A nearly three-decade-old ABC News report featuring future vice president Kamala Harris went viral on Tuesday. During the time when the two were dating, Harris was asked if she was the daughter of the eventual San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown. Not daughter - lover.
Their relationship began in 1994 and ended sometime in 1995, the year that Brown was elected mayor of San Francisco, according to The Post. “Excuse me, are you his daughter?” an unidentified reporter asks Harris, who is standing next to Brown, in the clip from a 1995 “PrimeTime Live” video package that surfaced hours before the Democrat presidential nominee’s debate against Donald Trump. Following a quick moment of awkward silence, Harris declared, “No, I’m not” and smiled.
The two dated in the mid-1990s, when Harris, now 59, was just a young prosecutor in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and Brown, now 90, was the speaker of the California State Assembly. A profile of Brown is depicted in the video package, which then turns to Harris and her former lover. Reporter Judd Rose described the male Democrat as “notorious” for his “flamboyant lifestyle,” which includes a preference for “fine women.” Earlier in the segment, Harris makes an appearance, beaming as she supports Brown during his mayoral victory speech. While they were dating, Brown is credited with advancing Harris’s career by appointing her to the California Medical Assistance Commission and the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board in 1994.
“Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker,” Brown admitted in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2019. Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer has previously reported that “Brown’s support of Harris” during her successful 2003 campaign for San Francisco district attorney was motivated by “corrupt” reasons. “Kamala Harris has a long history as a corrupt prosecutor,” Schweizer, who is also the president of the Government Accountability Institute watchdog group, wrote on X back in July. “I don’t use that word lightly,” he continued. “Mayor Willie Brown helped get her elected as San Francisco District Atty. because the current DA, Terence Hallinan was pursuing legal cases against his friends and donors.” “When Harris beat Hallinan, she dropped those cases or plead them out for reduced sentences,” Schweizer concluded.