GOP criticism of Harris draws attention to Minnesota bail nonprofit

What began as a small charitable nonprofit founded by a University of Minnesota business school student has again become ammunition for attacks against the record of Kamala Harris regarding crime.

A day after Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race, as Donald Trump's campaign recalibrated its attacks on Harris as the Democrat frontrunner, the Minnesota Trump campaign chair, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, posted on X that Harris once supported "a bail fund for Minnesota criminals who should have stayed behind bars. One convict she sprung from prison killed a man after Kamala helped release him."

Fox News followed with a headline saying the "Kamala Harris-backed" organization has "put murderers, rapists back on streets."

On Tuesday, Trump's official war room account posted a photo of Harris to X alongside a mugshot of Jaleel Stallings, a Minneapolis man the account describes as being "charged with the attempted murder of two police officers" in 2020.

"[Harris] raised money to bail Stallings out of jail," read the caption. "Kamala Harris is radically liberal and dangerously incompetent."

The post fails to mention Stallings was found not guilty by a jury — or that one of the arresting officers was convicted of assault for beating him up.

These political attacks — some misleading or false — stem from a Harris social media post four years ago. After George Floyd's murder, the vice president encouraged her followers to help arrested protesters by donating to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that pays criminal and immigration bonds for people in Twin Cities jails and detention facilities.

The Freedom Fund was started in fall 2016 by Simon Cecil, then a graduate student completing dual master's degrees in business and public policy. In the beginning, Cecil had a meager $10,000, half from a University of Minnesota grant program and the rest from an ideas competition. Cecil paid bails capped at $1,000 in the early days — some as low as $50 — for people accused of committing low-level crimes.

The fund has since ballooned into a multimillion-dollar organization, largely after a deluge of donations in 2020, and become perennial fodder for attacks on Harris and other Democrats.

Since its inception, the Freedom Fund has posted criminal bail for 2,537 people charged and awaiting trial in jail, and another 463 immigration bonds, according to data provided by the organization as of May. The bail fund's staff describe its mission as a way to level the playing field in the system of cash bail in America, where impoverished people sit in jail despite being presumed innocent because they can't pay nominal fees.

"That's one of our core beliefs that motivates our work: Everyone, regardless of wealth, is entitled to this presumption of innocence," said Freedom Fund spokesperson Noble Frank.

The Harris tweet from 2020 has been the full extent of her support for the organization, Frank said. "We've had no connection with her other than that."

Some of the people bailed out by the Freedom Fund have gone on to commit violent crimes while on release, such as George Howard, who was convicted in a deadly road rage shooting after the organization helped secure his release.

Frank said these cases are rare, and critics mischaracterize the bail fund's role in the system to link it to Harris. Contrary to Emmer's tweet, the Freedom Fund does not — and could not — arrange the release of people who have been found guilty of a crime and are serving prison sentences. Bail is only available to people awaiting trial for charges, and who have been granted the opportunity for bail by a judge.

Emmer did not respond to a request for an interview about his remarks.

Frank said the organization now places limits on who it will bail out, such as not paying for the same person in a year period. Staff also evaluates court appearance history, criminal past and factors like mental illness or risk of losing employment and housing in determining whether to post a person's bond.

Frank said about one-third of the people bailed out by the Freedom Fund have ultimately been exonerated. That includes Stallings.

In 2020, a jury exonerated Stallings after body-camera video showed Minneapolis officers firing projectiles at him without warning from an unmarked vehicle five days after Floyd's murder. Stallings, who was standing in a parking lot, returned fire with a licensed gun in what he later described as an act of self-defense. The officers brutally beat and arrested him.

Then-Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said later that police "grossly misled" his office on the evidence. The city paid $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit with Stallings.

From Jefferson Davis to today

Bail in the United States dates back to the nation's founding, and so do bail funds.

The first was started by Declaration of Independence-signer Benjamin Rush, who helped people navigate the bail system so they didn't have to linger in jail awaiting trial, said Kellen Funk, a legal historian who teaches a seminar on bail at Columbia Law School.

Throughout the 19th century, charitable groups often pledged bail money for those they believed were facing unjust charges. Funk cited examples of abolitionists pledging funds to bail out an operator of the Underground Railroad in Maryland. After the Civil War, he said, a group pledged $100,000 to bail out Confederate leader Jefferson Davis.

"This political trick has a long history," said Funk. "But it's always been the case that the law of bail is rather indifferent to the source."

Back then, bail usually did not have money attached to it; in most cases, it was simply a pledge to pay if the person didn't return to court, said Funk. In the 20th century, courts in the United States began using money more broadly as an incentive for people to appear. If they returned to court, the money was returned in full. This led to the rise of the commercial bondsman, a for-profit enterprise that charges a fee for posting cash bail.

As the criminal justice system has changed over time, this is where bail reformers say it has gone very wrong. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits "excessive" bail. Yet 34 percent of Americans charged with crimes linger in jail pretrial for no other reason than they can't afford to pay, according to a 2016 report by the Harvard Law School.

"Many low-level offenders are being held simply because they cannot afford the money amount up front," Funk said. "They're presumed innocent. No evidence has come in. Very often the evidence is exonerating when it comes in, but people will even plead guilty for crimes they did not commit just to end their pretrial detention."

Modern-era bail funds have emerged as a Band-Aid to close this gap, said Funk. Some municipalities, including New York City and the state of New Jersey, have dramatically curtailed the use of cash bail.

In recent years, lack of transparency around Minnesota's bail system has fueled criticisms across the criminal justice system.

The Trump campaign first attacked the Freedom Fund in 2020 for its role in bailing out people arrested after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd, leading to Minnesota Republicans pushing a bill that would have required more publicly available information as to who is posting the bond. Months later, when an anonymous benefactor paid Chauvin's bail, hundreds marched down Minneapolis streets in protest of his release.

This week, MAGA Inc., a Trump super PAC, posted to X that a person arrested for rioting in 2020 was bailed out by the Freedom Fund and charged with murder. The Freedom Fund said it has no record of such a case.

Frank said the Freedom Fund has been inundated with unwanted attention as the attacks are revived on the national stage.

"The work that we do is unpopular," Frank said, "especially during an election cycle."