From Prosecutor To Politician
As we mentioned in Part 1, although the romantic relationship between Kamala and Willie Brown ended after he became mayor, his political help for her was just beginning. At the time Brown was elected to mayor of San Francisco, Terrence Hallinan was the District Attorney there. After Willie Brown became mayor, Hallinan hired Kamala to work in the SF DA’s office. It’s not known if Hallinan did so at Brown’s request. Willie Brown was one of the most powerful politicians in California.
After she had been in the San Francisco DA’s office for a while, Brown told Hallinan that he wanted him to name Kamala as the Assistant DA for San Francisco. While Brown had power, Hallinan refused to grant that request. Kamala quit and went to work for the San Francisco City Attorney Office. That is when Brown started his magic and exercised his control of the Democrat machine. Brown had Kamala ran against Hallinan in the next DA election for San Francisco. Kamala was backed by all of Brown’s powerful donors and associates. In a 3-way race, Kamala finished second, but neither she nor Hallinan had secured more than 50% of the vote, so it went to a runoff. More money poured in, and Kamala won the runoff. Interesting to note that while Kamala had pledged to limit spending of $211,000, but she blew past that number and actually spent more than $600,000 on the elections, three times what Hallinan spent. Her campaign was actually fined $34,000 for this violation. With that, she became the San Francisco District Attorney.
The Paybacks Begin
It didn’t take long for the paybacks to begin. Many of her contributors were slumlords, contractors and friends of Willie Brown who often had issues with the County of San Francisco and involved the DA’s office. There were several situations that came before the DA’s office where she ignored the issue or gave them an easy slap on the wrist fine. The San Francisco police had received a number of complaints of prostitution happening behind closed doors at adult entertainment clubs. The police conducted sting operations at two clubs, and were almost immediately solicited for sex. In total, 9 women were arrested with what the police said were “slam-dunk cases.” Kamala dropped all the cases. It seems that the owner of the two clubs had along history with Willie Brown, going back to when the owner first hired Brown as his defense attorney in 1977.
Another situation was when Willie Brown, as mayor, appointed Hector Chinchilla as head of the San Francisco Planning Commission. Anyone who has had to deal with a planning commission anywhere knows how much power they have. Mr. Chinchilla hired himself out as a “consultant” to developers seeking permits from the commission. He accepted more than $187,000 from developers who had been told he would run interference for them. The prosecution on 7 counts had been started by Hallinan, but when 3 of the counts was dismissed in court, Kamala, who had taken over as DA, dismissed the remaining counts.
Another generous contributor to Willie Brown was Ricardo Ramirez, a high rolling construction contractor who had donated to many politicians, including Brown. In addition to being a big contributor, he had the habit of using inferior materials, such as recycled concrete, on major city and state projects, including parking garages, light-rail projects, and the Golden Gate and Bay bridge. A number of public works agencies disclosed that Ramirez’ company had defrauded them. However, with Kamala in charge, he was offered a plea deal about storing waste oil at one of his production sites and, in order to avoid jail time, he agreed to a one year home detentions and paid $427,000 in fines and restitution.
City and state officials were mystified as to why Harris had not pursued the charges regarding the inferior concrete, and Kamala had ho explanation as to why she dropped that portion of the case against Willie Browns friend.
Back on Track Program
One of Kamala’s signature programs was called “Back on Track”. It was a program that was supposed to help first time minor drug offenders avoid having a criminal record and to start fresh. They were required to participate in and pass the program, at which point their record would be wiped clean. When she ran for the California Attorney General office, she boasted about how successful the program was. She claimed that only 10% of those who completed the program had a second offense. The key words here are “who completed” the program. About 50% of those entered into the program were kicked out or never completed the program, so it is likely that it wasn’t that big of a success.
There were other problems with the program, too, such as allowing people in who had committed more than one crime, or who were in the country illegally. One was Alexander Izaguirre, an illegal immigrant who had been arrested twice, once for selling cocaine and one for purse snatching. Part of the program was job training, so Kamala was training him for jobs he could not legally hold in the United States.
One night while he was still in the program he snatched the purse of a woman walking down the street in Pacific Heights and jumped into a SUV close by. Rather than just leaving, he drove toward and hit the woman with the vehicle, causing her a fractured skull. When the victim learned that Izaguirre was in the United States illegally, asked why he hadn’t been deported. Kamala, who had sworn an oath to protect and defend the laws of the United States and the United States Constitution, simply answered that enforcing federal immigration laws was not her job.
Abandonment of Child Abuse Victims
The worst example of this was her handling on child abuse by priests of the Catholic Church, which was a prevalent topic at the time. It turns out that thousands of dollars were contributed to her campaign by law firms and lawyers who represented the Catholic Church diocese there in San Francisco, as well as many members of the board of directors of those churches. Terrance Hallinan had done a major investigation and was preparing to and, along with other Bay Aria Das, was preparing to release explosive information naming over 40 priests and ex-priests for whom they had received complaints of child abuse. The victims welcomed the release of this information in hopes that others might some forward whose abuse was not past the statute of limitations. Although these victims wanted this information to be released, Kamala buried the information stating that her interest was to put the criminals in jail, not to “sell out the victims to look good in the paper.”
The victims and their families were angry. They wanted this report to be publicized, but Kamala claimed that she was refusing to release the report in order to protect the victims. Those victims viewed this as a cop out, and even the District Attorney of Los Angeles said there was “no reason why transparency and protecting the victim cannot work hand in hand.”
Starting in 2004 when Kamala became the San Francisco DA through her time as California Attorney General ending in 2017, she never brought a single case against abusive priests. So much for protecting children.
For all of the rhetoric we hear from Kamala and the democrats, it appears that the statement “No one is above the law” is missing half of the sentence. It should conclude, “except when you donate to my campaign.” Bribery is when you receive money after you are elected. When the money comes before you are elected, it’s called a campaign contribution.
Watch for Part Three in a few days, her corrupt days as California Attorney General. If you missed part one, click here. Share with your friends.
