Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign has reportedly sought to position her as the law-and-order candidate, but the deep-pocketed donors promoting her candidacy have a history of backing efforts to curtail the power of law enforcement.

Harris' aides are pursuing a strategy of highlighting the vice president's record as a district attorney and attorney general of California. according to Despite Harris's plans, many of her donors oppose efforts to empower law enforcement and back groups that advocate for defunding the police, according to CNN.

“Not only will Kamala need to defend her support for Joe Biden's failed policies of the past four years, she will also need to explain her own abysmal weak record on crime in California,” Caroline Leavitt, national spokesperson for the Trump campaign, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “A vote for Kamala is a vote to allow illegal immigrants from around the world to enter our country, a vote to defund the police, abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and release violent criminals from prison.”

The Soros connection

George Soros Confessed The architect of a plan to reform the U.S. criminal justice system by appointing prosecutors who take a more lenient view of crime, her son Alex, endorsed Harris for president shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, The Wall Street Journal reported. reportIn addition to electing so-called reformist prosecutors, Soros philanthropies have funneled millions of dollars to anti-police groups, including those calling for cuts to law enforcement spending.

The Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros and taken over by Alex Soros in 2023, donated tens of millions of dollars in 2021 to anti-police groups, including groups aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement, which calls for police budget cuts, and the New Venture Fund, a Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability that publishes materials on reducing and abolishing police budgets, Fox News Digital reported. reportSoros also supported the movement to abolish the Minneapolis Police Department in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

Democracy PAC and Democracy PAC II, political action committees funded and controlled by the Soros family, have spent tens of millions of dollars. This election cycle He helped Democrats win the election and donated millions of dollars to Democratic super PACs that worked to get Biden elected. 2020According to Federal Election Commission records.

Many of the Soros-backed prosecutors have come under fire from residents in their jurisdictions for how they approach criminal justice. (Related article: Top left-wing donors endorse Kamala Harris)

Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said: Received support Los Angeles County Attorney George Gascón, a former prosecutor for a group aligned with Soros, was removed from office in 2022 after residents criticized him for not prosecuting crimes like burglary, auto theft and murder, and for releasing repeat offenders who repeatedly committed crimes. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, who Soros supported with millions of dollars through his PAC, California Justice and Public Safety, is facing an uphill battle for reelection after being criticized for his handling of crime, including choosing not to prosecute crimes like trespassing, resisting arrest, criminal threats, drug possession and loitering for the purpose of prostitution.

Netflix, nonprofits, and criminal justice reform

Non-profit organization representative Quinn Delaney Co-founder of Netflix Reed HastingsHe is a major Democratic donor. Announced They endorsed Ms Harris shortly after President Joe Biden wrapped up his reelection campaign and joined Mr Soros in helping to get Messrs Gascón and Boudin elected.

Delaney, along with three other California-based donors, funneled millions of dollars to help elect the two prosecutors in 2020, Politico reported. reportHastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, donated $1.75 million to support Gascón. according to Until the deadline.

Hastings donated $7 million to a PAC supporting Harris, his largest donation to a candidate to date, according to Business Insider. reportMeanwhile, Delaney gave $1 million to a super PAC supporting Harris in 2020. Identified The New York Times reported that he was Harris' “major supporter” after she dropped out of the campaign.

Reed Hastings. (Photo by Mike Cohen/Getty Images, courtesy of The New York Times)

Delaney and Hastings have also spent their fortunes to oppose a ballot measure that would have given more power to law enforcement in California.

Hastings and his wife spent $2 million in 2020 to oppose California Proposition 20, which would have increased penalties for property crimes, and $1 million to support a ballot measure that would have eliminated cash bail. according to According to Forbes, Delaney donated money to a committee opposing a California ballot measure that would increase penalties for retail theft in 2024. Politico report.

Delaney is president of the Oakland-based nonprofit Akonadi Foundation, which, according to its website, is dedicated to “ending the criminalization of people of color.” Akonadi is:All for OaklandThe Black Lives Matter Network works to remove police officers from schools and close juvenile prisons, as well as donating to Black Lives Matter organizations.

Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the crowd after speaking at a campaign event (Photo by Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)

Harris' campaign is reportedly preparing to pitch her as a law-and-order candidate, though the vice president has pitched himself as a reformer during his time as a senator. Harris told The View in 2020 that the movement to defund the police is about “rethinking what we do with public safety in America,” adding that “people are conflating the idea that we can achieve safety by putting more cops on the streets, but failing to understand that to achieve safe and healthy communities, we need to put more resources into our community's public education systems, affordable housing, homeownership, access to capital for small businesses, and access to health care regardless of how much money people have,” according to the Sacramento Bee. report.

In a 2020 radio interview, Harris praised the movement to defund the police, saying, “This movement is rightly saying that we need to take a look at these budgets and see if they reflect the right priorities.” according to She also praised Los Angeles' move to cut $150 million from its police budget in an interview the previous day.

Golden State Cash

Carla Jurvetson, another wealthy Californian reported by The New York Times to be endorsing Harris, has been described by Republican activists as “the big shot who's funding almost every politician in Congress who wants to defund the police and the police defunding” because of her political donations to left-leaning lawmakers. according to She is also a donor to Color of Change PAC, the committee to defund the police, and the Washington Free Beacon. report.

Jurvetson was the 24th-largest individual Democratic donor during the 2020 election cycle and gave a significant amount to Harris at the time. according to A watch that makes an impact.

Donors Carla Jurvetson (right) and Marissa Trembley (left) attend the Workday Charity Classic (Photo by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for Eat. Learn. Play)

Andrea Due Steele, a California Democratic donor, had been working hard to lay the groundwork for Harris' campaign even before Biden withdrew, The New York Times reported. Due Steele, a personal friend of Harris' and who served on her national finance committee in 2020, has been directing donors to Democratic groups over the past few weeks in preparation for Harris' campaign.

“I was just trying to make sure we were ready for this moment,” she told The New York Times. “I was just trying to set the stage.”

Due Steel is Founder Emerge America Dedicated It seeks to elect women to public office at all levels of government, and has backed several liberal prosecutors. include Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton and former Suffolk District Attorney Rachel RollinsAccording to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the two men, who received support from Soros' network, were the San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott, who declined to prosecute many of the people arrested in the city during the 2020 George Floyd riots. report.

“Prosecutors exercise the most discretion and power in the system, and that's very important,” Dew Steele said. Said “A series of events has conspired over the last few years to suddenly wake up the progressive community to this,” he told Politico in 2016 about Soros' strategy of funding left-wing prosecutors.

Many Soros-funded prosecutors refuse to prosecute what they consider minor crimes such as drug possession, vandalism and trespass.

“I applaud Emerge America for its work to increase the number of women in law enforcement,” Harris, then California's attorney general, said in 2015 when the group first launched. according to “Having served as district attorney of San Francisco for eight years and now attorney general of California, I can tell you one thing: we absolutely need women's voices in our criminal justice system,” she told MSNBC.

Delaney and Suzi Tompkins Buell, another prominent donor reported by The New York Times to be endorsing Harris, serve Member of the Advisory Board of Emerge America.

The vice president's approach to the police defunding movement is also reflected in her personnel decisions, Harris campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said. Tweeted June 3, 2020: “Cut the Police Budget”

Harris has spent much of her career walking a tightrope between appeasing the left and not antagonizing law enforcement. according to In 2020, for example, Harris distanced herself from her past as a prosecutor at her sister's urging, according to The Wall Street Journal. CNN report.

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. Jurvetson could not be reached for comment. Other donors named above did not respond to requests for comment.

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