Kamala Harris’s Office Knew of Complaint Against Top Aide Months Before Leaving AG Office

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) said last week that she did not know about a $400,000 settlement in a harassment lawsuit filed by a female employee against one of her top aides, Larry Wallace, while he was working for Harris at the California Department of Justice.

However, the Sacramento Bee reports that then-Attorney General Harris’s office was informed of the complaint against Wallace in October 2016, several months before she left office.

McClatchy reported last week: “Larry Wallace, who was the director of the Division of Law Enforcement under then-Attorney General Harris, was accused by his former executive assistant Danielle Hartley in December 2016 of “gender harassment” and other demeaning behavior, including frequently asking her to crawl under his desk to change the paper in his printer.” Sen. Harris said “nope” when asked if she had known about the allegations.

However, the Bee reported Friday: “A misconduct claim naming one of Kamala Harris’ top deputies arrived at the California Department of Justice three months before Harris left the attorney general’s office in early 2017.” While the lawsuit was only filed days before she left the state office, “when Harris was still attorney general but preparing to be sworn in as California’s newly elected Democratic senator,” her office had been notified on Oct. 3 by the Equal Employment Rights and Resolution Office that Hartley intended to sue Wallace for harassment.

Harris, a likely contender for president in 2020, has built a reputation on Capitol Hill over the past two years as one of the leading voices in the #MeToo movement. She helped lead the the fight against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year, as he faced sudden allegations of sexual misconduct dating to his high school years in the 1980s.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.