Vice President Kamala Harris is working overtime to prove she has what it takes to not only defeat former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election but also in the courtroom, even as a bail fund she once backed to help free violent criminals appears to still be taking in donations.
Speaking at a campaign event on Monday, Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, reflected on the work she consumed herself with before serving in the U.S. Senate and as vice president, which included a seven-year stint as the district attorney for San Francisco.
“I was the elected attorney general, as I’ve mentioned, of California. Before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor,” she said from Wilmington, Delaware. “In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds — predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.”
“So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” she added. “In this campaign, I will proudly… put my record against his.”
KAMALA HARRIS-BACKED ‘FREEDOM FUND’ THAT PUT MURDERERS, RAPISTS BACK ON STREETS STILL UP AND RUNNING
Harris’ remarks, which she amplified on X, came one day after President Biden announced he would not seek re-election to the White House.
Asked whether Harris planned to take on Trump in court using her prosecutorial experience, Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer told Fox News Digital, “No. The vice president was highlighting to the American people the truth: Donald Trump has been found guilty of 34 felonies, liable for sexual abuse, and a fraud judgment obligated him to pay a $175 million penalty.”
“She has firsthand experience prosecuting people like Donald Trump: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” Singer added.
But Harris’ tough talk about serving as a prosecutor in California may crumble quickly due to her past support for the Minnesota Freedom Fund in June 2020 amid Black Lives Matter riots following the death of George Floyd.
During her 2020 campaign for president, which lasted for less than 11 months, Harris supported the bail fund that helped violent criminals get out of prison. As of Monday night, the website was running and accepting payments.
“If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” Harris posted on X, then Twitter, back in 2020, urging people to donate to the fund during the 2020 campaign.
Harris — a large opponent of the cash bail system during her previous presidential campaign — promoted the bail fund in June 2020 to help bail Black Lives Matter rioters out of jail, but only a fraction of the more than $41 million actually went to freeing rioters.
Minneapolis station FOX 9 reported that the fund spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to free an alleged knife murderer and a convicted rapist who was facing charges of sexual assault and kidnapping, among others.
Another criminal, George Howard, 48, also reaped the benefits of the funds. He allegedly became involved in a road rage altercation on an Interstate 94 entrance ramp before he shot another driver, according to Minneapolis police — weeks after bailing out on domestic assault charges.
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Surveillance video recorded the moments when the driver of a blue BMW confronted Howard, who was driving a white Volvo, according to St. Paul’s KSTP-TV. The victim can be seen punching Howard, then collapsing.
The victim, later identified as Luis Damian Martinez Ortiz, 38, got back into his car, then drove into the median. He was pronounced dead at the hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest, according to city officials.
Howard had been out on $11,500 bond in connection with a domestic assault case since Aug. 6, court records show. That’s when the Minnesota Freedom Fund bailed him out.
The Minnesota Freedom Fund admitted to its role in putting Howard back on the streets.
“We are aware of reports of the tragic and fatal shooting in Minneapolis earlier this week allegedly involving George Howard, an individual the Minnesota Freedom Fund had previously provided with bail support,” the group wrote on social media at the time. “MFF believes that every individual who has been arrested by the law enforcement is innocent until proven guilty, and if a judge deems them eligible for bail, they should not have to wait in jail simply because they don’t have the same income or access to resources as others.”
Harris called for an end to the “unjust and broken” cash bail system during her 2020 campaign, claiming it “disproportionately harms people from low-income communities and communities of color.”
Harris, however, had different feelings during her tenure as district attorney in 2004, when she appeared to suggest the need to raise cash bail prices because the county “require[d] people who have been arrested to pay a lot less than other counties,” according to a Washington Free Beacon report.
“On a daily basis, the work I have to do and where I have to put my mind in terms of my priorities is on things like sitting down with Russ [Guintini] my chief assistant and talking with him about the fact we are going to change the bail schedule in San Francisco,” Harris said at the time, according to the outlet. “We are in the process of asking the bench, the judiciary, to reevaluate the fact that we require people who have been arrested to pay a lot less than other counties.”
During her 2020 campaign, which she launched in January 2019, Harris faced significant criticism over her prosecution record. Opponents of tough-on-crime prosecution argue it disproportionately affects low-income families and minorities, further entrenching them in the prison system.
One of the most criticized aspects of Harris’ record was her handling of truancy cases. Harris supported a truancy law, passed in 2011, allowing district attorneys to charge parents with a misdemeanor if their children were chronically absent during the school year without a valid reason.
On Monday evening, after claiming enough delegates to win her party’s nomination for president, Harris said she intends to “unite” the Democratic Party ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
“Over the next few months, I will be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything that is on the line. I fully intend to unite our party, unite our nation, and defeat Donald Trump in November,” she said.
Fox News Digital’s Jamie Joseph and Stepheny Price contributed to this report.
