With less than a week until Election Day, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is encouraging residents in Cook County, Illinois, to support the reelection of State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
“As a former prosecutor, I know firsthand that the state’s attorney is a position that has the power to change lives,” Harris says in a robocall to be sent out this week. “And this is exactly what Kim Foxx has done in her four years in office. Kim has used her position to stand up to Donald Trump’s policies and protect our communities.”
The call focuses on ways Foxx has taken legal action against controversial policies enacted by the Trump administration, including a 2019 lawsuit over the administration’s plan to change the “public charge” rule, which the Department of Homeland Security resumed implementing in September following a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. But Foxx still faces scrutiny for how her office handled a case involving former Empire actor Jussie Smollett, who allegedly staged a hate crime in January 2019.
Following the investigation into the incident, Chicago prosecutors charged the actor with 16 felonies related to the fake hate crime. Foxx dropped all of the charges against Smollett, calling them “excessive.” Foxx later recused herself from the case after it was revealed she communicated with former first lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, Tina Tchen, who is a close friend of the Smollett family. Her office claimed the communications were conducted in an unofficial capacity.
Dan Webb, the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the handling of the case, said Foxx’s office engaged in “substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures” in its handling of the Smollett case.
Brad Goodman, a spokesman for Koxx’s Republican challenger, Patrick O’Brien, said the Harris robocall is evidence that the race against Foxx is close. “Last-ditch tactics like this tell us that Kim Foxx is rightfully concerned that she will lose this race,” Goodman wrote in a statement to the Chicago Tribune. “Kim Foxx can line up as many robocalls from politicians outside of Cook County as she wants, but Cook County voters know the truth about her record: Under Foxx, crime is up, prosecutions are down, and families and neighborhoods are less safe.”
In the robocall, Harris rejects the characterization that Cook County neighborhoods have become less safe under Foxx’s tenure, arguing the county has become a “model of reform.”
“Kim Foxx is smart on crime,” Harris says. “We cannot go back to the old ways of criminal justice that harmed our communities. We need her in office to continue making Cook County a model of reform.”
