OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who was already being criticized by former President Donald Trump and is running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, for her radically leftist views, is facing new scandal of sorts following a report on Tuesday.
Citing documents, the Washington Examiner reported that Harris and second husband Doug Ehmoff donated to a far-left organization pushing to defund police in Washington, D.C., and to turn the nation’s capital into a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants.
“Legal Aid DC, a nonprofit organization in the district that works on housing law and represents low-income clients in other areas, received a $1,000 donation from Harris and Emhoff in 2023, according to a copy of their joint tax return. In 2021, the couple also directed $1,000 to Legal Aid DC, a Washington Examiner review of financial disclosures found,” the outlet reported.
The newly revealed donations come amid scrutiny of Harris on the 2024 campaign trail, particularly regarding her 2020 support for defunding the police and her handling of the border crisis. While Harris has shifted her stance on several progressive issues since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, her recent funding of Legal Aid DC could raise questions about her connections to controversial progressive activists. This scrutiny is intensified by her choice of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate, who has faced criticism for his response to the 2020 riots in Minnesota.
Formed in 1932, Legal Aid DC calls itself “the district’s oldest and largest civil legal services organization,” helping to “make justice real in individual and systemic ways.” In 2020, during the upheaval following George Floyd’s death, Legal Aid DC released a statement on its website by project coordinator Adam Jacobs. noting that it “stands in solidarity with those speaking out, demonstrating, and demanding a country and society that will treat every one of its residents with dignity and respect.”
Days later, in June 2020, the housing law attorney for the left-wing group, Amanda Korber, was quoted in a story advocating for fewer police officers in the district. Legal Aid DC shared the article on social media that said: “As Legal Aid’s Amanda Korber noted in the article, we are concerned, especially given the ongoing protest movement, about any solution that involves more police and policing in DC public housing. #BlackLivesMatterDC.”
The Examiner noted further:
In 2021, Legal Aid DC shared an article on social media glorifying the Black Lives Matter movement, touting a quote by Minneapolis City Councilman Jeremiah Ellison declaring, “I think the police will view a leftist protester with a gas mask as more dangerous than a right-wing protester with a semiautomatic rifle.”
Ellison, the son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, helped lead the unsuccessful charge in 2020 to “dismantle” the Minneapolis Police Department.
Meanwhile, Legal Aid DC also supported a since-approved law in the district to make it a “permanent” sanctuary city. The legislation restricted cooperation between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local agencies. Jacobs, Legal Aid DC’s project coordinator, said at the time that the law “could lift some of the terror our immigrant neighbors and their families have faced for many years.”
“It also restricts the city’s prisons from functioning as immigration detention centers and amends a loophole used by ICE and the U.S. Marshals to detain immigrants outside of D.C. Superior Court,” NBC4 Washington reported in 2020 after the city council made permanent a then-temporary law/
The Republican National Committee highlighted on Tuesday that Walz, Harris’s running mate, has supported “sanctuary state” policies and a law permitting illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. And both used their first joint campaign appearance on Tuesday night to advocate for banning AR-15s and other rifles that Democrats designate as “assault weapons.”
