Joyce Vance:

Hey, folks. Joyce Vance here. Preet is out this week. So today we’re bringing you a special episode of the CAFE Insider Podcast. United States Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta joins me to reflect on her first year in office. Gupta has dedicated her life to public service. She led the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration. Then she served as president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Joyce Vance:

Earlier in her career she spearheaded high-profile cases at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and at the ACLU Center for Justice and Equality. Now as associate attorney general, Gupta oversees an array of DOJ units, including the civil, civil rights, antitrust, and environment and natural resources division. So, it’s our honor to have with us today Vanita Gupta, the associate attorney general of the justice department. Madam associate attorney general it really is a pleasure and happy one-year anniversary at the department of justice to you.

Vanita Gupta:

Joyce, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you and you’re not allowed to call me Madam associate attorney general another time.

Joyce Vance:

Okay. But I had to do it once to be fair.

Vanita Gupta:

Fair.

Joyce Vance:

I mean, I’ll just jump right in and say, it’s an important job you have. You’re the number three person at the justice department and unlike most associate attorneys general, your background is as a civil rights lawyer, which is really unique. Many of your predecessors, ones that I had really the privilege of working for and working with, had experience at big law firms doing civil defense work.

Joyce Vance:

Some of them had done stints prosecutors, but none that I’m aware of litigated cases for the legal defense fund or ran litigation programs at the ACLU. And you were also the acting attorney general for the civil rights division during the Obama administration. And after that you were the president of the leadership conference on civil rights and human rights. So how do your credentials, which are pretty unusual, affect how you do the job?

Vanita Gupta:

Well, it’s true that I am the first civil rights lawyer in a top three leadership position at the justice department. And I think it gives me kind of a unique perspective on the work that we do across the department. The attorney general from his very first day has made clear that he has three priorities. One is keeping Americans safe, then defending the rule of law and protecting civil rights. And he thinks of these things as co-equal.

Vanita Gupta:

And I think what I’m able to bring as associate attorney general and a former civil rights lawyer is a perspective across all of the work that we are doing to show kind of that civil rights needs to run through all of it. Obviously, the civil rights division is uniquely tasked with enforcing our federal civil rights laws, but actually the work to protect civil rights lives in our federal law enforcement components, the civil division, the antitrust division, all of the environment and natural resources division.

Vanita Gupta:

This is work that actually is advanced through every part of the department. And I think that every morning when we have a leadership meeting, the deputy attorney general and I with the attorney general, I’m able to provide that perspective across the work that we do and make sure that we are actually living up to our mission and to his priorities.

Joyce Vance:

So give me a concrete example of how it matters to have someone like you at the table. Is there a specific instance you can think of where the civil rights perspective really influenced the course of decision making?

Vanita Gupta:

Yeah. I mean, honestly, it influences it across the board. When I think about our antitrust work, I think about it as economic justice work that when we fight to ensure competition in the market, we are actually fighting to make sure that the economy works for everyone for all working people for labor. When I think about the environmental natural resources divisions work and thinking about how environmental justice cases really shine a light on the unique and disproportionate burden that communities of color have faced from pollution and the like.

Vanita Gupta:

That is work that when we look at individual cases and think through what solutions are driving, should we continue to defend certain practices, should we try to settle cases, should we try to get to the right outcome where the facts in the law will call for it? There are many cases where that is in effect.

Vanita Gupta:

When we think about, for example, when Texas enacted SB 8, the law that an unprecedented scheme to basically evade judicial review of a law that was cutting back on the right to abortion in the State of Texas, it was important for us to think about how we might be able to protect rights in that context not just through the civil work, the civil rights division, but also through the civil division.

Vanita Gupta:

And we have been bringing affirmative cases through the civil division that are really about protecting and advancing rights. The regulatory work that we do across the board is often implicates civil rights regardless of kind of what part of the department has equities in it. And so we’re constantly doing this, as I said, the work of the civil rights division. There’s a unique charge that the division has to enforce those rights, but the kind of implications across the department around how we protect rights is a shared one.

Vanita Gupta:

The deputy attorney general early on in her tenure announced policies around body worn cameras and limiting the use of no knock warrants and choke holds. And that’s work that is through our federal law enforcement components aimed at protecting civil rights. And because of my own background I often am working across the department with the other leadership offices probably where associates attorneys general haven’t been seen before, but where, because of my unique background, I’m being asked to get involved and provide certain perspectives and bring into other experts.

Joyce Vance:

I’m really fascinated by the answer that you give to this extent. You talk about civil rights as something thing that lives not just in the civil rights division, but across all of the litigating divisions, including antitrust. And you know like I do that a lot of prosecutors out in the field in U.S. attorney’s offices are predisposed to want to do civil rights work and others not as much. And I’m curious about whether you think this message that you’re bringing, that every component of DOJ bears shared responsibility for civil rights. Is that something that’s filtering out into the field and that will change the perspective of lawyers across the department? Is that part of your goal here?

Vanita Gupta:

Yeah. I mean, you and I both know, and you know this from your role as a former U.S. attorney who always lean far into the role of the U.S. attorney’s offices in protecting civil rights, that U.S. attorneys actually across the country play a crucial role in being the local faces of the department and living up and through the attorney general’s priorities.

Vanita Gupta:

And a number of U.S. attorney’s offices even in the last year have opened or reopened civil rights units with dedicated staff committed to advancing civil rights. And when we talk about this, it takes place again not just through the work that we do to enforce federal civil rights laws, but in how across the board and the kind of civil rights work that the U.S. attorney’s offices are doing sometimes being co-counsel and antitrust matters and in pushing back against environmental crimes and the like.

Vanita Gupta:

And I think that this is really important and we want to be able to encourage all of the U.S. attorney’s offices to see themselves as part of this project. And I’ve just been really excited as we’ve had more and more confirmed leadership in the U.S. attorney community, just how many are really kind of taking up the mantle and leading the charge in their states.

Joyce Vance:

So your career has essentially been devoted to public service. Like many of these new colleagues who I think are joining you as biding in U.S. attorneys, a lot of them have some public service background to them, but unlike you most of them will have also spent some time in private practice at different points in time. Seems to me that you’re fairly unique.

Joyce Vance:

Your focus has always been public service whether you’re inside or outside of government. And you’re also at least by my count, Vanita, you’re the second woman to be confirmed by the Senate as the associate attorney general and the first woman of color. And all of those pieces fitting together make me want to ask you about something that we’ve never really discussed, but what led you into that path of public service?

Vanita Gupta:

I can’t point to any one particular thing that prompted me to go into public service. I grew up with parents who had immigrated to this country and really felt like public service and kind of imbued in me that public service is an act of patriotism in a way to demonstrate love for this country that has shown my family so much. And I did, from early on, spent a lot of time kind of reading the news, reflecting on what was happening.

Vanita Gupta:

There was an incident when my family had moved to Britain when I was four years old at a time when there was the rise of the skin had movement in Britain in the late 70s. And incident that I’ve talked about where my mother and I and my sister picked up my grandmother who was visiting for the first time from India and we went and stopped at McDonald’s to give her some lunch.

Vanita Gupta:

And we were seated next to a table of skinheads who started to throw French fries at us and yelled at us to go home using a pejorative word for South Asians, go home “Pakis.” And I just remember being absolutely mortified and somewhat scared. And at that young age, but really kind of being shaped a little bit by that incident in thinking through my own place in society, my own family’s place and the comfort that we had.

Vanita Gupta:

And whenever I’d go into restaurants, I would kind of look around to see if there was anyone else who looked like me. And I think that these little things just prompted me in the way that my parents raised me to think of public service as really a way to give back to countries that had given us so much that I really just saw myself on one path. It wasn’t that I thought that I was giving anything up.

Vanita Gupta:

To me the life of public service was the kind of obvious path in front of me and when I was lucky enough to go to law school, first lawyer in my family, I looked at it as really a way to be able to contribute to public service. It’s very different, as you can imagine, to be inside government and outside. And for much of my career, before I was honored to head up the Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration, I had actually spent my career suing the federal government. And so was pretty-

Joyce Vance:

Always good work.

Vanita Gupta:

And so was shocked to be then plucked to become a part of government. But I think that that also gives me a unique perspective, being in this role and understanding the degree to which it really matters that there are stakeholders both inside and outside of government that really are working every day to make our union more perfect. And we may not always agree with each other, but I think that unique perspective and the role that we have, and that I see us in this moment of fragility in our democracy.

Vanita Gupta:

And I know you talk about this a lot on this podcast, but we are all responsible for the democracy that we live in and whether we will be able to have a democracy, that we can’t take it for granted. And ultimately, it is individuals, it’s men, women, it’s young people that need to see themselves as real workers of democracy, wherever we sit, whether we are in government or outside, understanding the role that we have to play in ensuring that core principles of our democracy actually exist in this country and in the world.

Joyce Vance:

So that seems right to me, and acknowledging that we’re in a moment where democracy is fragile, I think that’s something that we have to do, since you work at the Justice Department. And the gorilla in the room, of course, is January 6th and the former president. I know that most of the matters regarding January 6th fall under the deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco’s supervision, not yours, but some days, watching the news you’d think that the investigation into the big lie and election fraud and the insurrection is all that’s going on at DOJ.

Joyce Vance:

And so since the January 6th investigation seems to be at the top of everyone’s mind these days, I’m curious what it looks like from where you sit. Can you tell us what it’s like working at DOJ right now? Is that all that’s happening? What are you working on?

Vanita Gupta:

There is no question that the January 6th investigation is vitally important, and it makes all of the sense in the world and it’s entirely appropriate that so many people are focused on the lead up and what happened since January 6th. And as the attorney general said, the Justice Department is now, this investigation is one of the largest, most complex, most resource intensive investigations in our history. And also as you said, the department remains committed to holding all of the January 6th perpetrators at any level accountable under law. And this is crucial for our democracy.

Vanita Gupta:

We are also doing a lot of other work that is crucial for our democracy, like fighting for voting rights. The Civil Rights Division is anchoring that work. We are also combating a unique level and a very disturbing level of threats against election officials around the country, people who in a nonpartisan fashion are trying to perform public service, but receiving death threats for doing their jobs. And so every day we’re doing this work of protecting our democracy that may not be obvious in the media, but is actually, these are core priorities to protect the very values that I also think are at the heart of the January 6th investigation.

Vanita Gupta:

But I’ll give you another example, Joyce. There is so much work going on at the Justice Department, even outside of those crucial investigations. We are a complex department. Over 110,000 people work for the Justice Department, and we are doing work every day. The associate’s office alone oversees all of the civil litigating components and the grant making that we do. And so for me, it’s managing and overseeing the amazing work that the career men and women do every day to enforce our federal laws, going where the facts and the law call them to go.

Vanita Gupta:

But I’ll give you one example of just a way in which some of this, it becomes tangible. We have been, just recently we announced a settlement in the Lafayette Park matter, rising out of an incident that probably all of us listening to your podcast are aware of from June of 2020. And we worked just recently to be able to announce the settlement, where the park police and the Secret Service have changed their policies and now are requiring officers to wear fully visible badges and name plates, including on outerwear, tactical gear, and helmets.

Vanita Gupta:

They’re implementing guidelines concerning the use of non-lethal force, including de-escalation tactics, applying much clearer procedures for issuing dispersal warnings and permitting demonstrators to disperse. The Secret Service is now amending its policies to provide for the fact that when some demonstrators have engaged in unlawful conduct, it doesn’t provide blanket grounds for the use of force or crowd dispersal or declaration of unlawful assembly.

Vanita Gupta:

This settlement is just one example of the ways in which we are even in defensive litigation, where the Justice Department can help work with other federal agencies to get to the right outcomes that ensure protections of people in this country that comport with the Constitution. And so I think there’s too many examples to name that are priorities.

Vanita Gupta:

As you know, I’ve spent a lot of my career on policing issues, and people forget that even outside of the enforcement realm, our grant making has enormous potential to really transform cultural practices of police departments. Last year, we gave out four and a half billion dollars, both to help fight crime and to ensure community policing and best practices in policing. And I spend a lot of time really working with law enforcement, with civil rights advocates, to make sure that we are doing everything we can to advance constitutional policing practices while keeping people in this country safe.

Vanita Gupta:

And so these are some core affirmative priorities. We relaunched the Access to Justice Initiative here at the Justice Department to really be able to address some of the crises, including the concerns around unlawful evictions during the pandemic, to get to galvanize the legal community to get involved to ensure that we have better access to civil legal counsel to keep people in their homes during the pandemic and beyond.

Vanita Gupta:

So there’s so many dimensions to the work that we do at the Justice Department that people may not see as visibly, but that are actually incredibly important to real people in real communities all over the country.

Joyce Vance:

So I’m glad you raised policing and the Lafayette Park settlement, because I wanted to ask you some questions about your work in that area. Something that you probably hear a lot is that for a civil rights lawyer, you seem to get along really well with folks in law enforcement. That’s something that’s always intrigued me about you. And I remember when you were nominated for this position, the National Fraternal Order of Police endorsed you. And I went back and looked up what they’d said. And part of their statement was that you had always worked with them to find common ground, even when it seemed impossible.

Joyce Vance:

So that makes a lot of sense of your comments about using the grant making function at DOJ as a way to work with law enforcement. But you’ve done something specific that I want to talk with you about, you and Attorney General Garland. You were instrumental in reversing a decision that Jeff Sessions made as attorney general, and you’ve restored the use of the pattern or practice mechanism that he banished for holding law enforcement agencies accountable for constitutional policing. So can you talk with us a little bit about restoring the pattern or practice work and what you’ve been able to accomplish with it, and also whether there’s been any resistance to doing that?

Vanita Gupta:

So this was one of the early actions by the attorney general, was to restore this tool. And this is an authority that this Civil Rights Division got after the Rodney King beating in LA and the unrest in Los Angeles in the nineties. Congress gave the Justice Department the mandate to investigate patterns or practices of unconstitutional policing. And it is a law enforcement responsibility for the Justice Department. And so it’s a tool that has been used very judiciously. It’s also a tool that has evolved over time. But the need for the Justice Department in the most kind of severe instances to do these investigations is very much still an active one.

Vanita Gupta:

And so it was important that the attorney general restore this law enforcement tool. And it’s one that I think in our policing work gets the most attention right now. The department is enforcing I think close to about 15 consent decrees. We’ve got open investigations in Minneapolis, in Louisville, and other parts of the country.

Vanita Gupta:

But what I think that people sometimes miss with this is that one of the things that I wanted to make sure I did was hear from the law enforcement community about some of the concerns they had with the tools, and in last September, issued a memo about the appropriate use of monitors and how to strengthen faith and legitimacy in this tool and give people the confidence that the Justice Department is using this tool fairly, and that the monitors that we deploy and that are reporting to the federal courts to ensure constitutional policing and compliance with the consent decrees are operating efficiently and fairly.

Vanita Gupta:

And so we’re always looking to make sure that we are hearing people’s concerns from wherever they may be coming and addressing them. But I also think that the public can sometimes forget that the department has a range of other tools that we use to promote effective policing. And that is through the grant making, as I mentioned. It’s also the COPS Office and the Office of Justice Programs, the Office of Violence Against Women. They are all engaged in working very collaboratively and effectively with law enforcement and community leaders.

Vanita Gupta:

We do it through grant making. We do it through technical assistance. We just recently relaunched a new collaborative reform initiative that provides both deep organizational assessments with law enforcement agencies that want it, that can do after action reports when there’s high profile events in communities, and the Justice Department can provide expertise about how to have learnings from these responses to high profile events. And we’re about to launch a really important initiative called the “Knowledge Lab” that is going to be able to amass all of the learning that we’ve had from the Civil Rights Division consent decrees from research that we’ve done over the last two decades and to support law enforcement that is hungry to understand what has been working, what has got evidence to back it up, how can we actually move the field forward on both crime prevention and constitutional policing? And for me at this role and somebody who has spent my career on policing related issues, being able to bring people together, after George Floyd was murdered, one of the things that I thought really united this country was an understanding of the degree to which we have criminalized things and expected law enforcement to deal with some of the most entrenched social problems while removing support and investment from community based solutions in the mental health area and substance use disorders.

Vanita Gupta:

And you’ll hear from officers every day that they did not think that they were coming into the profession to be social workers and to be asked to resolve these issues that are fundamentally health about… Also disparities in healthcare, and education, and jobs, and the need to really come together across the federal government, and break down silos, and for DOJ to work with HHS, and the Department of Labor, and other agencies to figure out more holistic solutions to public safety in healthy communities, I think is something that is a unique charge for those of us that have been deep in this work and want to drive these solutions and really think that there’s common ground to build. And my relationships with law enforcement and my civil rights background are something that I hope are going to advantage communities that are deeply concerned about these issues.

Joyce Vance:

It’s a delicate line that you have to walk between holding police responsible for constitutional policing, and at the same time, making sure that they understand that you value the work that they do and that you have support for them, particularly in times of rising crime. And I think it’s a fascinating explanation of balancing the work that you do and really focusing particularly on technical grants and support that they need from DOJ. But nonetheless, the former President Trump called what DOJ was doing in this area during the Obama Administration, and the use of pattern or practice investigations, “A war on cops.” Do you think that the cops still think that you’re at war with them?

Vanita Gupta:

I think that the law enforcement community and the leaders of the national associations that I have been working with for close to a decade, they know who I am. They know who the deputy attorney general is, who the attorney general is. They are working with the Civil Rights Division and all of us across the Department on these issues in a really constructive and productive way. I haven’t encountered any law enforcement leader who has denigrated the use of the pattern or practice. They ask us to use it judiciously inappropriately, but people in law enforcement know the value of accountability and how it can bring departments down if there is a lack of accountability, how it hurts fundamentally the effort to fight violent crime when communities don’t trust that law enforcement is operating legitimately in their communities.

Vanita Gupta:

But what I also think is important is that we understand that this is an incredibly challenging time for law enforcement during the pandemic, during their massive staff shortages around the country, in police departments around the country. And that while we will ensure that there’s accountability for officials who violate the law, that we have this broad range of tools to help support law enforcement, to invest in constitutional policing practices. And the longstanding relationships that we have here at the Department have also engendered trust about how we are going to operate to meet all of the different missions that the Justice Department has to protect civil rights, to protect all people in this country, and to fight violent crime.

Vanita Gupta:

And I think that these aren’t dichotomous. We can’t be successful in fighting violent crime if there is a breakdown of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. And this is all part of our common mission. And when we approach it with respect and empathy, and a sense of the common struggles that we face, I really do believe that we can drive to solutions. It may not be as quickly as any of us want, but I really do think that this is a shared endeavor across the many constituencies that have voice on these issues.

Joyce Vance:

Let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about voting rights. Since you’ve come back to the Department, DOJ has been to doing a lot of voting rights work, and there are other folks who are litigating in this same space. Can you talk a little bit about what you think DOJs role is in the space as opposed to the private parties that are litigating? What’s your goal?

Vanita Gupta:

The voting rights work that the Department does is crucially important, and we work to protect the right to vote for every eligible person in this country. There’s no question that our tools have been surely diminished starting with the 2013 decision by the Supreme Court, the Shelby County decision, that gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act and took away the Justice Department’s ability to evaluate local and state changes made to election administration, and to voting laws, and evaluate them for whether they were enacted with the intent to discriminate on the basis of race or whether they have a disparate impact on voters. The Shelby County decision has made this work that much more challenging, and we have spoken out repeatedly and will continue to call on Congress to restore the full power of the Voting Rights Act, but also to enact laws that can better protect the types of problems that we’re seeing today in the access to the right to vote.

Vanita Gupta:

Despite the fact that our tools have been diminished, we are using all of the levers that we have, be it in litigation and enforcement, or through guidance that we’re issuing to ensure that the redistricting that is happening for the first time without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act that the Justice Department is tracking how redistricting is happening and continuing to use all of the tools that we have. We enforce what remains of the Voting Rights Act, of the National Voter Registration Act, of the Help America Vote Act. Ultimately though, we do need Congress to act. We are seeing an unprecedented set of attacks on the right to vote through laws that are being enacted in the states and where we can, we are filing lawsuits. And there are, as you noted, a very robust private bar that is also engaging litigation to protect the right to vote.

Joyce Vance:

Given that election protection litigation is a slow moving target, or maybe I should say a slow rolling target, can you talk about what you’ve achieved so far that you think is the most important?

Vanita Gupta:

Well, I think the fact that the Justice Department is engaging in litigation and is working to do all that we can to protect voting rights with the enforcement powers that we have is a statement in and of itself. When we give up on that, despite the diminished tools, is when I think we are sending a terrible message. It matters when the United States Government is defending the Constitution and defending the right of voters to be able to cast their vote and to have it be counted. And we are doing this in states across the country, but I also think that we are cognizant of the fact that we are living in a time where public servants like election administrators are being prevented from going about their jobs of serving the public free from violence and unlawful threats of violence.

Vanita Gupta:

And we just several months ago, the Deputy Attorney General put together a task force to deal with election threats and to try to ensure that we can live in a country where people who do this public service can do so free from violence and threats of violence. We are going to continue to call on Congress to give the Department the powers that we need to ensure that every eligible voter can cast a vote that counts. And we’re never going to stop working to defend the democracy to which all Americans are entitled. And we just have to use every lever that we have while continuing to push to get greater authorities to meet the types of concerns and problems that we’re seeing that are preventing people from accessing the franchise and having their vote counted.

Joyce Vance:

So I want to end with a question about transparency and how transparent, or not, DOJ is with the public. DOJ’s credibility with the public is essential for it to be effective as an agency. And our legal system, in essence, runs on public trust.

Joyce Vance:

And just to be frank, that trust has taken a lot of hits. President Trump used to explicitly tell the public that they couldn’t trust federal agents, FBI agents, and even prosecutors who he called out by name.

Joyce Vance:

And now there are a lot of folks who are upset that there haven’t been arrests of politicians yet in connection with January 6th. And, of course, that’s in addition to just the everyday wear and tear on the system.

Joyce Vance:

So first off we hear folks say all the time that DOJ can’t talk about ongoing investigations. Can you explain that? Why can’t DOJ do that?

Vanita Gupta:

I would urge everyone to look at what the attorney general said in his speech on January 5th of this year. It is important to the integrity of any investigation that we not impugn that integrity by talking about where we think the investigation is headed.

Vanita Gupta:

It can compromise the course of the investigation to speak publicly about this. And it is hard, I know, for people to sometimes feel like things are happening, but there’s a lot that goes unseen. And our primary responsibility is to follow the facts and the law.

Vanita Gupta:

We do speak, obviously, about the issues that we’re working on. And the same way that the attorney general and deputy attorney general have at times spoken about the January 6th investigations. It’s why I’m doing this podcast today to talk about the range of work that we do.

Vanita Gupta:

And if you look at the news on any given day, the top news stories are often about matters that the Justice Department has a very heavy hand in and is very involved in. But it is this tricky thing about being a law enforcement agency that can’t compromise midstream the course of an investigation by speaking publicly about it in order to kind of quench people’s curiosity. As difficult as it even is sometimes for the officials in the department.

Vanita Gupta:

And, we read the things that people are saying and the assumptions that people are making, but in the end, we have to do everything that we can to protect the integrity of any ongoing investigation. And that has got to be our primary responsibility.

Joyce Vance:

I hear you loud and clear on quenching people’s curiosity, right? We’re all curious. And I remember working at DOJ and just appreciating the fact that there were details that we could talk about.

Joyce Vance:

But that said, and I think we can all understand why specific cases and their developments have to be off limits while those cases are in progress. Do you think, in light of the society that we live in and how much it’s changed, with the 24 hour news cycle, with ready access to information on the internet about issues just frankly earlier generations didn’t have access to.

Joyce Vance:

Do you think it’s time for DOJ to rethink how it engages with the public, and find new ways to be transparent? Maybe to talk more about process, to educate the public more about how it does things and why it does them that way. Or, do you think that what you’re doing now is enough and that you’re sufficiently transparent?

Vanita Gupta:

So Joyce, that feels a little like a loaded question, but I hear what you’re saying. You and I-

Joyce Vance:

It’s not really that loaded.

Vanita Gupta:

No, no, look, you and I have talked about this before. We are in a different media environment than we were, even when you and I were both in the Obama Administration. And I think that there’s no question that the media environment, with social media with the 24 hour news cycles, is uniquely… It’s just different today than it was before.

Vanita Gupta:

And I do think that there are is more that the Justice Department can do to make sure people understand how we work, why we work. It’s why I thought it was important for the attorney general to give the speech that he gave on January 5th, about the investigations and the work we’re doing to protect our democracy.

Vanita Gupta:

Will it ever be enough? And, will it meet the kind of demand and new media cycle given our law enforcement responsibilities to be able to kind of, as I said, quench people’s curiosity and thirsts? Probably not.

Vanita Gupta:

Can we do more to communicate about how we work, the processes we use, and also we do a lot of work that is also about policy work and could we do more? Yes, I think so. And I think that is an active conversation here at the department about balancing our unique law enforcement responsibilities with the need to reassure the public about what we are doing, and to have faith in the institution.

Vanita Gupta:

And I think this is crucially important. I don’t think that we’ve totally figured out the balance, but it’s why it’s important that you and I are talking today. And I hope we’ll talk more why it is important to be able to have these types of conversations and to be able to communicate as much as we are able.

Vanita Gupta:

While the media environment may have changed and changed dramatically over the last couple of years, the norms and kind of obligation to the rule of law, and to protecting the integrity of investigations, is timeless.

Vanita Gupta:

And being able to figure out how we can be more transparent about how we do things, what our processes are here about the kind of policy work that we’re doing at the department, that is something that I do think we can certainly do more of. And we should do more of.

Vanita Gupta:

We understand the legitimacy of this institution rests on people’s faith. In the end, people have faith in the Justice Department so long as they understand and believe that we are in independent and following the law, and the facts. And, so this is going to be, I think, a continuing balancing that we need to do.

Vanita Gupta:

I don’t know that we’ve hit the right balance yet, but I think it is very much always kind of an active conversation here about the need to kind of balance these obligations to the public and to the work that we do every day here at the department.

Joyce Vance:

Well, Vanita, if anyone can convince the public it’s okay for them to stay a little bit thirsty, I think that you’re the person who can do it. I appreciate so much that you’ve shared your thoughts with us so candidly today.

Joyce Vance:

You said public service is an act of patriotism, and I want to thank you for yours on both ends of that quote. Both for your public service and for your patriotism. Thanks for spending part of your afternoon with me.

Vanita Gupta:

Thank you so much, Joyce.

Preet Bharara:

That’s it for this week. CAFE Insider is presented by CAFE Studios and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Your hosts are Preet Bharara and Joyce Vance. The Executive Producer is Tamara Sepper. The Technical Director is David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. And the CAFE Team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh, and Namita Shah. Our music is by Andrew Dost. Thank you for being a part of the CAFE Insider Community.