- The Washington Times - Saturday, October 26, 2019

After headlining a forum on criminal-justice reform in South Carolina, President Trump taunted Democratic Sen. Kamala D. Harris Saturday for skipping the event and said he’s done more for black Americans than she ever will.

Calling the California Democrat a “badly failing presidential candidate,” the president said she is ducking the “very wonderful largely African American event today because yesterday I received a major award, at the same event, for being able to produce & sign into law major Criminal Justice Reform legislation, which will greatly help the African American community (and all other communities),” Mr. Trump tweeted.

Ms. Harris responded to the president Saturday on Twitter, “My whole life I’ve fought for justice and for the people — something you’d know nothing about. The only part of criminal justice you can claim credit for is the ’criminal’ part.”

She did attend the forum Saturday, after initially backing out in protest of an award that Mr. Trump received.

Ms. Harris asked attendees, “What do we have in Donald Trump? Someone who dares — dares — to use the word ’lynching,’ with the blood that has been poured on the soil of South Carolina and so many places, and dares to talk about his victimization?”

The president referred this week to House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as a lynching. At the conference, he said he sympathized with others who have been victims of prosecutorial abuse.

Ms. Harris added, “Let’s also be clear that anybody walking into a courtroom today does not have the ability to fire a prosecutor. And yet he tried to fire [special counsel Robert] Mueller, and he fired [FBI Director James] Comey.”

The president spoke Friday at the Presidential Justice Forum in Columbia, South Carolina, at Benedict College, a historically black institution. He received the Bipartisan Justice Award, presented by Matthew Charles, one of the first prisoners freed by the First Step Act earlier this year after serving three years in prison.

“I would not be a free man today if Donald J. Trump had not supported and signed the First Step Act,” he said. Referring to his work on criminal-justice reform, Mr. Trump tweeted, “This and best unemployment numbers EVER is more than Kamala will EVER be able to do for African Americans!”

Several other Democratic presidential candidates, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, are attending the event this weekend. Ms. Harris is a former California state attorney general.

• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.

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