Secrets of Kamala Harris’ Romance With ‘Sugar Daddy Kingmaker’ Who ‘Made Her Career’ Laid Bare — From BMW Gift to ‘Passport to Power’
Harris is said to owe her rise to power to political power broker Willie Brown.
Aug. 14 2024, Published 1:45 p.m. ET
Kamala Harris’ phenomenal career has been overshadowed for years by gossip she owes her rise to the top to the political powerbroker she dated in the 1990s.
RadarOnline.com can now reveal the secrets of the U.S. president wannabe’s romance with “kingmaker” Willie Brown – including how he gifted her a BMW when she was already in a $100,000-a-year job he arranged for her, as well as the Democrat’s use of his massive network of rich and powerful contacts.
The pair’s relationship is forensically detailed in investigative journalist Peter Schweizer’s book Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite.
Peter Schweizer forensically detailed Harris and Brown’s relationship in his Profiles in Corruption book.
He says: “Kamala Harris’ entrée into the corridors of political power largely began with a date.
“In 1994, she met Willie Brown, who at the time was the second-most-powerful man in California politics.
“As Speaker of the State Assembly, Brown was a legend in Sacramento and around the state. He represented a district in the Bay Area and was well known in San Francisco social circles.
“In addition to running the California Assembly, Brown ran a legal practice on the side, which meant taking fees from lobbyists and industries that may have wanted favorable treatment in Sacramento.”
The writer adds by the time Harris, 59, met Brown – now 90 – he was renowned for his penchant for “expensive Brioni suits, Borsalino hats, Ferraris and Porsches” – and once declared his “body would reject a Plymouth”.
Brown retired from political office in 2004 and bought a $1.8million condo in the St. Regis in San Francisco two years later.
Powerplayer Brown served as mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004.
Harris was 29 and an up-and-coming lawyer when she caught his eye – with Brown then a 60-year-old influential figure in California politics.
Their relationship lasted less than two years when Brown was separated from his wife at the time – and his influence over her career has led critics to say he is the “sugar daddy” to whom she owes her current spot as frontrunner to succeed Joe Biden, 81, in the 2024 race for the White House.
Brown was also two years older than Harris’ father when they started dating.
Schweizer added: “Their affair was the talk of San Francisco in 1994… Brown began pulling levers for Harris that both boosted her career and put money in her pocket, rewarding Kamala with appointments to state commissions that paid handsomely and did not require confirmation by the legislature.”
The writer details how Brown put Harris on the State Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later the California Medical Assistance Commission.
Both posts were part-time and, at the time, Schweizer says she was “making around $100,000”.
Harris became the Democratic Party’s unofficial presidential nominee after Joe Biden dropped out of the race last month.
He added: “Along the way, Brown also bought young Kamala a new BMW.”
But the writer says: “Perhaps the most important thing Brown gave Harris was access to his vast network of political supporters, donors, and sponsors.
“Soon she was publicly arm in arm with Brown in the most elite circles of San Francisco, including lavish parties and celebrity galas.”
By 1995, Brown was running for mayor of San Francisco and Harris was regularly by his side.
On his mayoral election night, she was at the front of a crowd of Brown’s adoring followers to mark his moment of glory – and handed him a blue baseball cap emblazoned with the moniker ‘Da Mayor’.
It was shortly after Brown’s mayoral victory that he and Harris split up – with most saying the break-up was his decision.
Schweizer wrote about Harris’ rise to power: “Soon she was publicly arm in arm with Brown in the most elite circles of San Francisco, including lavish parties and celebrity galas.”
After the split, Harris started dating another high-profile figure – TV talk show host Montel Williams, now 68.
But even though the romance with Brown was over, Harris remained close to him as she chased her political ambitions.
Schweizer says: “As mayor, Brown would prove to be enormously helpful in her rise to political power.
“Willie Brown possessed the most powerful political machine in Northern California. As mayor, he leveraged that power to enrich his friends and allies.
“During his tenure, Brown came under FBI investigation twice for corruption involving lucrative contracts flowing from the city to his political friends.
“His operation was soon dubbed ‘Willie Brown Inc’.”
Harris started dating Montel Williams after she and Brown split in 1995.
It was around three years after Brown’s election that Harris got her biggest break – San Francisco district attorney Terence Hallinan hired her to head up his office’s Career Criminal Unit.
Schweizer says in his book Hallinan insisted Harris’ close bond with Brown had “nothing to do with the hiring”.
But when the number two slot in the prosecutor’s office opened up and Harris was passed over for the promotion by Hallinan, the writer said “Brown seemed furious”.
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He added: “The mayor was publicly attacking Hallinan for failing to do his job.”
An insider also told the writer: “This whole thing (was) about Kamala Harris.
“Cross one of Willie’s friends and there will be hell to pay.’”
Schweizer said: “As mayor, Brown would prove to be enormously helpful in Harris’ rise to political power.”
Harris quickly quit the district attorney’s office and went to work at the city attorney’s – run by a close Brown ally.
Schweizer added the “Brown machine” soon cranked up again to help Harris run against Hallinan.
By 2003, she announced her decision to challenge her ex-boss for his position as San Francisco DA – and, as the writer puts it, she had plenty of help from the “Willie Brown Machine” as it “ran so much of San Francisco”.
Rebecca Prozan, a former Brown aide, was recruited as Harris’ campaign manager to give her a boost, and her finance chair during her run for Hallinan’s job was Mark Bell – a major Democratic Party fund-raiser.
Armed with a letter from Brown, a political consultant named Philip Muller also established an independent expenditure committee called the California Voter Project, Schweizer reveals.
He had worked on both of Brown’s mayoral races and the flow of money directly into her campaign with the Brown-linked support network was “unlike anything the district attorney's race had ever seen”, says Schweizer.
Harris was elected San Francisco’s district attorney in 2003 supported by a team of Brown-linked backers.
Much of the cash sluiced in from the “super-wealthy of San Francisco who were close to Brown” according to the writer – and the mayor himself gave the maximum contribution of $500 and wrote a letter telling the city’s elite to cough up the same.
Schweizer stated: “The San Francisco elite embraced her, which meant all-white fund-raisers in Pacific Heights.
“Friends and alliances with the San Francisco elite she had formed while dating Willie Brown also came to her aid.”
The Getty clan were said to be among the army of supporters “strongly” behind Harris.
She has denied there was a drive by Brown to help her career – but the San Francisco Chronicle noted about her Hallinan campaign “a large number of her contributors also have been donors to Harris’ one-time boyfriend and political sponsor, Mayor Willie Brown”.
After she landed Hallinan’s job in 2003 there was outrage she failed to prosecute pedophile priests in the Catholic church who were so relentlessly pursued by her predecessor.
But the ongoing outrage over the failure – also revealed by RadarOnline.com – has done nothing to stop her rise to the top, and she is now the betting favorite to beat former president Donald Trump, 78, to win the White House in less than 90 days.
Harris is now favorite to defeat Donald Trump in the November 5 presidential election.
Harris’ supporters have branded talk Brown was her passport to power – but critics say his fingerprints are all over her career.
Schweizer is far from the only journalist and writer to detail proof of his backing.
Reporter Dean Morain said in his book Kamala’s Way: An American Life: “Over the course of the relationship, Brown gave Harris a BMW, she traveled with him to Paris and attended the Academy Awards.”
He also said in the 2021 tome Brown took her on a business trip to Boston where he was meeting Donald Trump.
Harris and Brown’s relationship was also well-known fodder for the San Francisco gossip pages, with the city’s Chronicle describing her as the powerbroker’s “new steady” – while the Los Angeles Times more diplomatically referred to Harris as Brown’s “frequent companion”.
Dean Morain said in his book Kamala’s Way: An American Life: “Over the course of the relationship, Brown gave Harris a BMW, she traveled with him to Paris and attended the Academy Awards.”
After being elected as San Francisco’s top cop in 2003 over Hallinan, she was seven years later elected state attorney general.
Harris got re-elected to the post in 2014, before she went on to become a senator – a huge achievement for the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants who grew up in a broken home with her younger sister, Maya.
Brown has not been silent in the face of critics who say he is the secret to her success.
He spoke out in July to pay tribute to his former lover – declaring she pulled herself up by her own bootstraps.
Brown insisted: “I think talent is what got her where she is. And she has been through the chairs – district attorney, attorney-general, US senator and now vice-president.
“That’s an indication that she had to be talented.”
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