KTB Political Roundtable: Barbara Mulvaney
Easily the most qualified candidate in the race.
Kwaisi and Rich talk foreign policy, the war on women, drugs, and money in politics with U.S. 33rd congressional District (CA) candidate Barbara Mulvaney.
Barbara Mulvaney
Barbara Mulvaney graduated from the Universidad de Las Americas in Puebla, Mexico with a degree in Latin American History and a minor in International Relations. She subsequently returned to Los Angeles where she earned her J.D. from Southwestern Law School.
Law Enforcement
After law school Barbara served as Assistant District Attorney for Malibu, Santa Monica and West Los Angeles, handling a variety of criminal matters. She is a protégé of former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, having served under Reno as an Assistant State Attorney in the 1980s when Reno was the State Attorney of Florida. Together they created one of the first Domestic Violence Units in the United States. Establishing the task force was a progressive first, and highlighted domestic abuse as a serious societal concern. In the 1990s, Barbara served as Assistant Attorney General and Director of the Investigations and Prosecutions Division under current U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) when he was New Mexico’s Attorney General.
Rwanda
Barbara is best known for her work with the United Nations in Africa. From 2002-07, she served the international community as Lead Prosecutor for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR) in Tanzania. Barbara prosecuted the five most prominent Rwandan military leaders deemed responsible for the genocide of 800,000 people. In the face of their direct threats on her life, she and her team got convictions for genocide, international war crimes and crimes against humanity. The guilty verdicts were amongst the first ever for the crime of genocide. Under her direction, the prosecutorial strategy included the precedent setting expert testimony on sexual violence against the approximately 400,000 women assaulted during the genocide. This case marked the first time that rape was included as a component to genocide through command responsibility.
Iraq
In 2009, Barbara became the Deputy Director of Constitutional and Legislative Affairs for the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. She trained and advised Iraqi judges and Congresspersons in Rule of Law for their new government. She also coordinated the Women’s Toolkit program that trained 80 Iraqi women in conflict resolution.
Barbara returned to Iraq in 2010 as a Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Supreme Audit and Anti-Corruption Coordinating Office. As the liaison to the Iraqi Inspectors General, Barbara helped to implement an anti-corruption strategy with assistance from the United Nations Development Programme. She also took part in putting into place a policy of gender mainstreaming in all U.S. funded programs in Iraq that ensured women had equal access to employment.
Public Servant
As a human rights attorney and diplomat, Barbara Mulvaney has built a lifelong career in public service by driving consensus to achieve reform. As a prosecutor, she has enforced rules and regulations against individuals, governments and corporations, successfully obtaining convictions ranging from bank fraud to genocide. On many issues that we face today Barbara can directly cite to a case she prosecuted or policies she helped to develop.
Barbara is currently running for Congress in California’s 33rd District.
