According to the California Department of Justice, Orange County is the safest major county in California and one of the safest major counties in America. Whether that continues to be true will be entirely dependent on the outcome of the most important district attorney’s race in Orange County’s history.
The safety we enjoy is not an accident and should not be taken for granted.
A clone of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón named Pete Hardin is running to be Orange County’s next District Attorney, and unless voters are paying close attention, our public safety will be destroyed by the same reckless policies that turned Los Angeles and San Francisco into warzones.
Hardin kicked off his campaign last year by announcing support for the same pro-criminal social experiment that Gascon has implemented in Los Angeles, including opposition to cash bail.
Uncoincidentally, Hardin’s San Francisco based campaign manager is George Gascón’s right hand man. In a recent campaign speech, Hardin can be heard mocking Orange County as Los Angeles’ “ugly stepchild” and bragging about his plans to buy the election with dark money from the same George Soros connected organizations that put Gascon in office.
To understand the devastating impact Pete Hardin would have on Orange County, look no further than the crime wave and preventable loss of life in Los Angeles. Train bandits, smash and grab robberies, follow-home burglaries, senseless killings, gang related shootings, and rampant homelessness are now the norm. Mayoral candidate Karen Bass and former Mayor Villaraigosa have both expressed the same sentiment under Gascón: Los Angeles is not safe.
Child molesters like Hannah Tubbs are literally laughing in the face of woke prosecutors. Even after the Tubbs case forced Gascón to walk back his blanket policy on never charging juveniles as adults, Hardin is doubling down. Hardin’s website and recent fundraising messages boastfully reassure supporters that under no circumstances – even murder, rape, or kidnaping – will Hardin ever charge a juvenile as an adult. You can’t make this stuff up.
Pete Hardin as District Attorney of Orange County would have violent criminals and child molesters licking their chops, much like the convicted murderer who toasted Gascón from inside a prison cell with homemade alcohol because he knew he was going to get out early. Criminals know that woke prosecutors are on their side.
Hardin cannot be trusted. Hardin was discharged from the Marines for violating the code of conduct, after an administrative panel found he may have violated policy by engaging in adultery. As an assistant district attorney in Orange County, Hardin was “counseled by his supervisors about his alleged workplace interactions with women,” according to reporting by Voice of OC.
There’s more. In a published court opinion, a federal judge eviscerated Hardin for prosecutorial misconduct because he intentionally let a case involving the shooting of a Navy corpsman go stale to protect a fellow Marine from prosecution.
Hardin continues to stoop to new lows. Now, he is shamelessly playing the race card without regard for the divisive effect it has on our society. Most recently, Hardin tried to falsely smear me by sharing an edited and misleading clip of a speech I gave while speaking to lawyers about the prosecution of hate crimes. I was quoting the exact words of an evil white supremacist as I explained the evidence I am using to put him behind bars for 38 years to life. Hardin has despicably tried to paint those quotes as my own.
For thirty years, I have fought for equal rights and the protection of civil rights for all. The attack is disingenuous, but that doesn’t matter to Hardin.
Hardin is not from Orange County and has no roots here. He was recruited to run as part of a national movement to take out pro-public safety district attorneys like me. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is one of their top prizes and they want nothing more than to figuratively put my head on a silver platter. If that happens, we would be in imminent danger of losing our low crime and excellent quality of life.
Orange County is the safest major county in California for a reason – I actually prosecute the bad guys and hold criminals accountable.
We regularly go after hard core gangs, sex offenders, human traffickers, drunk drivers, skin heads, animal abusers, smash and grab crews, and other violent offenders with the full force of the law. My office has created one of the most aggressive hate crimes units in the country. We put California’s worst mass murderer, the Golden State Killer, behind bars. We caught the suspect who shot and killed 6-year-old Aiden Leos on the 55 freeway.
I do not accept failed social experiments like what has been done in Los Angeles. Instead, we have implemented common sense reforms to the criminal justice system that do not destroy public safety, including increased job training, mental health and addiction treatment, and the creation of conviction integrity and recidivism reduction units.
I have also implemented major reforms within the Office to clean up the mess left by my predecessor, including the misuse of jailhouse informants. We have embraced a “whole prosecutor” approach to public safety, which is why the Orange County Deputy District Attorneys Civic Action Committee endorsed my reelection, stating, “We have full trust in Spitzer to run the office with integrity and keep our community safe.”
Pete Hardin, George Gascón, and the radical movement supporting them want to undo all this good work. They want to turn Orange County into another Los Angeles, and right now, I am the only thing standing in their way.
Todd Spitzer is Orange County District Attorney.
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