Senate Republicans demand second hearing for Biden DOJ pick Gupta after ‘misleading’ comments’

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have known as for President Biden’s pick for affiliate lawyer normal, Vanita Gupta, to return for a second spherical of hearings to reply for “misleading statements.”

All eleven Republican members of the committee penned a letter to Chairman Richard Durbin, D-Ill., requesting he schedule a second hearing to handle a litany of points the lawmakers had with what they maintain is her refusal to adequately reply questions.

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“Our call for a second hearing is not due to Ms. Gupta’s substantive views—either her longstanding views or her new ones claimed only since her nomination. It’s about her lack of candor with the Committee,” the group wrote.

The group homed in on 4 matters they need Gupta to make clear her stance on, together with her assist for eliminating certified immunity, decriminalizing all medicine, defunding the police and her demise penalty report.

Lawmakers accused her of a contradictory stance on “defunding the police” by pointing to statements she made in June 2020, when she steered communities have been “overspending on criminal-justice system infrastructure and policing.” But she later instructed lawmakers she believed this to be a misrepresentation and that she has advocated “for greater resources for law enforcement” all through her profession.

“Any claim that Ms. Gupta was not aware that the policies she espouses are what other activists mean by ‘defund the police,’ directly contradicts how she described her own policies just months ago,” the lawmakers wrote to Durbin.

Following Gupta’s at instances contentious hearing earlier this month, Senate Republicans issued her further questions they wished clarification on – however the responses solely additional annoyed GOP committee members.

“In some cases, she doubled down on her misleading statements from the hearing, and in others, she refused to answer altogether,” the group wrote of their letter. “In ‘response’ to scores of our questions, she merely copied-and-pasted the same inapplicable, general statements for one question after another.”

Fox News couldn’t instantly attain the Judiciary Committee chairman to verify whether or not he would schedule a second hearing, however the group of lawmakers pointed to Grupta’s personal calls for further questioning throughout a 2017 affirmation course of for two nominees underneath President Trump.

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In Gupta’s November 2017 letter to then-chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, she claimed two nominees lacked “credible evidence” and urged the committee to convey them again to query their “truthfulness under oath.”

“If the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to be taken seriously by this and future administrations, it must demand that nominees accurately respond to questions,” she wrote to Grassley.

Lawmakers mentioned that given her potential place on the Department of Justice, it’s “critical” that she could be trusted to “tell the truth.” They mentioned that they don’t consider that is the case with Gupta.