Jaleel Stallings became an attack ad for Republicans. What they don’t mention is that he was acquitted, and a police officer pleaded guilty to assaulting him.
It wasn’t long after Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t seek reelection that the Donald Trump campaign turned its attention to Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive new Democratic nominee.
The official account of the Trump “War Room” (the cool-sounding name for the campaign’s opposition research nerds) immediately began posting its greatest hits on Harris on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. But one of those attacks was quite curious:
“Kamala Harris helped raise money for a far-left organization that bailed a rioter who shot at police out of jail”, the Trump War Room wrote on X yesterday.
The Trump War Room appears to be referring to Jaleel Stallings, a Minnesota man who was indeed charged with rioting, attempted murder, and deadly force against police officers during the George Floyd protests of 2020.
It’s not the first time the Trump campaign has tried to use Stallings’ case as a political cudgel. Back in 2020, the Trump War Room posted multiple times about Stallings, calling him a “would-be cop killer who was in jail for firing at police during ‘peaceful protests.’
“Now he’s free thanks in part to Biden campaign officials who donated to pay bail fees”, the account wrote. “Will Joe Biden apologize for helping put cops in danger?”
What the Trump War Room neglected to mention yesterday is that a jury acquitted Stallings of all charges, and he later won a $1.
