Nicole Shanahan, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, heads a foundation that funds organizations opposed to mandatory minimum sentences and is involved in fighting crime, including supporting enforcement efforts. There is a long history of donations. Police from school.
The 38-year-old, who has spoken openly about her involvement with criminal justice reformers in San Francisco, is the founder and president of the Via Echo Foundation, which has donated more than $11.6 million to left-wing causes, according to one magazine. reported. Review of receipt by Post.
The bulk of that money, $10 million, went to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which donated to groups advocating for reduced prison sentences and supporting lawyers who represent illegal immigrants in the United States.
The foundation also sent $625,000 to Impact Justice, which advocates for giving homeowners benefits in exchange. house newly released prisoners In a private home, its founder Alex Busansky called The US prison system is a “direct legacy of slavery.”
Impact Justice’s board of directors includes Shimica Gaskins, executive director of the California Children’s Defense Fund; I cried out that I would fight for He is leading “economic relief for our undocumented brothers and sisters” and “a groundbreaking educational justice initiative to remove police from schools in Los Angeles and Oakland.”
Shanahan is also one of the top donors supporting woke Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, reportedly donating more than $150,000 during his 2020 campaign. LA Times.
Gascón ran on a platform of reducing incarceration, ending sentence enhancements, abolishing the death penalty and banning minors from being tried as adults.
Shanahan also endorsed Measure J, a proposal that would require Los Angeles County to spend 10% of locally generated funds on social services such as housing, mental health treatment and other prison diversion programs. It was also a person. Donating the funds to prisons, jails, or law enforcement agencies is prohibited.
She left the Democratic Party. Getty Images of Gold House
“We are pleased to be a major donor to Los Angeles County’s Measure J, a measure voted on to redirect a portion of law enforcement funding to mental and social support services. ” Shanahan said. Said in a 2021 interview With San Francisco Magazine.
She also asserted that “if a mental health professional had been present at the scene of George Floyd’s arrest, the situation would have been de-escalated and perhaps his life would have been saved.”
Measure J was challenged in court by local law enforcement unions who warned that funding cuts imposed on the criminal justice system would make Angelino residents less safe.
“Due to an unprecedented shortage of human resources, the upcoming Olympics [in 2028]With crime on the rise, there’s never been a worse time to reduce our ranks,” said Richard Pippin, president of the Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs Association. in August last yearafter a California appellate judge upheld Measure J.
Mr. Shanahan’s history of funding aligns with the views of Mr. Kennedy, who has advocated ending prison sentences for nonviolent drug crimes and diverting addicts to rehabilitation centers and farms.
“Prisons are now the largest industry in our country’s rural areas. Instead, I would like to replace them with a series of farm drug rehabilitation facilities, healing farms, where people can go even if they get involved with drugs, in those same rural areas. “I am weakened by depression and dependence on psychiatric drugs,” the 70-year-old said in a campaign video.
Mental health is “a top priority for me and not putting people in jail for drugs. We’re putting people in jail for crimes and violent crimes,” he said. told Fox Carolina News In an interview this summer.
The Kennedy Shanahan campaign did not immediately respond to inquiries from the Post.
