Former President Donald Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris the “Godmother of sanctuary cities” on Friday in California as he highlighted her record of lenience toward violent criminals as San Francisco district attorney.
As Breitbart News has noted, Harris was often soft on major crime but tough on minor and non-violent offenders, pursuing thousands of people for marijuana possession, and even prosecuting parents of truant schoolchildren.
She was district attorney from 2004 to 2011, a period that many locals associate with the start of the city’s decline.
As Trump noted, she was a champion of “sanctuary city” policies, which — as a statement of defiance against immigration law — prevent local authorities from assisting federal immigration law enforcement. In practice, the policy has attracted more illegal aliens to sanctuary cities — including criminals, who know they will not be deported.
As California Attorney General, Harris threatened to take legal action against local law enforcement agencies that cooperated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and she once backed a national “sanctuary” policy.
During a news conference at his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, near Los Angeles, Trump presented a list of violent criminals that, he said, she had been lenient towards during her eight years as San Francisco D.A.:
One was Edwin Ramos, whose case was described by the New York Post:
Ramos’ gruesome killings of three members of the Bologna family — Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16 — rocked national headlines and led then-Mayor Gavin Newsom to change the city’s policies on juvenile crimes.
Before the triple shooting, Ramos had been arrested several times as a juvenile for being involved in a gang-related assault on a bus passenger and an attempted robbery of a pregnant woman, per the San Francisco Chronicle.
In both cases, he was not referred to federal authorities because it was a city policy not to question the immigration status of juveniles.
Harris did not seek Ramos’s deportation, nor did she seek the death penalty for Ramos, the Post noted.
Another was was Rony Aguilera, an illegal alien whom the San Francisco Chronicle noted had been arrested for assault, but was not deported, and who then went on to murder a 14-year-old boy using a sword.
Trump also noted that Harris had launched what critics called a “fire sale for plea deals” for criminals in the city.
Among these, Trump said, were David Taylor, whose case was described by the Washington Free Beacon:
A San Francisco homicide investigator blasted Harris over her handling of the murder case of David Taylor, who confessed to beating and stabbing his 65-year-old mother to death in a drug-induced haze. Harris’s office took over the case, and agreed to a voluntary manslaughter charge against Taylor, which carried a 12-year prison sentence.
Trump also noted the fact that Harris refused to seek the death penalty for the murder of San Francisco Police Department officer Isaac Espinoza, provoking outrage even from Democrats, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
And he emphasized that Harris had backed fellow radical prosecutors likeGeorge Gascón — her successor in San Francisco, before he was elected in Los Angeles County — whom many residents blame for an ongoing crime wave.
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.