims and hasty backtracks.
“But there are also questions of temperament.
“This nominee has repeatedly amplified left-wing fearmongering toward judicial nominees and sitting federal judges. She’s levied ad hominem attacks on members of this body.
“And during the confirmation process, she employed the loosest possible interpretation of her oath to deliver honest testimony, even drawing the ire of the liberal Washington Post for transparent flip-flops and misleading Senators about her own public statements.
“This nominee contrasts sharply with the resume and reputation of Attorney General Garland, whom I voted to confirm.
“The White House needs to make a better choice for this key post. The Senate should create that opportunity by voting “no” today.”
Related Issues: Nominations, Senate Democrats
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