Richmond Virginia: (circa July 1998) Tim Kaine (Hillary’s VP pick) has just been elected mayor by the city’s majority-black city council. Richmond’s first white mayor in more than 10 years, Tim Kaine immediately transformed the mostly ceremonial office of the Mayor (city manager traditionally ran the day to day city business) into a “hands on full time job”.
Tim Kaine became the biggest supporter of President Bill Clinton’s Project Exile (PE). US Attorney General Janet Reno along with Commonwealth’s Attorney David Hicks, U.S. Attorney James Comey, (yes Hillary’s James Comey) Richmond’s Police Chief Jerry Oliver, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF); Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Virginia State Police, began PE. This program specifically targeted convicted felons, in possession of a gun and or involved in the commission of a drug or violent crimes while using a gun, and prosecuted them under FEDERAL LAW.
Project Exile’s goal was to make illegal gun possession a federal, not a state crime. This would subject Richmond’s convicted felons, a large number of them black, to harsher prison sentences and guarantee incarceration in a federal penitentiary, outside of Virginia, for at least five years.
Nicole Lee, a civil-rights lawyer and activist in Washington, D.C., in 1998, expressed the following, “Project Exile broke black families. This is not a benign thing to be for. These measures were not used against white kids in the suburbs with guns, they were used against black kids in the cities.”
The Clinton’s campaigned for Bill’s re-election in 1996 on a tough on crime platform. part of that campaign promise became Project Exile. Many cities were to follow, Rochester, Philadelphia, Camden NJ to name just the few.
Many supported the effort but many more saw the danger and the unconstitutionality of allowing the Federal Government to override State laws and usurp state jurisdiction. Even more saw it as an attack on the inner city black youth and young adults.
These are the facts….you decide if Clinton-Kaine are worthy.