Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic presidential candidate, criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for her “hypocrisy” in vigorously defending Brittney Griner while failing to advocate for Americans in jail for marijuana violations, including those prosecuted by the former California attorney general.
Thursday, Vice President Harris spoke out against Russia’s conviction of Griner for carrying a cannabis vape pen at a Russian airport earlier this year and her subsequent nine-year sentence.
Russia’s illegal detention of Brittney Griner will also continue with today’s sentencing. Harris tweeted that she should be released right away. The President and I and the rest of the Administration are working tirelessly to bring Brittney and Paul Whelan home to their families.
“Another note of hypocrisy coming from Kamala Harris and this administration,” Gabbard said to Fox News anchor Will Cain, “as you highlighted during her distinguished career as attorney general in California… She kept inmates in jail for longer than their sentences allowed so she could exploit them as free slave labour, but now those same people are denouncing other countries for doing the same thing.
It is completely illogical. “My question for her and the Biden administration — where is your outrage for your fellow Americans who are sitting in prison today here in the United States of America because of minor marijuana violations?” Gabbard asked.
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Why do you not advocate as passionately for their release and reunification with loved ones as you do for Brittney Griner? That “if you are rich and powerful or famous, then you will get special treatment from this administration,” as Gabbard put it, “is the message to the American people through [the administration’s] actions,” she continued saying, “If you aren’t.
To put it bluntly, we do not give a damn about you, and we have no intention of rescuing you from your prison cell. “Unfortunately, like too many politicians, it seems that she puts her finger to the wind and decides the things she is supposed to be angry about on any given day,” Gabbard said of Harris’s reversals on drug enforcement.
Gabbard reaffirmed her belief that no one should go to jail due to a marijuana conviction. Harris oversaw thousands of marijuana-related arrests as a district attorney and attorney general.
According to a report by the San Jose Mercury News in 2019, Harris oversaw more than 1,900 marijuana convictions as San Francisco’s top prosecutor between 2004 and 2010. Of those, a few hundred were sentenced to prison. While Harris served as California’s attorney general in 2011, 1,970 people around the country were incarcerated for marijuana-related offences, as the Washington Free Beacon reported.
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While serving as district attorney and later as California’s attorney general, Harris was a vocal opponent of marijuana legalization. Harris admitted to listening to Tupac and Snoop Dogg while using weed in a radio interview in February 2019. But Tupac did not drop an album until 1991, and Snoop Dogg did not drop him until 1993.
However, beginning in 1990, Harris served as an assistant district attorney in California’s Alameda County. Gabbard has been vocal in her disapproval of Harris before. In an August 2019 Democratic primary debate, Gabbard ended Kamala’s hopes of being president in 2020.
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Kamala Harris was criticized by Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) for her work as California’s attorney general and prosecutor. For what Gabbard called Harris’ “embarrassing” performance on the international stage in February, click here.
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze: Tulsi Gabbard blasts Kamala Harris for her ‘hypocrisy’ in protecting Brittney Griner but not Americans behind bars for marijuana infractions.
