The legacy media’s attempt to rewrite Kamala Harris’s left-wing record is in full swing. We have written about the orchestrated effort to erase the fact that Joe Biden put Harris in charge of the southern border. Likewise, her contemporaneous ratings as the most liberal member of the Senate are being air-brushed.
Then there is the fact that Harris has a pro-criminal record. During the George Floyd riots of 2020, she raised money–likely a great deal of money–to bail out not just Floyd rioters and arsonists, but also criminals of every kind, all of whom were eligible for MFF’s aid. She did this by endorsing and publicizing a nonprofit called the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which in 2020, with Harris’s help, raked in more than $43 million.
In one case that became notorious locally, a criminal bailed out by MFF committed a murder while free on bail. For obvious reasons, the Democrats would prefer that voters not know about this aspect of Kamala’s career.
Enter WCCO-TV, a local CBS affiliate. WCCO took offense at the fact that Donald Trump mentioned Kamala’s raising bail money in a speech. WCCO tried to debunk this “misinformation.” My colleague Bill Glahn has the whole story: “WCCO smears Trump with fake news on Minnesota Freedom Fund.”
It was the tweet heard-round-the-world. At 5:30 p.m. yesterday, the local CBS affiliate, WCCO TV Channel 4 posted this on Twitter (X):
That tweet (and the WCCO story to which it linked) generated a firestorm, including a number of community notes like this one:
As of 3 p.m. on Friday, the original WCCO post had attracted nearly 8 million views. Among the more than 15,000 replies to the post were many from large, national accounts:
The WCCO story was by Esme Murphy, a left-wing reporter. It turns out that she herself interviewed Kamala a couple of years ago and asked about her promotion of the Minnesota Freedom Fund:
The dishonesty exhibited by Esme Murphy and WCCO TV is breathtaking. Elon Musk got into the act this morning:
As of an hour ago, Elon’s post had 31 million views. “WCCO” peaked at the #8 most tweeted tag.
WCCO’s theory apparently is that, while Harris enthusiastically raised money for MFF, she never donated to that organization herself. That is a ridiculous defense, but it also doesn’t hold up as justification for WCCO’s smear of Trump.
Here is the headline on the actual news piece WCCO reported yesterday:
The headline repeats the same CBS claim made in the WCCO tweet. Trump himself has made no such claim.
The starting point for this story is a speech former President Trump gave at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday. A video of the entire four-hour rally is available here.
The entire sequence takes up less than 60 seconds. At no point does Trump use the word “donation” or any derivative or synonym. He also never mentions the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) by name.
At the 3:37:03 mark, regarding Harris, Trump points out that “she helped raise” $millions for the cause. He appears to be referring to the tweet shown above, from June 1, 2020. Here’s the full tweet:
A few seconds later, at 3:37:17, Trump says that “she was giving them money.” If you go to the 2020 post, still available, and click on the MFF logo shown above, you are redirected to this landing page, still available on the ActBlue website, and under a tab that reads, “Minnesota Freedom Fund — Donate via AB [ActBlue] charities.” The page appears to still be functional.
This donation page is branded with Harris’ name and likeness. It facilitates your donation, via her account, to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. The page uses the word “donate,” “donation,” and “contribution,” all beneath her name and beside her photo.
This landing page is not the official MPP donation page. MPP uses NGP Van to process their donations. This is Harris’ personal donation page.
WCCO appears to be attempting to construct some type of “distinction without a difference” between the act of giving cash from your own pocket, on the one hand, and lending your name and likeness to efforts to solicit, facilitate, and redirect cash donations from others to a favored charity.
Every word that Trump uttered on this subject in Charlotte is literally true, in every sense. The actual on-air report delivered by Esme Murphy on Channel 4 last night is slightly more nuanced than the headline or the anchor’s introduction to her piece.
To defend her thesis, she relies on this statement issued by the Minnesota Freedom Fund:
The statement itself is undated and does not even mention Trump. In addition, the second sentence is completely false, as documented above. The Fund’s ActBlue donation page continues to link Harris and MFF.
So Kamala Harris enthusiastically recommended to her followers that they contribute money to the Minnesota Freedom Fund in order to bail out murderers, rioters, rapists, arsonists and other criminals. We don’t know how much money her donation page raised for MFF, but we do know that she contributed, probably significantly, to a $43 million windfall for that left-wing organization. Harris’s actions show that she is pro-crime, and pro-criminal.
Understandably, the Democrats now want to erase that part of her record. The WCCO smear of Trump shows how far they are willing to go in that regard. But it is likely a losing battle: Harris has a broader pro-crime history, as exemplified by her support for maintaining San Francisco as a sanctuary city–a policy that had tragic, fatal consequences. When it comes to her record, Kamala Harris can run, but she can’t hide.
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