Our Washington Examiner editorial on Friday lists some substantive questions that presidential candidate Kamala Harris should answer if she ever comes out of hiding, but those are just a start. Here are others — ones that will force her to clarify whether she stands with the radical wing of her party or instead with the law-respecting bulk of the public.
1. Do you believe that Israel’s very existence is an example of “ settler colonialism ,” and do you support a “right of return” for Palestinians to land they supposedly owned pre-1948?
2. A federal judge ruled that the University of California, Los Angeles, has a duty to ensure that its Jewish students are not blocked from attending classes, but the university is appealing the decision. Do you think universities have a responsibility to stop “protests” that interfere with the access or speech rights of others, and will you ask your Justice Department or solicitor general to take a stand either way?
3. Which of the following is the worse problem: A) police violence against black people, or B) black victims of crimes that allegedly result from inadequate numbers of police — police force sizes that have dropped nationwide, by the way, since you and others supported “defunding police” ?
4. When police shot knife-wielding Jacob Blake in Wisconsin after being informed he was suspected of sexual assault and hearing a woman yell that he was about to abscond with her young child, you presented the situation as a racial matter, you said even after deadly rioting that you “support” people who “take to the streets,” and you said, before evidence was in, that the policeman “ should be charged .” Several questions. A) Was that appropriate behavior from a candidate for the vice presidency, or in retrospect, should you have urged calm and a sober investigation rather than demanding protests and arrests? B) Considering that the Wisconsin district attorney, the Wisconsin attorney general, and your own administration’s Justice Department all declined to bring charges against the police officer after careful reviews of the evidence and that Blake himself withdrew his civil lawsuit against the officer, do you regret impugning the officer, and do you think the Biden-Harris Justice Department was right not to bring charges against the officer? C) Considering that the number of unarmed people of any race killed by officers each year is minuscule, indeed only half as likely as deaths by lightning , and that the racial disparities within that tiny sample are only marginal, do you still think that making the matter a racial flash point is fair or wise?
5. When Brett Kavanaugh was nominated for the Supreme Court, you demanded that the FBI investigate what you called “serious” and “credible” allegations that Kavanaugh participated in gang rapes — allegations that, on their very face, were utterly implausible and turned out to be outlandishly false. What assurances, if any, can you give that, as president, with an entire Justice Department at your disposal, you won’t use the weight of your office to smear or harass your political enemies?
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6. Speaking of unwarranted use of prosecutorial powers , when you were a prosecutor in California, you were repeatedly rebuked or overturned by courts for violating the First Amendment, countenancing the withholding of evidence, defending clearly unjust convictions, and hiding prosecutorial misconduct. Yet you also built a soft-on-crime record that included plea deals for multiple-offenders who subsequently committed murder or other violent crimes. And when running for president in 2020, you advocated an end to all mandatory minimum sentences, even for heinous crimes. And you supported automatic expungement of most criminal records after five years, and you supported the move by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to slash police funding by $150 million , after which murders immediately jumped to the highest level in 15 years and remained frighteningly high . If the prosecutors are unaccountable but the policies are lenient against criminals, how will that inspire confidence in your Justice Department?
There are plenty of other questions Harris should answer about her policy preferences and her record. These questions, though, get to the heart of the president’s duty to ensure that laws are faithfully executed. Her history on that front does not inspire confidence.
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