Adventuresses Kamala Harris and Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom Trump have had their claws out for each other for decades

The true-life plot line of Kamala and Kimberly's S.F. DA office rivalry would be over the top even in Meghan Markle's legal soap opera "Suits."

You can tell that a law potboiler series about glamorous arch-rival prosecutrixes who date mayors of San Francisco has been on TV for too many seasons when one runs for President against the other vixen’s father-in-law.

Even Shonda Rhimes would balk at that plot twist for Scandal.

But former San Francisco prosecutors Kamala Harris and Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancé (and, by the way, also the ex-wife of California governor Gavin Newsom: see below), have had their claws out for each other for over 20 years.

Mr. and Mrs. Newsom on Ann Getty’s rug in 2004 (nice carpet!)

From the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003:

Brains, brio, beauty -- and wounded feelings

By Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

Nov 10, 2003

They both have glamour, brains and determination -- they even travel in the same tight-knit San Francisco social circle -- but don't look for district attorney hopeful Kamala Harris to get a job reference from former office mate Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom anytime soon.

Because behind the smiles, Guilfoyle Newsom -- the network TV analyst and wife of mayoral front-runner Gavin Newsom -- is still smarting from what she says was the frosty and underhanded treatment she got from Harris when she was making a bid to return to the D.A.'s office a couple of years back.

"The bottom line is she didn't want me there," Guilfoyle Newsom tells us.

The back story -- as they say in Hollywood -- begins in 1996 when freshly elected District Attorney Terence Hallinan

See below for an appendix about Terence “Kayo” Hallinan, one of San Francisco’s more colorful figures since Emperor Norton.

swept house at the Hall of Justice, and in the process sent the young and green Guilfoyle packing. She landed in the Los Angeles D.A.'s office.

A short while later, Hallinan chief assistant Richard Iglehart, who had worked with Harris in Alameda County, recruited the young up-and-comer (who also had been dating Mayor Willie Brown) to supervise the D.A.'s career criminal unit. …

Before long, Guilfoyle -- who by this time was dating the politically ambitious Supervisor Newsom -- started making overtures to [new deputy D.A. Darrell] Salomon and others about returning to San Francisco.

Here’s a 2004 photo of Gavin, Kamala, and Kimberly volunteering at the kind of thing politicos do:

Gavin looks fired up, Kimberly looks okay with the situation, and Kamala looks peeved.

Just what happened next is open to interpretation.

Some office insiders say Harris caught wind of Guilfoyle's plan and got her resume from the secretarial staff.

Next, Guilfoyle Newsom says, Harris was on the phone to her in L.A.:

"She called me and said basically that she was on the hiring committee and in charge of the budget for the D.A.'s office, and that I should have gone through her if I wanted to return to the D.A.'s office -- and that there was no money to hire me."

I am shocked, shocked to learn of politics being played in the San Francisco district attorney’s office.

Guilfoyle Newsom - who already had met with Salomon about coming back -- says she called the office to find out what was going on and was told that that there was no such hiring committee and that Harris had no say in the matter.

"You have to understand, I came with an excellent resume," Guilfoyle Newsom said, "and talented women should support other talented women."

Just like in feminist movies such as Nine to Five, in which Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin team up against their sexist boss Dabney Coleman. Or in the 2019 movie Bombshell in which Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie team up against Fox News supremo Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) and his bimbo ally Kimberly Guilfoyle (played by model Bree Condon):

Of course, in real life, Jane Fonda would take one look at her officemates, realize lesbian Lily is no threat, but that Dolly is not just hotter but more talented, funnier, kinder, and just all-around better, so she’d connive clueless Dabney into firing Dolly.

Jane herself married radical Senate candidate Tom Hayden, then, after the whole Sixties leftist thing fizzled out, she married arch-capitalist Ted Turner, one of the most ridiculously successful men in Southern history, who was like Rhett Butler, if only Clark Gable had had billions.

Harris recalled the conversation differently.

"I never discouraged her from joining the office," she said. "I never suggested to her there wasn't a job for her in the San Francisco D.A.'s office -- of that, I'm very clear."

So why did Harris call her?

"To see if she needed any help -- to let her know I was there to help her," Harris said.

She says she's at a loss to explain Guilfoyle Newsom's version of events. "I've seen Kimberly a number of times over the last few months," Harris said. "We have great rapport and have great respect for each other.

"I think she is a great lawyer," Harris added, "and I look forward to working with her."

As things turned out, Guilfoyle Newsom did land a job with the D.A. a couple of months after their chilly conversation -- and she soon made quite a name for herself as one of the two attorneys prosecuting the owners of the dogs that killed Diane Whipple.

Guilfoyle Newsom is still able to summon a few kind words for Harris -- calling her "very smart" and "a good speaker" and someone who "will work very hard" if elected.

But don't count on Guilfoyle Newsom going to work for Harris -- or Hallinan, for that matter. She's been on leave from the D.A.'s office these past few months while helping her husband's campaign and pursuing her own budding career as a legal commentator for ABC News, CNN and Fox.

I’m glad to see that the wonderful Victorian word “adventuress” is suddenly coming back in fashion after I’ve been campaigning for a decade to revive it:

Granted, the Duchess of Sussex has probably worked harder than I have to revive the term “adventuress.”

Meghan Markle is going to play Kamala in the biopic, right?

Appendix: Kamala’s and Kimberly’s boss, leftist district attorney Terence “Kayo” Hallinan, was a leading practitioner of both non-violent and violent protest.

Hallinan came from a colorful lineage. His father had run for President in 1952 on Henry Wallace’s far left Progress Party ticket and his grandfather, a member of the Irish National Invincibles, had precipitously immigrated to America in 1882 immediately after the notorious Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin of Lord Cavendish, Westminster’s Chief Secretary for Ireland.

From a webpage entitled “Terence Hallinan Facts for Kids:”

Terence Hallinan facts for kids …

Hallinan grew up in a 22-room mansion in Ross, California. At age twelve, he fell off his horse, fractured his skull, and spent five days stranded outside Yosemite before being rescued by helicopter.

There’s no word on whether traumatic brain injury contributed to his subsequent career:

As a young man Hallinan developed, in the words of California Supreme Court Justice Raymond E. Peters, a "habitual and continuing resort to fisticuffs to settle personal differences." He became a ward of juvenile court in 1954 when he took a case of beer from three sailors after he and his brother had run them off the road on Point Reyes and beat them. …Shortly after turning eighteen, he pleaded guilty to battery for punching the proprietor of the Edelweiss Ski Lodge. In 1957, he punched a fraternity brother who denied him admission to a private party. He was indicted in 1959 after he broke a man's jaw during a brawl at a Greenbrae bowling alley. While at UC Berkeley, he boxed for the Golden Bears and sparred with Muhammad Ali in the 1960 Olympic boxing team eliminations.

Hallinan's propensity for fistfights continued in law school. When he and his brother were picketing in San Francisco against the House Un-American Activities Committee, some of their classmates arrived to picket them. Strong words ensued and a fight was arranged in Golden Gate Park. Initially Hallinan was part of the crowd of UC Hastings student onlookers but he soon began a brawl with one of the opposing spectators. He also engaged in fistfights at a Young Democrats meeting and over a woman while at UC Hastings.

As a student, Hallinan also became interested in nonviolent resistance. While attending the London School of Economics, he was arrested with Lord Bertrand Russell during a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament sit-down demonstration in front of the U.S. embassy. When he returned to America, he joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and spent the summer of 1963 in Mississippi. …

Back in San Francisco, Hallinan helped organize the W.E.B. DuBois Club to support Communist Party USA. …

After graduating from UC Hastings, Hallinan's criminal history proved an obstacle to his admission to the California State Bar. The Committee of Bar Examiners required several hearings over Hallinan's moral character. Hallinan introduced evidence that his violent tendencies were the result of a thyroid deficiency. His mother, however, testified that Hallinan became violent in response to the bullying caused by his father's vocal support of labor leaders during the Red Scare. California State Assemblymen Willie Brown and John L. Burton both testified that Hallinan possessed good moral character. …

In 1967, Hallinan unsuccessfully represented Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey in a misdemeanor "disturbing the peace" case regarding LaVey's pet lion being kept in LaVey's home in a residential neighborhood. …

As an attorney, he successfully argued to have the murder convictions of serial killer Juan Corona overturned on appeal, and represented Corona in his retrial which resulted in 25 convictions for murder and a life sentence….

In late 2014, Hallinan was temporarily suspended by the State Bar of California for commingling his and a trust client's funds. …

Political career

Hallinan lost his first election campaign, for San Francisco District 5 Supervisor, to Harvey Milk in the 1977 San Francisco Board of Supervisors election. Hallinan ran again in 1988 and this time won a seat on the board.

He won the first of his two terms as district attorney in 1995.

… The former defense attorney promptly fired 14 senior prosecutors,

Including Guilfoyle?

leaving pink slips on their chairs during lunch, then posted an armed guard outside his new office in the Hall of Justice. Prominent Irish real estate developer Joe O'Donoghue confronted Hallinan about the firings while attending a birthday party at Izzy's Steaks and Chops. Hallinan responded by punching him. The resulting scuffle was lampooned by David Letterman.

He was in his late 50s at the time. By my count, that’s the eighth fistfight mentioned in “Terence Hallinan Facts for Kids.”

In 1999 Hallinan was investigated for felony misappropriation of funds for a salary he paid out to his cousin.

… After a close-fought reelection campaign in 1999, Hallinan's office sank to the lowest case winning percentage of any DA's office in the state. …

When Diane Whipple was killed by a dog, Hallinan brought murder charges against its owners. After a nationally publicized trial that had to be moved to Los Angeles, Hallinan's prosecutors, former Jesuit priest Jim Hammer and Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, won the conviction.

… By indicting Chief Earl Sanders, the city's first black police chief who had helped win the lawsuit setting racial quotas on SFPD hiring, Hallinan was expected to lose crucial support from the city's black voters. …

Hallinan was defeated in the next election for DA by Kamala Harris.

You got all that, kids?

Here’s a question I don’t really understand: Why are San Francisco politicians like Kamala, Nancy, and Gavin so dominant in this century? Not to mention recently retired San Franciscans like Jerry Brown, Diane Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer.

When I was young, Southern Californian politicians won four out of five Presidential elections from 1968 through 1984. That seemed at the time only natural: Southern California was huge, dynamic, and full of talent.

Granted, part of the issue is that SoCal politicians have declined in quality. I recall the Democrats trying to promote L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as a national figure, when in L.A. he was considered an embarrassment. Back when newspapers had comments sections, L.A. Times articles about how Mayor Villaraigosa wasn’t quite working out and the comments would be full of responses like: “That cholo borrowed my uncle’s Chevy in 1977 and brought it back all dinged up, but he refused to pay for any of the body work,” or “Tony Villa knocked up my cousin in 1979, but he wouldn’t pay for the abortion.”