throughout her career, ms. gupta has worked across the partisan divide, forming broad coalitions to get things done when people said it was impossible. a great example of this is criminal justice reform. over a number of years, vanita gupta partnered with numerous conservatives, certifiable reported conservative. let me give you a couple of names. grover norquist. mark holden. the former general counsel of koch industries. these efforts helped lay the groundwork for the passage of the first step act, a bill which i worked on with senator grassley, senator lee, senator whitehouse, senator cornyn, a number of democrats, cory booker included. we put together a bipartisan bill signed into law by the president of the united states. vanita gupta was part of that effort. she knew how to put republicans and democrats at the table and come up with a reasonable compromise. isn't that exactly what we need at this moment in history? the judiciary committee has received so many letters from republicans supporting ms. gupta's nomi

when ms. gupta tried to distance herself from these previous positions that are published in black and white, here's what "the washington post" fact-check ers said. they said for this tango of previously unacknowledged flip-flops, gupta earns an upside down pinocchio. now, i've seen a one pinocchio, two pinocchio, three pinocchio, even a four, but i have never seen an upside down pinocchio. for a tango of previously unacknowledged flip-flops. the fact-check examines ms. gupta's confusing then and now statements on police budgets, qualified immunity, and drug policy, and this is what they found. now, i understand and respect the fact that people's opinions can change over time as we learn new information or have different experiences in life, we all understand that one's views can change, but there is a big difference between honestly forming a new opinion and undergoing confirmation conversion to bury radical views on controversial subjects. after all, how could anyone support a nominee who advocate

and so, thank god that we have merrick garland in a position and recently we had confirmed ms. guptare's different ways the investigations can happen in terms of the relationship between the department of justice or the police department at issue or city. along the scale of sort of like, active resistance and hostility on one end, which is some police departments and some police departments that at least in public, say we welcome this, we will partner on this. louisville at least seemsmore towards that. at least more in its public pronouncements. i wonder in your experience, how much that matters? >> that is a lot. because, really, what we are talking about is, the reason we have the statute at all is because congress determined in 1993 that prosecutions feed on to be systemic solutions. if you need it to be durable, you need leadership in the jurisdiction that is interested in having a systemic solution. it's going to carry it all the way. carry it once the cameras are gone, and once people are off to the next crisis. that it will continue to implement transparency and partnerships

like ms. gupta before her, ms. clarke has launched many personal attacks on federal judges, especially kavanaugh. evaluating judicial nominees is part of our constitutional duty. i think it is different for litigators and aspiring government lawyers to go around attacking federal judges and doing it publicly, questioning the integrity of judges and eagerly appearing before them means that you either are not looking out for your client's best interests or that you did not really mean your attack to begin with. i think mr. kim is a lot less controversial. nominated to run the environment and natural resources division, while it is still called that, he has a distinguished career as a courtroom advocate. i don't think i agree with him on much politically, but based on his record, i think he will enforce the rule of in the justice department. i will say that some of the activities of the justice department implicating his division do concern me at policy levels. predators -- president biden wants to shift its focus fro

gupta. present by ms. appealing to gop voters while lawmakers are in their districts.resident will make his second major sales pitch and is facing opposition from conservatives and business groups who are against proposed tax hikes. the u.s. says it will consult with allies about how to handle the winter olympics in beijing. that sparked discussion of the possible boycott over china's human rights record. within 160 human rights groups urge the international olympic committee to hold the beijing games elsewhere. the u.s. government will not issue vaccine -- official vaccine passports. there will be no database or mandate that everybody obtain a credential. some are pushing for people to show proof of vaccination. france's finance minister wants to know what happened with the recovery fund. he discussed the slow rollout in an exclusive interview with bloomberg. >> which is not on the right track is the recovery plan. it has not seen one single penny among the billions that have been decided last summer in 2020 . i am deeply concerned by the delay and implementation of t

ms. gupta did the same thing. both were instructed by their handlers, back pedal as quickly as possible from your advocacy in writing. ms. clarke says she doesn't support defunding the police. yesterday when ms. clarke came before the judiciary committee, i asked her straightforward if she still thinks, quote, dwunld the police is a unifying call. that's what she wrote. not ten years ago, not five years ago, last year. she wouldn't answer the question. instead she just repeated her talking points, i do not support defunding the police. as i told ms. clarke yesterday, that claim is objectively ridiculous. she asserted she doesn't advocate cutting the funding of police, which on its face was a lie. that same op-ed she wrote in "newsweek," there's no less than three separate paragraphs that begin with the following words, we must invest less in the police. three paragraphs in a row. now when you write three paragraphs that begin with, we must invest less in the police, we must invest less in the police, we must invest

when we confirm ms. gupta, she will be the first civil rights lawyered and the first woman of color to serve as the associate attorney general 689 and when we confirm ms. clarke, she will be the first senate-confirmed leader of the civil righted division to be a woman of color. and they will bring years of experience to bear to take on the challenges we have right now, like hate crimes, which we are taking action on this week in the senate; like voting rights, where we just had hearing today in the judiciary committee; a understand where in just a -- and where in just a few weeks we'll be marking up the for the people act in the rules committee, which i chair. as my state and the country are reeling after the dilling of daunte wright and as we await the verdict in the murder of george floyd, we need ms. go up at that and ms. clarke to take on police reform and criminal justice reform. they are the leaders that attorney general garland wants at the department. he said vanita gupta and kristen clarke, quote, hav

in pursuit of that goal, ms. gupta has also demonstrated her desire and ability to work with anyone, including those who might normally disagree with her. indeed, ms. gunpoint t.s.a. endorsements -- ms. gupta's endorsements from groups like the fraternal order of police and individuals like grover norquist confirm that she is a thoughtful listener, a bridge builder, and a consensus seeker. in this charged political era, it is hard to imagine that any other nominee for associate attorney general could give my republican colleagues more assurance that their views will be fairly considered at the department of justice. and yet our republican colleagues on the judiciary committee requested that ms. gupta's nomination be indefinitely stalled and that she be required to testify before the committee again. and when those demands were rightfully declined, they chose to vote en bloc against referring ms. gupta's nomination to the floor. but the opposition to ms. gupta's nomination is, frankly, frivolous. for four years now, the