WASHINGTON: Usha Chilukuri Vance, Yale law graduate and trial lawyer, was thrust into the spotlight this week after her husband, JD Vance, was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
Chilukuri Vance, 38, was raised in San Diego, by Indian immigrants. Her mother is a biologist and provost at the University of California at San Diego; her father is an engineer, according to JD Vance’s campaign. She received an undergraduate degree at Yale University and a master of philosophy at the University of Cambridge through the Gates Cambridge scholarship.
After Cambridge, she met her husband back at Yale, where the two studied law. In his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” JD Vance said the two got to know each other through a class assignment, where he soon “fell hard” for his writing partner.
“In a place that always seemed a little foreign, Usha’s presence made me feel at home,” he wrote.
They graduated in 2013 and wed the following year.
After law school, Chilukuri Vance spent a year clerking for Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he served as an appeals court judge in Washington, followed by a year as a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts.
She has since become a trial lawyer for the Munger, Tolles and Olson law firm at its San Francisco and D.C. offices. Chilukuri Vance left the law firm where she worked shortly after her husband was chosen as Trump’s running mate.
“Usha has informed us she has decided to leave the firm,” Munger, Tolles & Olson said in a statement. “Usha has been an excellent lawyer and colleague, and we thank her for her years of work and wish her the best in her future career.”
Chilukuri Vance was not available Tuesday for comment, according to a spokeswoman for JD Vance’s campaign.
In his memoir, Vance credited part of his success and happiness to his wife.
“Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion— I can be defused, but only with skill and precision,” Vance wrote. “It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me.”
Voter records show that as of 2022, Chilukuri Vance was a registered Republican in Ohio, and voted in the Republican primary that year — the same election that her husband was running in the Republican senate primary.
JD and Usha Vance live in Cincinnati, and have three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel. Outside of work, she served on the Cincinnati Symphony Board of Directors from September 2020 to July 2023.
Who is Usha Vance? Yale law graduate and wife of vice presidential nominee JD Vance
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Who is Usha Vance? Yale law graduate and wife of vice presidential nominee JD Vance
- Chilukuri Vance left the law firm where she worked shortly after her husband was chosen as Trump’s running mate
Russia jails 15 for life over IS-claimed 2024 concert hall attack
- Eleven other men were also jailed for life for acting as accomplices and of having terrorist links
- Four more men were handed sentences of between 19 and 22 years over their links with the attackers
MOSCOW: A Russian court on Thursday handed life sentences to four gunmen from Tajikistan, and 11 others it said were their accomplices, for the 2024 Crocus concert hall attack that left 150 people dead.
The March 2024 shooting spree was claimed by Daesh and was the deadliest militant attack in Russia in more than two decades.
Relatives of some of the victims stood in the grand Moscow military court as the verdict was read out.
Shamsidin Fariduni, Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Makhammadsobir Fayzov and Saidakrami Rachabolizoda — all Tajik citizens who went on a shooting spree in the building before setting it on fire — looked down as the judge sentenced them to life.
Eleven other men — some Russian citizens — were also jailed for life for acting as accomplices and of having terrorist links.
Four more men — including a father and his sons — were handed sentences of between 19 and 22 years over their links with the attackers.
The gunmen entered the concert hall shortly before a show by Soviet-era rock band Picnic. They went on a shooting spree before setting fire to the building, trapping many victims. The attack wounded more than 600 people. Six children were among those killed.
Uliana Filippochkina, whose twin brother Grigory was killed in the attack, flew from Siberia’s Novosibirsk for the verdict.
She said she was “satisfied” with the ruling and that she had looked the men who killed her twin in the eyes during their final statements in the trial.
“They didn’t explain anything, they tried to escape responsibility, appealing to the fact that they had wives and children... That they were under the influence of drugs,” she said.
- ‘No remorse’ -
“There was no sympathy or remorse whatsoever,” she added.
Her brother went to the concert shortly before his 35th birthday. The family were only able to identify what was left of his body weeks later, burying his remains in Novosibirsk.
The verdict came ahead of the second anniversary of the killings.
“For us all it’s like yesterday,” Ivan Pomorin, who was filming the Crocus Hall concert at the time, told AFP.
Lawyers said some of the victims are still being treated for their wounds, while others have severe PTSD, unable to sleep, use public transport or be in crowded places.
The four gunmen — aged 20 to 31 at the time — worked in various professions, among them was a taxi driver, factory employee and construction worker.
They stood in the glass defendant’s cage, surrounded by security guards.
According to media reports, Mirzoyev’s brother was killed fighting in Syria, possibly leading to his radicalization.
Hours after the attack, Russian police brought them to court with signs of torture — including one barely conscious in a wheelchair.
- ‘Redeem guilt with blood’ -
The attack came two years into Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Russia — bogged down by the offensive — dismissing prior US warnings of an imminent attack.
The Kremlin had suggested a Ukrainian connection at the time of the attack, but never provided evidence.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said after the verdict it was “reliably established” that the attack was “planned and committed in the interests of” Kyiv.
It accused the men of also plotting attacks in Dagestan.
TASS state news agency reported this month, citing a lawyer, that two of them — Dzhabrail Aushyev and Khusein Medov — had asked to be sent to fight in Ukraine instead of a life sentence.
Throughout its offensive, Russia has recruited prisoners for its military campaign, offering a buy-out from their sentences should they survive.
According to the lawyer quoted by TASS, Medov said he wanted to “redeem his guilt with blood.”
- Anti-migrant turn -
Russia — already undergoing a conservative social turn during the war — upped anti-migrant laws and rhetoric after the attack.
This has led to tensions with Moscow’s allies in Central Asia, some of whom have confronted Russia and called on it to respect the rights of their citizens.
Russia’s economy has for years been heavily reliant on millions of Central Asian migrants.
But their flow to Russia dipped after Moscow launched its Ukraine campaign and some Central Asians also held back from going to Russia after the post-Crocus migrant crackdowns.
