The ugly truth about Kamala Harris’s law-enforcement record

Kamala Harris bashed police and supported a hate-crime hoaxer but pretends to be for law enforcement.

As the mainstream media feverishly conspire with Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign to memory hole the candidate’s far-left track record of radical progressive positions, it is important to highlight exactly where the former California attorney general truly stands on matters of public safety and policing. The Harris campaign’s reductive bumper sticker slogan defines race as pitting "prosecutor versus felon" – despite fact that much of America senses the prosecutions of former President Donald Trump to be politically motivated. Concurrent with this destruction of norms, the gas-lit redefining of Harris as "law and order" proponent is underway.  

And yet even a cursory review of her record easily refutes the attempted remaking. We certainly recall her debate stage encounter with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard during the 2020 Democratic primary. Gabbard’s complete evisceration of Harris’s record as attorney general effectively drove Harris from the race, without earning a single vote, before the Iowa caucuses.  

But with President Joe Biden having been forced off the top spot on the ticket — victim of internecine knifing by his own party – Harris has now been gifted coronation as Democrats’ next-generation heroine.  

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But let us not forget her own statements and actions that appear counter to her latest rebranding. Vice President Harris has a most complicated history with law enforcement. Here are some six exceedingly troubling instances lending credence to her connection to ongoing "war on cops.":

Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been criticized for being soft on crime. That's an understatement. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

• Harris’s insistence on promoting the lie (as recently as 2019) that an African-American teenager was murdered by White cop in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. Her continued perpetuation of an ugly trope came years after Obama Justice Department concluded an investigation led by then-Attorney General Eric Holder and delivered an 87-page report determining shooting was justified. The fact that Harris’s incendiary and divisive tweeted mischaracterization has yet to be taken down should be wholly disqualifying for her to lead our nation.
• It would be one thing to simply have been snookered by the infamous "hate crime hoaxer," Jussie Smollett, but Harris doubled down on her rushed support in 2019 by describing the farcical charge that White, Trump-supporting MAGA enthusiasts had targeted Smollett because of his race by describing the fraud as a "modern day lynching." Prosecutors apply a healthy dose of skepticism in investigations. They are charged to follow the evidence, bereft of fear or favor. How was Harris once California’s top cop?
• As a sitting U.S. senator and presumptive Democratic nominee for vice president in 2018, Harris, during a Capitol Hill hearing, questioned a Trump administration appointee for the top position at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Ronald Vitiello, if he was "aware of the perception" that exist similarities between ICE and the heinous domestic terror group, the KKK.

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Then, while vice president in 2021, Harris shamefully smeared Customs and Border Patrol agents on horseback who encountered Haitian migrants attempting to illegally cross border by alluding to the baseless and patently offensive, partisan charge that agents were "whipping" migrants. She also joined "The View" to relate to her sympathetic audience that the scene "evoked" images of slavery. 

• While politicians on the left have been slowly distancing themselves from their prior unqualified support for Black Lives Matter and embrace of movement to "defund the police," the internet is forever. During a 2020 radio interview in New York, Harris accused U.S. cities of "militarizing police" and fretted about the amount of money spent on police departments in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis that summer.  During the 2020 campaign, the Biden campaign worked feverishly to clean up her position, sensing an opportunity the Trump campaign would assuredly exploit. Yet at the height of 2020 protests and riots, polling showed how truly out of step she was with the African-American community, as 81% indicated they wanted same or more policing in their neighborhoods.
• How does the Harris campaign attempt to portray her as law-and-order prosecutor when she promoted a Minnesota bail fund that once helped free violent offenders during the 2020 George Floyd protests and destructive riots? Incredibly, this Harris-backed fund appears to remain in "receive" mode for donations.  Her support encouraged contributions that ultimately led to release of violent offender, Shawn Michael Tillman. He then committed murder. Our would-be next president has yet to disassociate herself from this foul effort. Protestors were never arrested for peaceably and lawfully protesting. Harris knew that. Her 2020 campaign also proposed to end cash bail and "transform the criminal justice system."
• Lastly, she remains a supporter of "sanctuary city" policies – a brazen act of defiance, whereby municipalities refuse cooperation with federal immigration authorities. With the chaos along southern border an issue both sides fervently wish to exploit during campaign, Harris’s failed efforts as "border czar" are punctuated by the less-than-subtle encouragement for migrants to cross illegally – knowing they have a "friend" in the White House. Recent heinous crimes committed by illegals have suddenly thrust her support for open borders into spotlight. Coddling "border jumpers" (who then go on to commit violent crimes) is the very definition of an unforced error. Yet the lure of expanding her party’s political base is too tempting to avoid. This pander continues to have deadly consequences.

In closing, Kamala Harris’s quest for patronage helped fuel the current national divide. Despite serving seven years as district attorney in San Francisco and as California’s attorney general for six years, we cannot reconcile her record.  Her reckless words promote false narrative that police ranks are rife with "White supremacists" who seek to hunt down and murder young men of color for sport. 

Recall the assassins’ motivations behind recent targeting of cops in New York City and Dallas to understand just how much words matter. Despite any statistical sleight-of-hand regarding crime data, our cities are now more dangerous. In 2024, a cop is shot every 22 hours. All while demonization of police and support for failed policies like bail reform, sanctuary cities, and defund movement continue to destroy public order. Can we really trust Kamala Harris to keep us safe?  

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James A. Gagliano is a retired FBI supervisory special agent and nationally recognized law enforcement analyst. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Homeland Security at St. John’s University and serves on the board of directors for the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.