Kamala Harris is third in the contest to be the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nominee according to the last five national polls. She is behind only Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, who has not decided whether he is a candidate as of yet.
Knowing who Kamala Harris is beyond what she tells Americans about herself is profoundly important, so important that you would think that the mainstream media would be salivating to tell you that the current U.S. senator from California is being accused of being corrupt for not pursuing a case against a crooked company while she was California’s attorney general.
You would also think that the mainstream liberal media would be interested in a story that has many critics alleging that she is NOT the progressive champion of average people that she claims she is.
And you would also think that mainstream publications would be eager to report that she failed to take action against a company that was victimizing poor people after she accepted a political donation from a member of a prominent Democratic family.
If you had the three above thoughts about the mainstream media, you have struck out on a test about the mainstream media.
To be blunt, The New York Times and other publications as well as the major television channels have ignored a scandal you probably haven’t heard about — but should have heard about. While the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the state of Illinois were pursuing — and winning — a case against Herbalife Nutrition for fraudulent marketing practices and for being a pyramid scheme that ripped people off, California Attorney General Kamala Harris did nothing despite repeated calls for action from prosecutors in her own office.
The above paragraph might lead you to call Harris “Hypocrite Harris” since the announcement of her presidential candidacy included the following statement about what motivated her to be a public official, “I knew I wanted to protect people. And I knew that the people in our society who are most often targeted by predators are also most often the voiceless and vulnerable.”
Or those facts might simply lead you to call her “Cowardly Kamala” for not challenging a company that was mostly exploiting Latinos with limited financial resources.
But the story gets worse. Much worse. Harris, you see, received not one, not two, but three contributions to her 2016 U.S. Senate campaign from Heather Podesta, whose lobbying firm worked for Herbalife.
If that last name sounds familiar, it should. Heather Podesta is the sister-in-law of John Podesta, the chairperson of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She is also the ex-wife of Tony Podesta, a controversial lobbyist who Robert Mueller and other prosecutors were investigating as well as a lobbyist for Herbalife.
Thus, “Hypocrite Harris” and “Cowardly Kamala” might not be the best nicknames for Harris, who as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017 had ample opportunity to take Herbalife to court at the same time that the FTC was winning a $200 million settlement against the multilevel marketing corporation and Illinois was winning a $3 million settlement. “Corrupt Kamala” might be better.
“Kamala Harris has the Latino community furious for refusing to investigate a scam run by Heather Podesta, and then accepting what looks like bribes in the form of ‘donations’ from the same people,” is how this article in the Conservative Daily Post described what happened.
Harris Didn’t Protect People
The Conservative Daily Post article details how Herbalife’s pyramid scheme targeted Latinos.
The company’s own records indicate that about 60 percent of the people in its distributor network were Spanish-speaking Latinos and the total percentage of Herbalife salespeople who are Latino might have been as high as 80 percent. Latino groups urged Harris to go after Herbalife, but she refused while accepting Heather Podesta’s campaign contributions at roughly the same time.
The Washington Free Beacon, a politically conservative website, puts Harris’ disregard for the California Latino community this way — “Kamala Harris Accused of Letting Company Exploiting Latinos ‘Off the Hook’.” In the article, Julie Contreras, a Latino anti-Herbalife activist, called Harris’ lack of action “disgusting” and a “huge injustice.” She even has a nickname for Harris — “Que Mala,” which means “how bad.”
In addition, an article in Power Line, a conservative political blog, notes that Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, worked for a law firm that represented Herbalife at the time that the prosecutors in Harris’ San Diego office urged her to go after Herbalife and, at about the same time, Heather Podesta donated to Harris’ Senate campaign.
So with all this alleged corruption in her background while she is one of the leading candidates to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, The New York Times is interested, right? Well, if you do a Google search on “Kamala Harris” and “Herbalife,” you will find scant reporting on this scandal. No one in the mainstream media has brought this story to the attention of voters.
The New York Times did, though, have a long article on Harris’ fundraising in its March 27 newspaper. The article is more than 1,600 words. It reports that Harris is a great fundraiser who has raised more money for some of her Democratic colleagues in the Senate than anyone else and is now raising millions for herself. She is portrayed as someone who has had tremendous success raising money from very rich people at expensive fundraisers as well as small donors via a sophisticated e-mail list.
The article is a summary of her fundraising career, but the words “Herbalife” and “Podesta” are never mentioned. Why?
The mainstream media might ignore Harris’ alleged improprieties, but you know that the president won’t.
“If Harris makes any headway, perhaps President Trump will call her “corrupt Kamala,” as the Power Line article concludes.
