GIFFORDS announces Vanita Gupta, Sari Horwitz and Ismail Ramsey to join board of directors

WASHINGTON —  Today, GIFFORDS Law Center, the national gun violence prevention organization led by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, released the following statement welcoming three new members of the GIFFORDS board of directors: Vanita Gupta, Sari Horwitz and Ismail “Izzy” Ramsey. 

“We are excited to welcome Vanita Gupta, Sari Horwitz and Ismail Ramsey to the GIFFORDS board of directors,” said former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. “Each of these leaders bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to our mission of fighting America’s gun violence crisis — which is more urgent now than ever. Vanita has been a top Justice Department official and led broad coalitions for the biggest civil rights efforts of our era, Izzy has served our nation as a U.S. Attorney and Air Force veteran, and Sari has spent a career at the Washington Post, writing Pulitzer Prize–winning coverage of this crisis. As they join us at GIFFORDS, we trust that they will use their decades of chasing truth and justice, each in their own way, to guide and further our mission.”

Vanita Gupta is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence and director of the Center for Law and Public Trust at NYU Law. From 2021 to 2024, Gupta served as the 19th Associate Attorney General of the United States — the first civil rights lawyer in a top three leadership position at the Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, she supervised 13 components of the Department, including its civil litigating divisions and grantmaking offices. She also spearheaded initiatives focusing on building police-community trust, reproductive rights post-Dobbs, environmental justice, mental health and gun violence prevention. During her tenure, she boosted federal funding and violence intervention programs, as well as support for law enforcement, victims and survivors of gun violence. She also oversaw the after-action report of the law enforcement response to the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, which detailed lessons learned for the field. Previously, Gupta was president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation’s oldest and largest coalition of national, nonpartisan civil rights organizations. Gupta also led the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division under President Obama, investigating police misconduct and litigating landmark LGBTQ+ and voting rights cases. Earlier, she was deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and an assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where she overturned dozens of wrongful convictions in Tulia, Texas.

Sari Horwitz, an investigative reporter who was at the Washington Post for 40 years, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times. She co-wrote an investigation of Washington, D.C., police shootings that revealed that Washington police officers shot and killed more people in the 1990s than any large American city police force. In 2002, she shared the Pulitzer for investigative reporting for a series exposing the District of Columbia’s role in the neglect and deaths of 229 children placed in protective care. The series prompted an overhaul of the child welfare system and a new wing of D.C. Superior Court for children and families. Horwitz was also part of a team that won a Pulitzer for the coverage of the deadly shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007. She covered the Department of Justice for six years, writing many stories about the firearms industry and a year-long investigative series on gun violence in America. A native Tucsonan, she covered the Gabby Giffords shooting and the launch of GIFFORDS for the Washington Post. She is the author of four books, including “Sniper: Inside the Hunt for the Killers Who Terrorized the Nation” and “American Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry.” She received her B.A. in political science from Bryn Mawr College and a master’s in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University.

Ismail “Izzy” Ramsey is the former United States Attorney for the Northern District of California, one of the largest and most complex federal districts in the country, and he currently serves as a senior fellow at Berkeley Law. He previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1999 to 2003 before spending nearly two decades in private practice focused on criminal defense and complex investigations. In 2023, he was appointed by President Biden and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as U.S. Attorney, where he led federal efforts to combat violent crime and illegal firearms trafficking, partnering with local and state law enforcement to reduce gun violence across the Bay Area. He also oversaw significant public corruption, corporate fraud and civil rights matters. Drawing on experience from both sides of the courtroom, Ramsey has long supported evidence-based strategies that strengthen public safety while upholding constitutional protections. He now leads the Law Office of Ismail Ramsey, where he advises clients on white-collar defense, investigations and governance matters.