Joe Biden’s running mate has a track record of abusing her office
Joe Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris wrote in her 2019 campaign tract that “America has a deep and dark history of people using the power of the prosecutor as an instrument of injustice.”
“I know this history well — of innocent men framed, of charges brought against people of color without sufficient evidence, of prosecutors hiding information that would exonerate defendants, of the disproportionate application of the law.”
Harris should know, as her history of abusing her office shows exactly what she described in her campaign.
Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, should maybe look her own track record before attempting to lecture on out-of-control prosecutors.
Harris is either engaging in rank hypocrisy or projecting her actions when she talks about framing the innocent and burying exculpatory evidence.
Here are a few:
In 2010, a California Superior Court judge scalded Harris’ DA office for the violation of defendants’ rights by covering up detrimental information about a drug-lab technician.
Prosecutors working under Harris failed to fulfill their constitutional duty to inform defense attorneys information about prosecution witnesses that could have challenged their credibility, the judge concluded at the time.
More than drug cases were dismissed as a result of the failure of Harris’ prosecutors.
Harris also appealed a judge’s decision to remove the Orange County district attorney’s office from a death penalty trial after finding that the sheriff’s department had been running a jailhouse snitch program.
The program corrupted multiple criminal cases, several of them murder trials.
Then there was the Moonlight Fire case.
A late summer wildfire in 2007 had burn 65,000 acres in the California Sierras.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s lead wildfire investigator repeatedly lied about the origin of the fire.
Not only that, he destroyed his investigatory notes and falsified the joint origin-and-cause report along with statements from witnesses.
The goal? To pin the blame and cost on private landowners.
When the case was reviewed by California Superior Court Judge Leslie C. Nichols, he found investigatory and discovery abuses so “corrupt and tainted” he terminated Cal Fire’s action and administered sanctions.
The judge ruled Cal Fire’s targets could never get a fair trial.
Nichols’ overall ruling was upheld by The California Court of Appeals.
The appellate court found upon reviewing the abuses that Cal Fire “repeatedly presented false, misleading or evasive discovery responses.”
The landowners’ attorneys then discovered that Cal Fire illegally diverted $3.66 million in state funds to a hidden slush fund controlled by a small group of Cal Fire employees.
Harris was asked to investigate this misappropriation of public funds, but she said she was unable to due to the fact she was representing Cal Fire in the Moonlight Fire lawsuit.
Harris claimed Cal Fire was her “client, and she had an ethical conflict of interest.”
Harris claims that it was impossible for the attorney general to investigate because the attorney general represents the executive-branch agencies in certain lawsuits had huge implications.
Obviously, Harris refused to investigate as it would have exposed felony conduct that would be difficult not to prosecute.