A charitable bail organization talked up by Kamala Harris is drawing scrutiny amid increased rioting and violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon.
In addition to Harris, Joe Biden’s running mate on the Democratic ticket and a California senator, Minnesota Freedom Fund has attracted celebrity donors such as Steve Carell, Seth Rogen, Rob Delaney, Cynthia Nixon, and Don Cheadle. The group aims to steer donations to demonstrators arrested in Minneapolis during May riots following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died during his arrest by the Minneapolis Police Department.
If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota. https://t.co/t8LXowKIbw
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 1, 2020
Harris tweeted in favor of the bail fund on June 1, two-and-a-half months before she was tapped for the Democratic ticket with Biden, a two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator. Her advocacy of the bail fund has the potential to play into President Trump’s “soft on crime” charge against the Biden ticket. Harris, in pushing the bail fund, implicity brings her expertise from a career in law enforcement, including six years as California attorney general and seven years as San Francisco district attorney.
The MFF raised $35 million in the wake of the riots. But by early August, Minneapolis’ Fox 9 reported that the fund bailed out defendants from Twin Cities jails charged with murder, violent felonies, and sex crimes.
At the height of MFF’s popularity, contributions to MFF jumped from $1,000 daily to $100,000. Suspects who were released as a result of the fund providing bail included a gunman who shot at police during the May riots, a woman accused of killing a friend, and a twice-convicted rapist.
“I often don’t even look at a charge when I bail someone out,” MFF’s Greg Lewin said when asked about bailing out these suspects. “I will see it after I pay the bill because it is not the point. The point is the system we are fighting.”
Additionally, according to Jeff Clayton of the American Bail Coalition, there were not many peaceful protesters that needed the MFF to bail them out.
“They don’t report publicly who they bail out. In other words, there’s really no way to find out unless you go case by case, pull the files to find out if this bail fund posted the bail for these defendants and what we found out … essentially, they were not bailing out peaceful protesters, really at all,” Clayton told the Washington Examiner.
“The peaceful protesters that were arrested and that were assigned bail was probably around 10. In the first couple of weeks, the bails were $78 or $100 in most cases,” he added.
Lewin confirmed this, telling Fox 9 that only “about a dozen” protesters were ever bailed out using the fund’s money.
MFF is among many charity bail funds across the country that engage in the same activity as MFF. An umbrella of bail funds around the nation raised around $90 million. According to Clayton, other than New York, no other state regulates charitable bail funds.
“New York limited the size of the bonds to $2,000 or less — to make it for low-level cases, which is what it was intended for originally and they have to disclose where they get the money and who they bailed out and what the results were,” Clayton explained, noting that MFF is also offering to post bond for federal immigration cases.
