When Sen. Kamala Harris was California's top prosecutor, she failed to prosecute a single case of child sexual abuse by priests and her office reportedly hid records documenting these sex crimes against children.
While serving as San Francisco's district attorney for seven years and then as California's attorney general for an additional six years, Harris "never brought a single documented case forward against an abusive priest," wrote Peter Schweizer in Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite.
"During her decade-and-a-half tenure as a chief prosecutor, Harris would fail to prosecute a single case of priest abuse and her office would strangely hide vital records on abuses that had occurred despite the protests of victim groups," The New York Times bestselling author alleged. His investigative work is "backed by a mountain of corporate documents and legal filings from around the globe."
Schweizer suggested that the primary reason for her soft approach towards abuse in the Roman Catholic Church was due to the political debt she owed prominent Catholics in the Bay Area.
Her predecessor and opponent in the district attorney's race, Vincent Hallinan, was aggressively pursuing such abuse cases and threatened to bring dozens of these incidents to light. His gathering of incriminating evidence drove those implicated Catholics afraid of his findings into Harris's arms.
Hallinan pointed to well-connected institutions at the heart of California’s power structure. For instance, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School in the Archdiocese of San Francisco which graduated California Gov. Jerry Brown and the powerful Getty family, and faced public scrutiny because of abuse issues there.
According to San Francisco election financial disclosures, high-dollar donations to Harris’s campaign at the time poured in from those tied to the Catholic Church institutional hierarchy. "Harris had no particular ties to the Catholic Church or Catholic organizations, but the money still came in large, unprecedented sums," Schweizer explained.
Harris received funding from Church fixer Joseph Russoniello and the law firm Cooley Godward, where Russoniello served as partner. Russoniello would later serve on her advisory board.
Law firm Bingham McCutcheon, which handled legal matters for the archdiocese concerning Catholic Charities, donated $2,825—the maximum allowed.
On the exhaustive list, law firm Arguedas, Cassman & Headley—which was representing a priest in an abuse case at the time—donated $4,550 to Harris. The attorney in the case, Cristina Arguedas, also served on Harris' advisory council.
Harris was additionally tossed money from Catholic board members of various organizations in the Bay Area and their family members, totaling $50,950.
The alleged cronyism paid off. Hallinan's loss to Harris meant that the "fate of the investigation into Catholic priest abuse would dramatically change—and not for the better," according to Schweizer.
Where Hallinan sought to release abuse records, Harris acted to hide them: "Harris, who had been a sexual crimes prosecutor early in her career, moved in the opposite direction of Hallinan and worked to cover up the records," Schweizer quipped.
Harris claimed that she buried the records in question for the protection of the victims. This excuse was quickly shot down by victim advocacy groups.
"Victims' groups wanted the documents released and Harris was stopping it. They were outraged by her actions. Far from protecting victims, they argued, the cover-up was actually protecting the abusers by keeping their alleged crimes secret," Schweizer charged.
Survivor Network of Those Abused by Priests' (SNAP) northwest regional director Joey Piscitelli lambasted these actions. "They're full of s–t," Piscitelli fired. "You can quote me on that. They're not protecting the victims."
"It is an astonishing display of inaction, given the number of cases brought in other parts of the country. To put this lack of action in perspective, at least fifty other cities charged priests in sexual abuse cases during her tenure as San Francisco district attorney. San Francisco is conspicuous by its absence," Schweizer contended.
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