At a campaign event on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is expected to be the Democratic nominee for president, talked about her past work. She mentioned that before her vice presidency, she spent seven years as the district attorney for San Francisco. From Wilmington, Delaware, she said she was the elected attorney general of California and a courtroom prosecutor before that. In those roles, she took on people who committed serious crimes, like those who abused women, scam artists, and cheaters.
She then said she knew the type of person Donald Trump is and promised to compare her record to his in this campaign.
But it’s a checkered record at best.
Harris’s strong statements about her time as a prosecutor in California might be affected by her past support for the Minnesota Freedom Fund. In her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris supported the bail fund that helped some violent criminals get out of jail. Harris encouraged people to donate to the fund to help those “protesting” in Minnesota.
Harris, who opposed the cash bail system during her last presidential campaign, supported the bail system, which was allegedly created to help people arrested in Black Lives Matter “protests.” However, only part of the over $41 million raised went to freeing those “protestors.”
According to Minneapolis station FOX 9, the fund used hundreds of thousands of dollars to help free people who were accused of serious crimes, including a knife murderer and a convicted rapist facing new charges.
One such convict shot a driver in a road rage incident weeks after being bailed out by the fund for domestic assault charges.
George Howard, 48, was out on an $11,500 bond for a domestic assault case thanks to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. The fund later admitted that it was responsible for getting him released. Its website is still accepting donations.
During her 2020 campaign, Harris said the cash bail system is unfair and broken. She argued that it hurts people from low-income and minority communities more than others.
Her 2020 position is a stark contrast to her feelings in 2004. At that time, she suggested that bail needed to be raised. She said the county she worked for required people being arrested to pay much less bail than other counties.
Since Harris first announced her intention to run for president in 2019, her prosecution record has come under fire. Those who are against strict crime policies say that her rules unfairly affect low-income families and minorities.
One part of Harris’ record that received much criticism was how she dealt with truancy cases. In 2011, she supported a law that lets district attorneys charge parents with misdemeanors if their kids missed school.
In 2004, Harris decided not to ask for the death penalty for the person who killed San Francisco police officer Isaac Espinoza. At the officer’s funeral, Senator Dianne Feinstein criticized Harris in her speech. The police officers there gave Feinstein a standing ovation. Harris faced rejection from police unions for the next ten years.
Later, as California’s attorney general, Harris didn’t support two measures that would have banned the death penalty. This led to accusations of being inconsistent and politically motivated.
She also faced criticism as San Francisco’s district attorney when a technician stole cocaine from the crime lab and mishandled evidence. Harris didn’t inform defense attorneys, leading to about a thousand drug-related cases being dismissed.
This is Kamala Harris, the vice president who failed to handle the only job her boss ever gave her—handling the border. Interestingly, she is the second-best candidate the Democrats have to offer. Their best candidate was a frail old man with dementia.
