HAVEN’T WE YET LEARNED ABOUT LAWYERS?
THAT THEY ARE AMORAL SOCIOPATHS? LOOK AT HILLARY BILLARY CLINTON AND THE
OBOMBS!
In addition to campaign
donations from multiple law firms defending San Francisco priests against abuse
claims, Schweizer observed that “board members of San Francisco Catholic
archdiocese-related organizations and their family members donated another
$50,950 to Harris’s campaign.”
Kamala Harris Failed to Prosecute
Priest Sex Abuse Cases Despite Victims’ Pleas
AP Photo/Eric Risberg
12 Aug 2020603
Joe Biden announced Tuesday he has chosen Sen. Kamala Harris
(D-CA) as his running mate, a person the presumptive Democrat nominee described as a “fearless fighter for the little
guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants.”
During Harris’s tenure
as San Francisco’s chief prosecutor, however, she showed no signs of fighting
for “the little guy” when she failed to prosecute any of the sexual abuse
claims brought against Catholic priests in the city, despite outcries from
victim groups.
In fact, as Breitbart
News senior contributor Peter Schweizer, president of the Government
Accountability Institute, observed in his book titled Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, during her 13-year
tenure as district attorney and then attorney general, Harris failed to
prosecute even one case of priest sexual abuse, though during that same period
at least 50 major cities had brought charges against priests.
At the same time Harris
failed to pursue prosecution of cases of priest sexual abuse, her office “would
strangely hide vital records on abuses that had occurred,” Schweizer revealed.
The bombshell details
show that while Harris’s predecessor, former San Francisco District Attorney
Terence Hallinan, had launched an aggressive investigation into priests of the
Archdiocese of San Francisco accused of sexual abuse, Harris’s campaign to
unseat Hallinan showed an unusual influx of unparalleled donations from
high-level officials of the Catholic Church.
Schweizer wrote:
Harris had no
particular ties to the Catholic Church or Catholic organizations, but the money
still came in large, unprecedented sums. Lawyer Joseph Russoniello represented
the church on a wide variety of issues, including the handling of the church
abuse scandal. He served on the Catholic Church’s National Review Board (NRB)
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The purpose of the NRB was to
review Catholic Church abuse cases. Russoniello was also a partner in the San
Francisco law firm Cooley Godward. Russoniello donated the maximum amount by
law to her campaign, $1,250, and his law firm added another $2,250. He also sat
on Harris’s advisory council when she was San Francisco district attorney.
Another law firm, Bingham McCutcheon, which handled legal matters for the
archdiocese concerning Catholic Charities, donated $2,825, the maximum allowed.
Curiously, Bingham McCutcheon had only donated to two other candidates running
for office in San Francisco before, for a total of $650. As with Russoniello,
their support was unusual.
In addition to campaign
donations from multiple law firms defending San Francisco priests against abuse
claims, Schweizer observed that “board members of San Francisco Catholic
archdiocese-related organizations and their family members donated another
$50,950 to Harris’s campaign.”
As Schweizer noted,
Harris’s ties to those working to block exposure of the archdiocese’s secret
documents containing information about priests accused of sexual abuse were
extensive.
The author explained
that attorney Paul Renne of Cooley Godward was the husband of former San
Francisco city attorney Louise Renne, a mentor to Harris. Paul Renne worked
with lawyer Joseph Russoniello, who, as Schweizer wrote, “negotiated the
agreement to bury the abuse records from public view.”
Though Harris has
touted her early career as a sexual crimes prosecutor, after she won her
run-off campaign against Hallinan, her office actually worked to cover up the
records of claims of sexual abuse by priests of the San Francisco archdiocese.
According to Schweizer:
Hallinan’s office had
used the archdiocese files to guide its investigations and talked publicly
about releasing the documents after removing victims’ names and identifiers.
Harris, on the other hand, abruptly decided to bury the records. For some
reason, she did not want the documents released in any form. Harris’s office
claimed that the cover-up was about protecting the victims of abuse. “District
Attorney Harris focuses her efforts on putting child molesters in prison,” her
office claimed. “We’re not interested in selling out our victims to look good
in the paper.”
Victims’ groups,
however, were quite eager for the documents to be released.
“They were outraged by
her actions,” Schweizer noted. “Far from protecting victims, they argued, the
cover-up was actually protecting the abusers by keeping their alleged crimes
secret.”
“They’re full of shit,”
Joey Piscitelli, the northwest regional director of Survivors Network of Those
Abused by Priests (SNAP), said, reported Schweizer. “You can quote me on that.
They’re not protecting the victims.”
Similarly, attorney
Rick Simons, who represented victims of clergy sexual abuse, said Harris’s
action of covering up the documents “shows a pattern and practice and policy of
ignoring the rights of children by one of the largest institutions of the city
and county of San Francisco, and in the Bay Area.”
When Harris attempted
to shift the blame for hiding the records to Hallinan, her predecessor
responded that she engaged in “the kinds of deals that have allowed the church
sex scandal to go on as long as it has.”
As a result of Harris’s
efforts to cover up the documents, Schweizer wrote that psychologist James
Jenkins, who founded the archdiocese’s Independent Review Board – which oversaw
the methods to handle abuse claims – “abruptly resigned from the board”:
He accused the church
of “deception, manipulation and control” for blocking the release of the
board’s findings. Jenkins argued that Harris’s deal with the archdiocese not
only denied the rights of known victims, it also prevented other possible cases
from coming forward.
In April 2010,
Schweizer reported Harris’s office denied a request from a San
Francisco Weekly journalist who sought the archdiocese’s abuse
records. Similarly, Schweizer wrote he requested the same documents in 2019,
through an attorney in California.
“The San Francisco
district attorney’s office responded they no longer had them in their
possession,” he noted.
“Were they destroyed?
Were they moved somewhere else?” Schweizer asked. “It remains a disturbing
mystery.”
August 14, 2020
Let's hope
Catholics remember what Kamala said
We have
something interesting in the Biden-Harris ticket. He claims to be a
Catholic, and she has a history of attacking ruthlessly the Knights of
Columbus, a Catholic men's group.
In the
interest of full disclosure, I am a member in my parish. My late
father was also a member way back to his time in Cuba.
The "Knights" feed the poor, raise money for natural
disaster victims, and participate in many community programs.
Senator
Harris's bigotry needs to be shared with Catholics in all of those battleground
states. This is from Alexandra Desanctis:
In late 2018, while
evaluating the nomination of Brian Buescher to serve as a district judge in
Nebraska, Harris posed a series of questions insinuating that his involvement
in the Knights of Columbus -- a charitable Catholic fraternal organization
-- disqualified him from serving on the bench.
Here's one of her
written questions:
Since 1993, you have
been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised
primarily of Catholic men. In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus,
described abortion as "a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40
million deaths." Mr. Anderson went on to say that "abortion is the
killing of the innocent on a massive scale." Were you aware that the
Knights of Columbus opposed a woman's right to choose when you joined the
organization?
That's pretty
rough, and I remember it quite well. By the way, what
does Harris thinks happens to all of those babies who are aborted?
My guess is
that former V.P. Biden has quite a few friends who are "Knights." Will
he get a question about this? He should.
PS:
You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
Catholic Abuse Survivors: Kamala
Harris ‘Chose Not to Prosecute a Single Abusive Priest’
23
5:55
The
executive director of a national network of survivors of sexual abuse by
priests said in a statement sent to Breitbart News that then-District Attorney
Kamala Harris (D-CA) “chose to ignore an opportunity” to investigate priests in
San Francisco for abusing children.
Zach Hiner, the executive director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by
Priests (SNAP), corroborated the bombshell details about Harris revealed by
Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer in his book Profiles in
Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite.
Linking to a video by The Intercept that profiles
Harris’s conduct as San Francisco’s district attorney, Hiner said:
Senator Kamala Harris, as the District Attorney
of San Francisco, chose to ignore an opportunity in 2004 to continue the work
of her predecessor, Terence Hallinan, who was compiling dossiers about abuse in
the Archdiocese of San Francisco with the intention of investigating and
cracking down on that archdiocese. Despite the work that Hallinan had done,
when Harris assumed office she stopped cooperating with victims and chose not to
prosecute a single abusive priest.
WARNING: Graphic Video
Schweizer, the
president of the Government Accountability Institute, exposed in his book that,
during her 13-year tenure as district attorney and then attorney general,
Harris failed to prosecute even one case of priest sexual abuse, though during
that same period, at least 50 major cities had brought charges against priests
identified as pedophiles.
The author detailed that while Harris’s predecessor, former
San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, had launched an aggressive
investigation into priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco accused of
sexual abuse, Harris’s campaign to unseat Hallinan showed an unusual influx of
unparalleled donations from high-level officials of the Catholic Church.
In addition to campaign donations from multiple law firms
defending San Francisco priests against abuse claims, Schweizer observed that
“board members of San Francisco Catholic archdiocese-related organizations and
their family members donated another $50,950 to Harris’s campaign.”
As Schweizer noted, Harris’s ties to those working to block
exposure of the archdiocese’s secret documents containing information about
priests accused of sexual abuse were extensive.
Hiner continued:
Later, as Attorney General, Senator
Harris was silent about advocating for clergy abuse victims, surely in part
because her boss, Jerry Brown, expressed his disdain for windows of justice that
involved his church — he was a Jesuit Seminarian.
Not surprisingly, with no crackdown, San Francisco remains
one of the last few archdioceses in the nation to refuse to provide a list of
abusers. We believe that the San Francisco list would contain hundreds of names
of sexual predators who are yet publicly unknown, leaving communities in
California unprotected. Had Hallinan’s policies been pursued, that list would
likely already be published, with crucial information that would safeguard the
community and help victims heal.
SNAP’s executive director, however, expressed praise for
Harris’s successor as California attorney general, Xavier Becerra (D), and Gov.
Gavin Newsom (D). He said Becerra has “opened a statewide investigation into
Catholic Church practices and has ordered all California bishops to preserve
sex abuse files.”
Hiner added Newsom “signed into law a three-year ‘window of
justice’ that already has attracted hundreds of lawsuits that name predators
and enablers, known and unknown.”
“These are monumentally positive moves for victims of
clergy abuse and all citizens,” he said. “When predators are named, parents can
protect their kids. We believe that what Becerra, Newsom, and the California
legislature have done should be replicated nationwide.”
“It is clear that survivors from San Francisco who tried to
work with Kamala’s office feel like they were betrayed and hung out to dry,”
Hiner added. “Survivors today can look to the work done by AG Xavier Becerra
and feel more confident that their top law enforcement official cares about
ending the scourge of child sexual abuse, and we hope that Kamala learns from
his example.”
As a guest on Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Daily on
Thursday with host Alex Marlow, Schweizer noted that
victims’ rights groups condemned Harris’s cover-up of the documents detailing
allegations of sexual abuse against priests.
“The victims’ rights groups snapped,” Schweizer remarked.
“Some of the … groups went absolutely ballistic, and you can understand why.
Kamala Harris claimed that she sealed those records to protect victims. The
victims call that outrageous and wrong.”
Schweizer pointed out former Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) alma
mater, Saint Ignatius Prep, was one of the “elite-connected” institutions whose
supporters contributed to Harris’s campaigns.
“That school has also educated several generations of the
Getty family, the very wealthy family that made its money in oil,” he also
said, as Marlow observed Newsom’s father served as general counsel for Getty
Oil.
“Gavin Newsom is also very passionately supportive of this
school,” Schweizer said as well. “Members of the Getty family sit on the school’s
board of directors, and, of course, the Getty family were huge backers of
Kamala Harris’s run for this office.”
“Once Kamala Harris took that position as San Francisco
[district] attorney, these victims were completely shut out by and all
cooperation ended,” the author said. “This is a story that needs attention. It
demands her being asked about it and her answering questions about it.”
Blue State Blues: Kamala Harris, Serial Abuser of Power
The one thing to know about Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is that whenever she has a tiny bit of power, she abuses it.
In introducing Harris on Wednesday, former Vice President Joe Biden said that she was a fighter for the “little guy.” But he gave no examples — because there are none.
There are plenty of examples of Harris fighting against the “little guy.”
The most egregious example is her malicious prosecution of filmmaker and anti-abortion activist David Daleiden, who made undercover videos of Planned Parenthood employees discussing how to make money from the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses.
It was the first and only time undercover journalists had been prosecuted under an obscure California law.
Worse, Harris reportedly acted after meeting with Planned Parenthood, which was apparently upset that Daleiden had caught their employees in the act. The abortion group also wanted the videos suppressed. Daleiden says that when the state executed its search warrant on his home, its purpose was to seize unpublished videos to make sure they were never released.
Harris, he said, colluded with a powerful left-wing interest group to abuse the First Amendment and punish him for exposing it.
So much for fighting for the “little guy.”
Harris also abused the powers of her office to target a political opponent. It was part of a pattern. She attempted to force Americans for Prosperity, a 501(c)4 group supported by the Koch brothers, to reveal its donors, though they are already known to the federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Harris tried to do at the state level what the IRS scandal had done throughout the country: bully and intimidate a conservative group.
A district judge agreed that allowing Harris to accept the donor lists would allow “harassment” and could suppress the group’s constitutionally-protected liberties. That judgment was overturned by the Ninth Circuit, and the case is pending before the Supreme Court.
What remains noteworthy about the case is Harris’s behavior: singling out a conservative, pro-business group for legal intimidation. Ironically, the 501(c)4 rules protected the NAACP during the civil rights struggle.
Once she arrived in the U.S. Senate, Harris continued her abusive behavior. She developed a habit of badgering witnesses and then turning her questioning into viral YouTube videos to raise campaign cash.
Occasionally, this tactic backfired, as when she grilled Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing about whether he had discussed the Russia “collusion” investigation. Laughably, she had no evidence; even the left-wing California media panned her performance.
The most shocking example came in 2018, when Harris used a confirmation hearing for Ronald Vitiello, who had been nominated to lead the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, to compare ICE to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
In an outrageous exchange, Harris accused ICE — which exists to enforce federal immigration laws the Senate itself has passed — of being like racist vigilantes who lynched black Americans. She had no evidence, only “perceptions.”
Far from fighting for the vulnerable, Harris has been accused of protecting abusers — most notably, declining to prosecute priests for sexual abuse when she was San Francisco’s district attorney. She was the only DA from a major city to refrain.
In the days since former Vice President Joe Biden picked Harris to be his running mate, conservatives have had a field day mocking the New York Times for calling her a “pragmatic moderate.”
Harris is no pragmatist, no record of working across party lines. She was rated by the non-partisan GovTrack as the #1 most left-wing member of the Senate, further left than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
The main basis for claiming she is a “moderate” appears to be that she is a former prosector. But so, too, is Kim Foxx, the George Soros-funded radical notorious for dropping the charges against Jussie Smollett in Chicago after he faked a hate crime and blamed it on Trump supporters.
There is nothing intrinsically “conservative” or “moderate” about being a prosecutor, even if the current politics of the Democratic Party and Black Lives Matter are hostile to law enforcement. Harris, like many Democrats in politics, saw the prosecutor’s job as a political stepping stone.
When Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) took Harris to task at the second Democratic debate last year, it was not just because Harris had taken a tough approach to marijuana offenders, but because she had laughed later about having smoked pot herself.
The attack resonated because it was an example of Harris abusing her power. She was willing to put thousands of people in jail for breaking a law she did not believe in herself because doing so would burnish her political credentials.
Another basis for claiming Harris is a “moderate” is that she is a creation of the Democratic Party political establishment. She got her start in politics from her association with California State Assembly leader and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. She won her Senate seat in 2016 with the help of the Bay Area liberal gentry and national Democratic leaders, including then-President Barack Obama. After the 2016 election, Harris tapped into Hillary Clinton’s donor network.
But the “woke” Democratic Party establishment is no longer politically “moderate.”
As Shadi Hamid noted in the Wall Street Journal in 2018, it was the Democratic establishment that became most politically extreme after Donald Trump won in 2016, embracing “Russia collusion” conspiracy theories and the like.
The establishment — of both parties — will adopt any outward political stance to protect its power. And Kamala Harris has a career-long habit of abusing hers.
Harris represents a clear and present danger to liberty in an era when the Democratic Party is siding with violent mobs and vowing to sweep away all obstacles to its power if it wins the November elections. Harris actually joined protests outside the White House on May 30, the same day that demonstrators there assaulted a Breitbart News journalist and others. Back home in California, antisemitic Black Lives Matter mobs were rioting through the heart of Los Angeles.
Biden is promising that he will “fundamentally transform” the country, which he says needs “revolutionary institutional changes.” Harris, too, said Wednesday that she intends to overhaul a system afflicted by “systemic” racial injustice. And Obama called for eliminating the Senate filibuster to allow Democrats to do whatever they want.
If Republicans continue to block progress, I’ll get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal. #ClimateTownHall
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 4, 2019
If Harris would be, as many suspect, running a Biden administration from “day one,” the freedom of every American citizen would be at risk.
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). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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