By a vote of 107-85, the Pennsylvania House voted in favor of articles of impeachment against Philadelphia’s radical District Attorney Larry Krasner. Krasner is accused of having “engaged in misconduct in office and obstructed a House committee investigation” over how Philadelphia had “descended into an unprecedented crisis of lawlessness.” The resolution notes that Philadelphia recorded 562 murders last year, “the most in the 340-year history of the city.”
A George Soros acolyte, Krasner has angered just about everyone in the criminal justice system except the criminals. No bail for most offenses, lax enforcement of dozens of crimes, and lenient sentences while violent crime skyrocketed.
“They have impeached me without presenting a single shred of evidence connecting our policies to any uptick in crime. We were never given the opportunity to defend our ideas and policies — policies I would have been proud to explain. That Pennsylvania Republicans willfully avoided hearing the facts about my office is shameful,” Krasner said in a statement.
Krasner blamed the rising crime rates on the Republican legislature for not passing strict gun control.
Among other policies, Mr. Krasner’s office no longer seeks cash bail for some 25 offenses including retail theft and some drug crimes. Even as crime has increased in Philadelphia, 70% of violent offenses were withdrawn or dismissed by Mr. Krasner’s office or the judiciary in 2021, up from 51% the year before he became district attorney. A House committee also reported last month that when handling gun crimes Mr. Krasner’s office decided not to prosecute in 18% of cases in 2019 and 21% of cases in 2020, “compared to the respective statewide averages of 8% and 10%.”
Other articles of impeachment claim that Mr. Krasner obstructed a House Select Committee investigation into crime in Philadelphia. They also say Mr. Krasner and his office have misled judges in some cases.
Krasner implied that impeaching him was racist.
Philadelphians’ votes, and Philadelphia voters, should not be erased. History will harshly judge this anti-democratic authoritarian effort to erase Philly's votes – votes by Black, brown, and broke people in Philadelphia. And voters will have the last word. https://t.co/22wAaNGkw9
— DA Larry Krasner (@DA_LarryKrasner) November 16, 2022
There is absolutely nothing “anti-democratic” or “authoritarian” about 107 popularly elected state legislators voting to impeach a prosecutor who has catastrophically failed to uphold the law.
And the blatant racist appeal did not go unnoticed.
“History will harshly judge this anti-democratic authoritarian effort to erase Philly’s votes—votes by Black, brown, and broke people in Philadelphia.”
You can’t just keep invoking BIPOC to excuse poor performance and expect nobody to grow wise to it. https://t.co/32CU5gYFmf
— Scott G (@scttfrnks) November 17, 2022
Nancy Rommelmann argues that Krasner, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, and Mike Schmidt in Portland, Ore., all ran on a platform of “change” without much of an idea of the impact on the community at large.
At a certain point – and I'll argue that point came with alacrity in Philly, SF (where they voted Boudin out) and Portland – you have to be willing to say, you can't just do things differently, you have to do things right, and turn the car around https://t.co/EoMIkQTskG via @WSJ
— Nancy Rommelmann (@NancyRomm) November 17, 2022
“New gun laws are not going to get the district attorney off his butt in Philadelphia and protect the people that elected him into the office. You can put 1,000 [laws] there and he’s not going to do it. I’m just dumbfounded that we’d even go down that route,” House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R-171st District) said.
The impeachment vote came after months of maneuvering by Republicans in the House.
The vote to impeach Krasner, on the last day of the House’s session, capped nearly six months of maneuvering by Republicans that started in the spring. Reps. Toren Ecker, R-Adams, and Josh Kail, R-Beaver, called for Krasner’s impeachment after a mass shooting in Philadelphia’s popular South Street entertainment district.
The House voted in July to impanel a Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order, which started an investigation and held hearings. But the committee said in an interim report released last month that it would continue investigating and provide a recommendation before the end of the session.
San Francisco’s Soros-backed DA Boudin may have been successfully recalled, but efforts to recall other radical prosecutors — most recently, George Gascon in Los Angeles — have come up short.
It depends on how much pain residents can endure. In Philadelphia, Republicans reached the end of their patience.
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