Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has come under fire after it was revealed that a “leading” law enforcement endorsement she touted was less than credible. On Monday, Harris received support from an organization called “Police Leaders for Community Safety,” which had been presented as a major law enforcement group.
However, according to a report from the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), the organization is only a few months old and run by a Democratic political operative with little to no actual policing experience. The group, which publicly launched on June 11, is led by Gail Hoffman, a long-time Democratic staffer. Hoffman, who previously worked on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and held various roles in the Clinton administration, has no history of serving with law enforcement, a fact confirmed by her own professional biography.
The controversy arose when Fox News, which initially described the endorsement as coming from a “leading” law enforcement group, changed its headline after discovering the organization’s lack of credentials. The campaign continued to promote the endorsement, even after the retraction from Fox, claiming the group was a significant law enforcement entity, despite its recent founding and limited reach.
The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the nation’s largest and most established law enforcement organization, quickly disputed any comparison between themselves and “Police Leaders for Community Safety.” The FOP has approximately 377,000 members, a large contrast to the smaller advisory board of “Police Leaders for Community Safety,” which primarily consists of retired law enforcement officers. The FOP previously endorsed former President Donald Trump, which heightened the backlash of Harris’s endorsement from this lesser-known group.
In a statement to DCNF, a spokesperson for the FOP said, “Prior to Police Leaders for Community Safety announcing their endorsement earlier this week, we were totally unfamiliar with the group.” The spokesperson further said that the FOP is heavily involved in law enforcement issues across the country and had never encountered this organization before.
The timing of the endorsement and the organization’s connection to the Democratic Party raised more red flags. While the group described itself as “nonpartisan,” the board of directors is composed entirely of individuals with clear Democratic ties, including Hoffman. In fact, David Mahoney, the group’s treasurer, ran for sheriff of Dane County, Wisconsin, as a Democrat, and the chair of the board, Susan Riseling, is known for her social media activity promoting Democratic causes and attacking Republicans.
Harris has faced backlash for her past comments supporting the defund the police movement, and some believe that her campaign sought this endorsement to counteract that narrative. However, with the group’s credibility now in question, it seems to have backfired. Police Leaders for Community Safety defended its endorsement, claiming that it is the only national police leadership organization that endorses political candidates. A spokesperson for the group told DCNF that they had been organizing informally since 2022 but only went public in June 2024. The group also claimed that its members, though primarily retired, represent a broad range of law enforcement leaders.
“This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” Harris said in June of 2020, during an episode of the New York-based radio program Ebro in the Morning.
Harris also praised Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti for his move to cut $150 million from the police budget and redirect it into social services at the time. Notably, after June 2020, Harris distanced herself from the “defund the police” movement, rarely mentioning it again.
