NEW: Kamala Under Fire For ‘Greatly Exaggerating’ Key Aspect Of Her Past

In 2003, as Kamala Harris campaigned for San Francisco District Attorney, her campaign distributed mailers highlighting her “thirteen years of courtroom experience.” According to ABC News, which obtained copies of the mailers, they promoted Harris as “the veteran prosecutor we need to turn around our District Attorney office.” The mailers promoted her extensive prosecutorial background. “Kamala has tried hundreds of serious and violent felonies, including homicide, rape, and child sexual assault cases.”

During a 2003 KGO Radio debate in the lead-up to the San Francisco District Attorney election, Harris was challenged by her opponent Bill Fazio, a veteran criminal defense attorney. ABC News reported that Fazio questioned the accuracy of Harris’s campaign statements. Fazio criticized Harris pointing to discrepancies between her stated experience and her campaign literature, which claimed she had tried “hundreds of serious felonies.”

He accused her of being misleading and untrustworthy, saying, “Ms. Harris, why does your information, which is still published, say that you tried hundreds of serious felonies? I think that’s misleading. I think that’s disingenuous. I think that shows that you are incapable of leadership and you’re not to be trusted.”

In a statement to ABC News in August, James Singer, a spokesperson for Kamala Harris, defended her record stating, “Vice President Harris oversaw and was involved in the prosecution of hundreds of serious crimes before she was elected District Attorney of San Francisco. For more than a decade, she prosecuted child sexual assault cases, homicides, and robberies in Alameda, before overseeing the career criminal unit and served as the head of division on families and children in the San Francisco District Attorney’s office.”

However, there have been inconsistencies in how Harris’s campaign literature described her legal experience. While some materials stated that Harris had “tried” hundreds of cases, other documents, including her campaign website, used the word “prosecuted” instead. In legal terminology, “prosecuted” and “tried” have distinct meanings, which are important in understanding the scope of a lawyer’s or prosecutor’s duties.

To prosecute a case means to oversee and manage its progression through the legal system, including initiating charges, handling pre-trial activities, and pursuing it in court. This can involve a range of activities from investigating, preparing, and filing the case to managing plea negotiations. On the other hand, to try a case specifically refers to presenting it in a trial setting, where the prosecutor actively argues the case before a judge or jury, presents evidence, and examines witnesses. Essentially, while all trials are a form of prosecution, not all prosecutions end in trials.

A former colleague of Kamala Harris said to ABC News that her 2003 campaign messaging was designed to appeal to a general audience. “I think what the campaign was trying to communicate was that she had stood up in court, presented evidence, had investigated and then prosecuted, including live in court, advocating on behalf of a victim in hundreds of cases.” One anonymous San Francisco litigator explained to ABC, “When you say you tried cases, that means you went to the courtroom and took that to trial, either a court trial or a jury trial.”

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