(DC Pundit) – Vice President Kamala Harris loves to paint herself as a battle-hardened prosecutor who spent her “entire career in the trenches.” But when you start digging into her actual trial record, things get pretty interesting – and by interesting, I mean potentially misleading.
Let’s look at the numbers: The best evidence available suggests Harris personally tried somewhere between seven and 15 felony cases. These include a domestic violence scalping, one murder, armed robbery, and two child sex crimes. Pretty thin for someone claiming to have “tried hundreds of cases,” right?
Her career began in Alameda County in 1989. In her book ‘The Truths We Hold,’ Harris shares a personal moment about failing the bar exam but getting a chance to keep working until she passed in 1990. She stuck around Alameda until 1998 before heading to San Francisco’s district attorney’s office.
Now, here’s where things get fuzzy. The Alameda County DA’s office gave the New York Post a list of over 60 names they say Harris prosecuted. But they were pretty tight-lipped about the details – we don’t know if these were serious felonies or just traffic tickets. Even more interesting? We can’t find records from any of these cases except that 1996 scalping incident.
The real kicker came in 2003 when Harris ran for San Francisco DA. Her campaign materials boldly claimed she had “tried hundreds of serious and violent felonies, including homicide, rape, and child sexual assault cases.” But when challenged, her story kept changing.
During a heated debate on KGO Radio, Bill Fazio, her opponent, called Harris out directly, saying: “How many cases have you tried? Can you tell us how many serious felonies you have tried? Can you tell us one?”
Harris responded, “I’ve tried about 50 cases, Mr. Fazio, and it’s about leadership.” But that wasn’t the end of it. Fazio pushed back: “Ms. Harris, why does your information, which is still published, say that you tried hundreds of serious felonies? I think that’s misleading. I think that’s disingenuous.”
That same year, at a meeting of the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, Harris gave yet another number. When pressed three times about her trial record, she admitted to trying “under 30” cases, but attempted to pad her record by including misdemeanors that would bring the number closer to 100.
A 2003 San Francisco Bay Guardian article summed it up perfectly with its title: ‘Kamala Harris has a perfectly credible record. So why does she have to exaggerate it?’
Why indeed? It seems the Vice President’s claims about being in the “trenches” might need some fact-checking.
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