AMAC Exclusive by Clayton Fuller
From San Francisco to Philadelphia, from Chicago to Portland, radical progressive prosecutors have been taking the law into their own hands, capitulating to lawbreakers rather than protecting law-abiding citizens. These prosecutors break their professional oaths by refusing to prosecute criminals, advancing a left-wing “social justice” agenda they could never pass into law. All the while, they are being encouraged and egged on by socialist Democrats in Washington.
Here are just a few of the most extreme progressive prosecutors in America.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin was recently elected as the District Attorney of San Francisco. He boasts of relatives who were Marxist theorists and others who represented Fidel Castro. His adoptive father is Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground fame.
In addition, Boudin worked for Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. Boudin has also received more than $620,000 from a network of radical leftist donors who are linked to George Soros. Boudin’s family, work experience, and donor network seem to have influenced how he views his prosecutorial oath. Boudin calls putting criminals in prison “an act of violence in and of itself” and has sought to make theft a civil rather than a criminal issue. The predictable result is that shoplifting has exploded in San Francisco, becoming so widespread and pervasive that Walgreens has shut down 17 of its stores due to rampant theft that Boudin is refusing to prosecute.
Even more egregiously, Boudin believes the “district attorney can challenge the legitimacy of law by declining to bring charges in certain cases.” But prosecutors are not legislators or judges, or philosophers. Every prosecutor takes a solemn oath to faithfully discharge the duties of the office, to defend the people of the community, and to enforce the law – not make up their own version of what they think the law should be.
There is significant statistical evidence that Boudin has quite simply abandoned the duties of his office. Over the past year, the San Francisco Police Department presented Boudin with 6,333 felonies. Boudin dismissed 40% of them. Through the first 15 months of Boudin’s tenure as D.A., Boudin tried just 23 cases and had obtained only 16 convictions. By contrast, Boudin’s predecessor had tried 294 cases over the same timeframe and secured 203 convictions. Take the felony crime of domestic violence. In the last three months of 2020 alone, Boudin dismissed cases against 113 out of the 131 individuals charged with felony domestic violence.
Unsurprisingly, crime is skyrocketing in San Francisco. During Boudin’s first year as D.A., burglaries increased by 52%, and motor vehicle thefts took off by 36%. The murder rate in San Francisco increased by 17%.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner
Larry Krasner is the District Attorney for Philadelphia. Krasner campaigned specifically on the claim that policing is “systemically racist.” Krasner boasted that “None of the other candidates have ever been this progressive, this enlightened, this conscious, this woke.” George Soros-backed entities spent nearly $1.7 million to get Krasner in office, a gigantic sum for a local prosecutor’s race. Once elected, Krasner refused to prosecute crimes involving guns and drugs and has mandated that his office seek lighter sentences overall.
Krasner’s arbitrary and selective enforcement of the duly enacted laws of Pennsylvania represents a gross act of prosecutorial malpractice. Since Krasner took over in Philadelphia through June of last year, he has dropped or lost 26% more felony cases than his predecessor, and felony guilty pleas and verdicts in Philadelphia have fallen by 27%. Since January 2018, when Larry Krasner assumed office, the annual number of homicides has increased by over 40% to 469 murders in Philadelphia in 2020. In 2020, auto thefts increased by 63%, gun assaults increased by 72%, and commercial burglaries increased by 132% compared to the year before Krasner became D.A.
Krasner’s disdain for law enforcement is also infamous. As a private attorney, Krasner sued the Philadelphia Police Department 75 times, and his supporters at his victory party chanted “F—the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police].” As D.A., Krasner has already received a stinging rebuke from the former U.S. Attorney for Pennsylvania, William McSwain, who said, “[t]here is a new culture of disrespect for law enforcement in this city that is promoted and championed by District Attorney Larry Krasner—and I am fed up with it.”
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx
Kim Foxx currently serves as the State’s Attorney for Cook County, Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago. She recently co-authored an opinion piece in which she asserted: “Our criminal legal system was constructed to control Black people and people of color.” Foxx, along with numerous other non-prosecuting prosecutors who signed the op-ed, committed “to using [her] office’s power and platform to advance discussions of divestment from the criminal legal system and toward community-led and community-defined responses to harm.” George Soros funded entities spent nearly $2 million dollars on her 2020 reelection campaign, and Soros personally contributed $300,000 to a PAC supporting Foxx’s election.
Immediately after being elected, Foxx announced that her office would no longer charge shoplifters with felonies unless they either had more than ten previous felony convictions or if they stole more than $1,000 worth of goods. In 2019, she even refused to prosecute actor Jussie Smollett, who staged a hate crime against himself. In 2020, in the wake of violent rioting and shoplifting in Chicago, Foxx defended the violent rioters and looters rather than prosecute lawbreakers. She said:
“We do ourselves a disservice… if we don’t look those young people in the eyes, who stepped over broken glass to take things because they can’t afford some of the things in their own neighborhood.” “Do not fall for the trap of responding to ancillary issues over here and not demanding justice in all aspects of our lives. These windows will be fixed, but those strip malls still need those businesses. The glass will be picked up, but our children are still getting an unequal education.”
Through June of last year, Foxx had dropped or lost 40% more felony cases than her predecessor, and felony guilty pleas and verdicts in Cook County plummeted by 13%. Over 25,000 more people had their felony cases dismissed under Foxx than her predecessor. Chicago had nearly 748 homicides in 2020, up 55.5% from 2019, and Cook County recorded an astonishing 857 gun-related homicides in 2020, more than any other year in history.
The Biden Administration Is Pushing Progressive Prosecutors Into Courthouses Near You
In city after city across the country, top prosecutors like Boudin, Krasner, Foxx, and others are breaking their oaths as public servants and catering to criminals rather than law-abiding citizens. These oathbreakers are being directly aided and abetted by the Biden administration. After terminating federal prison contracts and calling the police “absolutely” systemically racist, Joe Biden is nominating non-prosecuting prosecutors to U.S. Attorney positions. In his “Unity Plan” with radical socialist Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden made the campaign promise to “Support Progressive Prosecutors” and including their efforts at “reducing incarceration.” Vice President Kamala Harris is also firmly behind the push for pro-criminal anti-police prosecutors. Harris once said: “I believe we need to look locally and elect progressive prosecutors. Because the vast majority of prosecutions occur at the state and local level. There are leaders among us like Kim Foxx from Cook County[.]” Kamala Harris even lauded her own background as a “progressive prosecutor.” Indeed, Harris established a long record of releasing dangerous criminals in California.
Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris-Soros oathbreakers are not just a big city phenomenon. They represent the Democrat party’s socialist crusade to dismantle and destroy any criminal justice system that actually works – whether it be in a big city, small town, or suburban America. The radical socialists of today’s Democrat party are coming to a courthouse near you.
Clay Fuller served as a White House Fellow from 2018-2019, advising senior Trump administration officials on special operations oversight at the Department of Defense and advising the Office of the Vice President on countering the opioid epidemic. He is an experienced federal, military, and local prosecutor as well as a military reserve officer with a decade of national security experience.