Chiraag Bains
Chiraag Bains (Bluesky – LinkedIn) is a senior fellow at Democracy Fund and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
From 2021 to 2023, Bains served as Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and Deputy Assistant to the President for Racial Justice & Equity. He led implementation of President Biden’s day-one Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities. That work resulted in 90 agency action plans, an equitable data strategy, and more effective distribution of infrastructure and pandemic relief funds. Bains drove the policy process for several of President Biden’s other priorities: a landmark executive order on police reform and public safety; the pardon of marijuana possession offenses and the rescheduling of the drug; new investments in community violence intervention; shrinking the racial wealth gap by combatting home appraisal bias and increasing contracting with small disadvantaged businesses; and the United We Stand summit against hate-fueled violence. He also oversaw efforts to expand voter registration opportunities, LGBTQI+ equality, disability rights, and funding for Native communities. In addition, he co-led a strategy to protect workers and consumers from algorithmic bias and helped develop the administration’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.
Bains previously served as Special Assistant to the President for Criminal Justice and Guns Policy. He was co-chair of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Criminal Justice Reform in 2020. He was the Director of Legal Strategies at Demos from 2018 to 2021, where he led voting rights litigation, and was a fellow with Harvard Law School and the Open Society Foundations.
From 2010 to 2017, Bains worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. He prosecuted police misconduct and hate crimes as a career attorney and then served as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General. He was awarded the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service for his role in the investigation and litigation over unconstitutional policing, fines, and fees in Ferguson, Missouri. Bains also prosecuted sex offenses and domestic violence in DC.
Bains holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an articles editor on the Harvard Law Review, as well as an M.Phil. in criminology from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. from Yale University. He clerked on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and federal district court in Boston. He was a Truman Scholar, Gates Cambridge Scholar, Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow, and Coro Fellow.
