Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is facing renewed scrutiny over a plea agreement she reached as attorney general of California with disgraced former San Diego mayor Bob Filner, who left office over sexual harassment claims.
Filner was the first Democrat to be elected to mayor in San Diego in 20 years, and identifies with the “progressive” wing of the party. Breitbart News, which covered the Filner harassment scandal as it unfolded, described it later as “replete with multiple victims, Gloria Allred press conferences, and marches by outraged citizens.”
The Washington Examiner notes (original link included):
In 2013, about 20 women accused Filner, a two-decade Democratic congressman-turned-San Diego mayor, of sexual harassment and misconduct. Some said he put them in “Filner headlocks.”Harris’ office drew considerable criticism in 2013 for allowing Filner to plead guilty to state charges of false imprisonment and battery against three Jane Does in exchange for a light sentence. Filner could have faced up to five years in prison, but the plea bargain instead gave him three months of house arrest, three years’ probation, and partial loss of his mayoral pension.
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A spokesman for Harris’ presidential campaign, Ian Sams, said of the Filner episode: “She prosecuted a politician from her own party for sexual harassment, and he pled guilty to a felony. She was broadly praised for taking action, including by the Republican San Diego County district attorney who said it sent ‘a strong message that nobody is above the law, abuse of women won’t be tolerated and victims will be treated with respect.'”
The lenient plea deal, the Examiner adds, looks worse in the light of the recent “#MeToo” movement, which has highlighted the abusive behavior of men in power towards female colleagues and subordinates.
Harris has also faced recent criticism for taking donations from lawyers from the Kirkland and Ellis firm after blasting the firm’s alumni for past work for convicted billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein (who now faces new charges).
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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