CLAIM: Kamala Harris “took on one of our country’s largest for-profit colleges that scammed students.”
VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. Harris rejected a deal to save the college, and thousands of students had their education interrupted.
Vice President Kamala Harris has a rather thin record of achievement. One of the few accomplishments she is trying to point to is her involvement in the closure of Corinthian College, a for-profit institution that Democrats had targeted.
She claimed in an Instagram post:
As Attorney General of California, I took on one of our country’s largest for-profit colleges that scammed students. Donald Trump ran a for-profit college that scammed students.
And as Attorney General, I held Wall Street banks accountable for fraud. Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of fraud.
As a prosecutor, I specialized in cases of sexual abuse. Donald Trump was found liable for committing sexual abuse.
I will put my record against his every day of the week.
Harris’s reference to Trump’s criminal and civil cases omits the likelihood that these verdicts will be overturned. Both are viewed by Republicans as gross miscarriages of justice by partisan prosecutors or plaintiffs; biased judges; and left-wing juries.
The fact that Harris is endorsing these verdicts as some kind of standard of justice, and as if Trump actually deserved to lose these cases, will worry those concerned about the decline of the rule of law in America under Democrat rule.
On the issue of for-profit colleges, Harris is also hiding the truth.
Democrats, at both the state and federal levels, have pursued for-profit colleges, claiming that they “scam” students. It is true that some students are promised degrees that they fail to attain, then struggle to pay their debts. But that is true of non-profit colleges as well, who resent the competition — and who call on a phalanx of elite graduates in Congress, who can be relied upon to protect their monopoly on degrees.
The fact is that Harris, as California Attorney General, could have saved Corinthian. Instead, she let it collapse.
As Breitbart News reported in 2015:
After California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ refusal to grant a release from liability for past actions blocked Corinthian College’s “advanced negotiations” with several parties to sell its remaining schools, which would have helped 16,000 active students continue their education, 28 schools shut down last week and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, May 3.
Harris said that shutting down the for-profit school was in the best interest of the 16,000 Corinthian students because she may be able to cancel their student debt.
Breitbart News later reported that as a result of Harris’s actions, “16,000 students had their educations suddenly interrupted — and they had to scramble for help to repay their student loans.”
So it is correct to say that she “took on” Corinthian — but it is false to say that Corinthian scammed all of its students.
Moreover, Harris blocked a deal that could have saved Corinthian. She hurt some students, instead of helping them.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
