In the criminal cases against Donald Trump, prosecutors seem to have only boosted his chances of getting elected.
But, as the Democrats seek to make a political case against a second Trump term, a prosecutor is exactly what they need, to call him on his lies built upon lies built upon lies.
And, long before she became vice-president and a possible replacement for President Biden on the Democratic ticket, Kamala Harris developed formidable prosecutorial skills as an assistant district attorney in Alameda County, CA. She handled felony cases such as one in 1996, where a man was charged with scalping his girlfriend with a Ginsu knife, having failed in a previous attempt with a duller blade. The assailant’s attorney tried to say it was an accident.
Kamala Harris a year after the exchange with a domestic abuser that showed her mettle as a career prosecutor. He was jailed for almost three decades for trying to scalp his girlfriend.
Mary F. Calvert/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images
“How many cases have you heard where someone slipped and scalped someone?” Harris was quoted saying in response. She added, “He intended to scalp her and he did scalp her. It was a vicious crime.”
The man was convicted and sentenced to 12 years to life.
Those who have encountered Harris’ prosecutorial skills in very different settings include Trump’s last Attorney General Bill Barr. Then Sen. Harris (D-CA) tore him up at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on May 1, 2019. She was seeking to determine if then President Trump had instructed Barr to target people for investigation, and the exchange is worth reading.
“Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?” Harris asked.
Barr had what might have been perceived as a senior moment if he had been older. “Um ah, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, uh,” Barr said.
Harris’ questioning of Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr was precise and prosecutorial and showed the forensic ability she would bring to a debate with Trump.
Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
“Yes or no?” Harris asked, just as she would have with a recalcitrant witness when she was an assistant district attorney working felony cases in Alameda County, California. “Could you repeat the question?” Barr asked.
“I will repeat it,” Harris said. “Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? Yes or no, please, sir.”
“The president or anybody else…” Barr said, trailing off.
“It seems you would remember something like that and be able to tell us,” Harris said.
“Yeah, but I’m trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest,’” Barr replied. “I mean, there have been discussions of matters out there that they have not asked me to open an investigation, but…”
“Perhaps they’ve suggested,” Harris said. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t say suggested, ’” Barr said. “I don’t know, inferred.”
Harris never did get an answer.
“He did not answer the question, and I’m sure he didn’t because he knew he was under oath, and he knew that he could potentially expose himself to perjury if he didn’t answer honestly,” Harris told CNN the next day.
She had similarly rattled Barr’s predecessor, Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017. Harris took Sessions to task for repeatedly saying that he could not recall when asked about particular facts and conversations.
Bill Barr’s normal jolly demanor was no match for Harris as she probed him with accomplished prosecutorial skills.
Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
“If you don’t let me qualify it you will accuse me of lying, so I need to be correct as best I can,” Sessions said.
“I do want you to be honest,” Harris said.
“I am not able to be rushed this fast, it makes me nervous,” Sessions famously replied.
Harris was even tougher on Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court before the Senate Judiciary Committee. At one point she asked him about his views on abortion.
“Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” she inquired.
Kavanaugh said he would be happy to answer if she was more specific. “Male versus female,” Harris said. “I’m not thinking of any right now, Senator,” Kavanaugh said.
When Harris went toe-to-toe with Jeff Sessions she left him pleading for her to slow down because she made him “nervous.”
Joshua Roberts/Reuters
She also asked Kavanaugh if he had discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation with anybody, specifically with anyone at Kasowitz Benson Torres. That is the law firm founded by Marc Kasowitz, who was then Trump’s personal lawyer.
“Well, is there a person you’re talking about?” Kavanaugh asked Harris. “I’m asking you a very direct question,” Harris replied. “Yes or no?”
Kavanaugh gave a rambling non-answer. “I would like to know the person you’re thinking of,“ he then said.
“I think you’re thinking of someone and you don’t want to tell us,” Harris told him.
Such exchanges made Harris an internet star. And that was no doubt a major factor in Biden’s decision to choose her as his running mate even though she possesses other—less positive—characteristics of a career prosecutor. She can be grating and full of herself. One reason many of us feel we do not really know her after three years is that we have not really wanted to get to know her.
But nobody is more bothered by Harris than Donald Trump. He described her as “extraordinarily nasty” when Biden picked her. He cited “the ways she treated now Justice Kavanaugh.”
“She was nasty to a level that was just a horrible thing,” Trump told the press. “And I won’t forget that soon.”
The exclusive video obtained by The Daily Beast this week makes clear how bothered Trump still is by her. “She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic,” Trump says after suggesting she would probably replace Biden on the Democratic ticket. “She’s so fucking bad.”
Consider the impact Harris could have on a debate with Trump, who lolled back in his golf cart seat to call her “so fucking bad” to people on his golf course.
The Daily Beast
If Harris does replace Biden, she should demand as many debates as possible. Imagine how Trump would respond if this so-fucking-bad-nasty woman gave him her most thorough treatment.
A Harris cross-examination may be just what is needed to stand against the lies of a nitwit from Jamaica, Queens, who now endangers the whole nation.
