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March 29, 2024

Kamala Harris pickets with UAW, rallies UNR students in Reno

Kamala Harris

Scott Sonner / AP

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., talks to a union leader while she walks a picket line with striking UAW members, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019 at a General Motors facility just north of Reno. The Democratic presidential hopeful said she wanted to stand in solidarity with unions who are responsible for creating a middle class that’s under siege under the Trump administration.

Updated Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019 | 6:12 p.m.

RENO — Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, told supporters in the early caucus state of Nevada Thursday she expects impeachment proceedings to move quickly in the House because of growing evidence President Donald Trump has committed crimes against the United States.

“I don’t think it’s going to take very long because it’s a pretty tight case,” said Harris, noting she’s the only Democratic presidential candidate in the race who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Americans watching Trump on television the last few days have seen “the confession of a crime” and “an attempt to cover up a crime,” Harris said in a speech to hundreds of students and others at the University of Nevada, Reno after walking a picket line with two dozen striking United Auto Workers at a General Motors facility north of town.

She said Trump’s only digging himself in deeper by suggesting Thursday that China investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

“Clearly he hasn’t learned you subject yourself to impeachment when you say things like that,” she said, adding that she wants Congress to seek additional transcripts and documents to determine if he’s had conversations with Chinese leaders about his suggestion.

Harris told reporters after the speech she has asked the head of Twitter to suspend Trump’s account because he’s using it to try to intimidate witnesses who could testify at the impeachment proceedings in violation of the social media giant’s terms of use policy.

“I believe Donald Trump has been using Twitter as a weapon to commit a crime,” she said.

Earlier, Harris told UNR students she’s been asked if Trump should be held responsible for inciting mass shootings like the recent one in El Paso where the gunman said he was targeting Hispanics.

“He didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s sure enough been tweeting out the ammunition,” she said.

The former California attorney general who’s the only African American woman in the race dismissed suggestions she can’t be elected to the White House.

“Is she electable?” Harris asked the crowd in a university ballroom at the student union.

“It is a conversation I have heard in every campaign that I have — and here’s the operative word — won,” she said to cheers.

People say, “maybe it’s not your turn, or maybe it’s not your time,” Harris said. “I have faith in the American people to have the capacity to see how it can be, even if they’ve never seen it before.”