Kamala Harris' brother-in-law accused of diverting taxpayer funds for political gain

Though many have pointed to Hunter Biden as the best example of the time-honored practice of trading on family political influence in D.C., but there may be a new contender for the title now that the name at the top of the Democratic Party ticket has changed.

As Daniel Huff and Clark George point out in the New York Post, Tony West, brother-in-law to Vice President Kamala Harris, has reportedly earned a bit of a reputation in the nation's capital, which could grow to even wider proportions should she claim the White House.

West's problematic past

Married to Harris' sister Maya, during the presidency of Barack Obama, West headed the Civil Division of the Department of Justice.

During that time, West is said to have devised a crafty way to engage in what big city political bosses formerly called “Honest Graft” for the benefit of his political cronies.

Though in the past, congressional approval was required for any civil settlement entered into by the federal government exceeding $100,000, but in the late 70s, the cap was eliminated, and the DOJ suddenly had the freedom to pay settlements on its own volition -- and largely in secrecy -- from what was dubbed the Judgment Fund.

When West assumed control over the arm of the Justice Department that settled lawsuits, he soon became involved in “paying off political allies,” according to the Post opinion piece.

An email from a West deputy sent to DOJ staffers at the time reportedly asked if someone could “explain to Tony the best way to allocate some money toward an organization of our choosing?” a strategy which ultimately benefitted racial grievance groups and environmental activists to the tune of billions of dollars.

Poised to repeat?

In acknowledgment of the rampant abuse that characterized government funded settlements of this nature, then-President Donald Trump's attorney general halted the practice of this type of payout soon after he took office.

However, once the Biden-Harris team entered the White House in 2021, they swiftly lifted that ban.

Axios recently reported that West has become a top advisor to his sister-in-law's presidential campaign, a role some suspect could convert to one inside a Harris administration, should one come into existence.

In the words of Huff and George in the Post, West is considered to be “White House counsel-in-waiting” among Harris insiders, and the consequences of that could prove devastating.

If “Honest Graft” of the sort West engineered during the Obama years was any indication, if Harris takes the Oval Office, it could be that American's haven't seen anything yet.