One Mormon Lawyer’s Case for Kamala Harris

An LDS lawyer argues that Kamala Harris’s integrity, respect for the Constitution, and commitment to uniting the country make her the right choice to lead America forward.

Written by Clayton Thompson, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a supporter of the MeidasTouch Network

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a lawyer. I believe in God and believe the Book of Mormon is true, so I’m honored to be known as a “Mormon” to those I’ve interacted with for the past 30 plus years in New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, and Illinois. Here is one Mormon lawyer’s case for Kamala Harris.

I believe we have an obligation — as citizens and members of the Church— to defend the United States Constitution and to elect honest and wise leaders. “When the wicked rule, the people mourn.” See D&C 98:8–10, 101:77–80. I believe God commands us to love our neighbors, care for the poor, and not to lie, commit adultery, or steal. The Book of Mormon teaches us that “all are alike to God,” “black and white, bond and free, male and female…”

Vice President Kamala Harris is a good person who respects the Constitution. Donald Trump is a bad person who does not; he is weak, selfish, and, if given power, dangerous.

Kamala Harris

Vice President Harris has demonstrated courage and a commitment to the rule of law. She spent most of her career in law enforcement, beginning as an assistant district attorney in Alameda County, California. These early years were spent as a “courtroom prosecutor.” This means Harris stood up for victims of violence against criminals in open court. She put on and cross-examined witnesses, she argued to judges, and she persuaded juries to hold these violent offenders accountable. The reason Harris owns a gun is probably because sending dangerous people to prison put her at risk of retribution.

Harris, a parishioner at the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, was “raised to believe in a loving God, to believe that your faith is a verb.” Speaking of the good Samaritan in Georgia recently Harris said: “this parable…teaches us to love thy neighbor as thyself…[it] is not enough to preach the values of compassion and respect. We must live them.” She has shown a decades long commitment to helping marginalized people.

The Vice President has gone to great lengths to unify the country, having conservatives speak at the Democratic convention and committing to appoint a Republican to her cabinet. Over 200 former Republican staffers to George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney support Harris, as do dozens of Republican lawyers, and several former GOP members of Congress including Liz Cheney, Jeff Flake, Adam Kinzinger, Denver Riggleman, and Joe Walsh, are actively campaigning with her.

Harris’ effort to build a broad coalition has likely influenced her policy positions: the Wall Street Journal reports that a strong majority of economists believe inflation and the national deficit will both be much better under Harris, than Trump. Trump’s tariffs would cause the price of all imported goods to skyrocket. Twenty prominent former CEOs, including of American Airlines, Time Warner, Barclays, and Dupont, many of whom also served on the boards of directors for companies like Johnson & Johnson, Exxon, and Goldman Sachs, publicly support Kamala Harris.

The Vice President’s foreign policy — defending our NATO allies and Ukraine against Russian aggression and having the most lethal fighting force in the world— is indistinguishable from Ronald Reagan’s or Mitt Romney’s. Our strong committment to NATO is what has and will continue to prevent World War III. Trump is too easily manipulated by strongmen in Russia, Hungary, China and North Korea to recognize or care about this. Harris dominated Trump on the debate stage, especially on this issue, as Trump refused to even make eye contact. The National Security Leaders for America endorsed Harris only days before the Election: “where Vice President Harris is prepared and strategic, [Trump] is impulsive and ill-informed.”

Unemployment is low, inflation (present in most industrialized countries after pandemic spending) is at its lowest point in three years, border crossings are down, the stock market is at near record highs and violent crime is down significantly. Harris deserves at least some credit for all of this. It is likely that Bernie Sanders and Dick Cheney agree on literally only one thing, and that is that Harris should be President, not Trump.

Donald Trump

The case against Donald Trump is easy, overwhelming, and established by his own “best people.” Trump’s generals, multiple cabinet secretaries, and Vice President oppose him. His Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warns that Trump is a “total fascist.” His Chief of Staff, a retired four-star military general, says Trump “admires [ ] dictators.” Trump wants to terminate the Constitution. He promotes military tribunals for Americans who dare challenge him and calls his imagined enemies “vermin.” He threatens to prosecute lawyers, election officials and donors that oppose his re-election.

Trump knows how to threaten and encourage violence against the “enemy within” (i.e., Americans who disagree with him) while at the same time giving his enablers room to defend him. In the middle of saying that Wyoming representative Liz Cheney is a “radical war hawk” who never went to war herself and is the type that “sits in Washington” while sending thousands of troops into the “mouth of the enemy,” Trump also fantasized about how Cheney would feel if she had “nine [rifle] barrels” “trained on her face.”

This is irresponsible and disgusting rhetoric even under the most friendly interpretation, but because Trump has previously called for Cheney specifically to face a military tribunal, and because convictions by military tribunals are associated with death by a firing squad, Trump’s remarks are dangerous and indefensible. Ultimately, Trump envies dictators because they rule with ‘iron firsts’ and he wants to be one.

Trump’s behavior on and leading up to January 6th is unforgiveable and is best described by his then 25-year-old spokesperson, Sarah Matthews. For the first time in 250 years, there was not a peaceful transfer of power. Trump was too selfish to admit that he lost the 2020 election, so he lied about it instead. Federal appellate judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee on the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, put it best in dismissing one of Trump’s baseless lawsuits: “[C]alling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges requires specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here” (emphasis added).

Despite losing every one of his dozens of legal challenges before various state and federal courts across the country, Trump advanced conspiracy theories to enflame his supporters, he threatened Vice President Mike Pence and state election officials, and he incited a mob assault on our Capitol, watching it happen for 187 minutes before asking his supporters to leave.

New evidence, only recently made public and based on testimony to the grand jury, is particularly damning. Trump knew he lost the 2020 election but he told his son-in-law and daughter: “[i]t doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.” At the debate in September, Trump was asked twice: did he regret anything he did on January 6th? Rather than express any remorse, he said “nobody on the other side was killed.” The other side Trump is referring to are the Capitol police his mob beat with flagpoles and fire extinguishers.

Donald Trump does poorly in courts of law where there are rules and judges that enforce them. Three separate groups of randomly selected perfect strangers (juries) have ruled against Trump since 2020: one found he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll, a second found he defamed her, and a third — unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt — found he committed 34 felonies related to the 2016 election. 27 women have accused Trump of sexual harassment, the exact type behavior he himself is on tape bragging about.

Four separate grand juries (one in Florida, two in D.C. and one in Georgia) saw sufficient evidence to charge Trump with, among other things, taking and keeping classified documents, obstructing justice, and trying to overturn the 2020 election. When reasonable and independent people see the evidence, they usually rule against Trump.

Trump and his allies try to intimidate those that dare oppose him. Utah Senator Mitt Romney was forced to hire personal security to protect his family after voting to convict Trump following his second impeachment in 2021. Romney remains concerned about retribution against him or his family should Trump win in November: “How am I going to protect 25 grandkids, two great-grandkids?”

Standing up to Trump on principle comes with a price, one Romney, former Senator Flake, both Cheneys, General Kelly, Vice President Pence, Sarah Matthews, General Milley, conservative lawyer George Conway, and other patriots are willing to pay. Obeying Trump, as Utah Governor Spencer Cox and Utah Senator Mike Lee have done, is free.

But What About Abortion?

Most people know all the above, but they are concerned about Harris’ position on abortion. I agree with the Church’s moral stance that an abortion should only occur in certain circumstances and even then, only after serious reflection, medical expertise, and prayer. However, given the threat that Donald Trump poses to our American institutions, I believe concerns about abortion, as a political issue, should not keep pro-life voters from supporting Kamala Harris.

Conservative evangelical attorney David French has spent decades advocating for pro-life causes, and he supports Harris. French opposes Trump in part because Trump has been bad for the pro-life movement. French points out that for the first time since Jimmy Carter, the number of abortions went up during Trump’s presidency. And while the number of abortions in the United States had been going down each year for decades, they have increased since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, reversing the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which prevented states from criminalizing abortion until after viability. Dobbs means, rightly or wrongly, that each state deals with abortion the way that it wants to and each state varies. But even the bluest states (Illinois, New York, and California) prohibit abortions after the first part of a pregnancy absent serious health risks to the mother. Texas and Idaho, for example, are more restrictive. Returning abortion to the states was always the goal for conservatives who opposed Roe.

French believes Harris’ expanded child tax credit and other policies aimed at young mothers better support the pro-life cause than the current Republican Party’s “watered down” abortion platform. He argues Congress can provide a check on Harris’ ability to legislate on domestic issues, including abortion, in a way that it cannot in foreign policy, where Trump is much more dangerous.

I believe that the status quo — with each state deciding for itself how to regulate or criminalize abortion— is incredibly unlikely to change over the next four years. Neither Harris nor Trump will be able to pass federal legislation that protects or prohibits abortion because neither will have sufficient Congressional support to do so, and two conservative justices would have to retire (they won’t) during Harris’ first term to change the present 6–3 majority that rendered the Dobbs opinion.

There are proposed state constitutional amendments protecting abortion on the ballot in Nevada, Arizona, and elsewhere. This means one can vote their conscience on these abortion initiatives and still vote for Kamala Harris. Our Church’s recent statement on political neutrality recognized this exact scenario: “[a]s states work to enact laws related to abortion, church members may appropriately choose to participate in efforts to protect life….”

We Are Better Than Donald Trump

Ultimately, Harris is strong; Trump is weak. Harris wants to unite the country; Trump thrives on division. Trump is already lying about election fraud before a single vote has been counted. The United States of America demands and deserves much better than Donald Trump. Kamala Harris is not perfect, but she is perfect for this moment. Harris for America.