Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris plans to boycott an upcoming South Carolina criminal justice forum that she was slated to attend after the organizers honored President Trump on Friday with an award for his work on criminal justice reform.
Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award from the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center for his legislative strides on the First Step Act, which grants early release to thousands of nonviolent offenders who are currently serving time in federal prisons.
Harris herself was a supporter of the legislation, which received bipartisan support before Trump signed it into law.
Harris, also a recipient of the award in 2016, took issue with the group’s decision and called Trump — who is facing an impeachment inquiry by House Democrats — “a lawless President.”
“Not only does he circumvent the laws of our country and the principles of our Constitution, but there is nothing in his career that is about justice, for justice or in celebration of justice,” her campaign said in a statement.
She also decried that only a small minority of students at Benedict College, a historically black college in Columbia, secured tickets for Saturday’s event because the majority of the seats will be filled by administration officials and Trump supporters.
“Today, when it became clear Donald Trump would receive an award after decades of celebrating mass incarceration, pushing the death penalty for innocent black Americans, rolling back police accountability measures and racist behavior that puts people’s lives at risk, and then learned all but [10] Benedict students are excluded from participating, I cannot in good faith be complicit in papering over his record,” Harris said. – READ MORE