Jamie Floyd is a journalist, former public defender, and contemporary of Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is currently writing a biography of Thurgood Marshall.
For 25 years, Kimberly Guilfoyle has been running a story about Kamala Harris trying to block her from getting a job at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. According to her, this happened when she was living in Los Angeles, had begun dating San Francisco Supervisor Gavin Newsom, and had contacted the district attorney about the job.
She claims that Harris called her and pretended to be involved in the recruitment process, trying to dissuade her from applying. Kimberly ended up applying anyway.
This story broke in San Francisco in 2003 and made waves: Kamala was running for district attorney. Kimberly was engaged to Newsom, who was running for mayor at the time. And the press loves a good catfight.
I don’t know. But I know both women and it’s time for this story to end.
Kamala joined the San Francisco district attorney’s office in 1998 as Terence Hallinan, a former boxer with a keen nose who ran an unconventional establishment, especially in keeping with the Law & Order era of the 1990s. He supported decriminalizing prostitution and reforming marijuana laws.
I interviewed with Hallinan too. I got to know him well as a public defender and later as a crime reporter. I know firsthand what set Hallinan apart as a prosecutor and as a person: his independence. No one, not even his subordinate prosecutors, told him who to hire or who not to hire. Remarkably, Kimberly got the job.
Gavin Newsom (left), Kamala Harris (center), and Kimberly Guilfoyle volunteer at a church in San Francisco in 2004.
Jeff Chiu/AP Photo
However, the story was resurrected more than 20 years later in The New York Times. We don’t know what the women said on the phone, and Hallinan is conveniently dead now. But even the Times reported that Hallinan only “loosely” corroborated Kimberly’s account in saying that Harris was “vehemently opposed” to hiring Guilfoyle.
Hallinan would not confirm the contents of the phone call, but it is true that after Gavin Newsom defeated him in the 2004 election for City Council, Hallinan ran an extensive campaign to oust Kimberly.
But Kimberly didn’t need that job because she was already working on bigger things.
In 2001, she married her Prince Charming. She took Newsom’s last name, and even added her own to his for good measure. Still, she seemed all in. “Do you think[Gavin]could be president?” she said in a 2004 Harper’s Bazaar cover story. “Of course. I’d be happy to vote for him.” As a liberal power couple, they were dubbed “the new Kennedys.” It was like Camelot had begun again.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (L) speaks at a campaign rally for San Francisco mayoral candidate Gavin Newsom as Newsom’s wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, looks on in San Francisco, California, December 8, 2003.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
But then Kimberly made her first fateful move: she left Camelot for Court TV.
On the verge of becoming San Francisco’s First Lady, Kimberly came to the attention of television executives after the tragic death of Dianne Whipple and what soon became known as the “San Francisco Dog Abuse Trial.”
As second in command to Jim Hammer, a fiercely level-headed prosecutor who had once aspired to be a Jesuit priest, Kimberly saw her future skyrocket. Overnight. In a short, emotionally tense trial, she found a shortcut to fame and fortune even quicker than San Francisco’s Camelot. The lingerie model-turned-television host with cat-eye glasses was a perfect fit for Court TV, with its new tagline, “Seriously Entertaining.” She signed the deal.
Henry Schleif, Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, Court TV’s Katherine Cryer, musician Richie Sambora, Court TV’s Lisa Bloom and Jamie Floyd attend the People For the American Way “Spirit of Liberty” Gala at the Plaza Hotel on March 8, 2005 in New York City.
Toth Robinson/Getty Images
When we arrived at Court TV in 2004, I was thrilled to find Kimberly there. We both had husbands in California and loved walking the red carpet together. Kimberly’s stunning figure was always in Chanel. In the town car, we talked about long-distance relationships, San Francisco politics, and the dreams of our youth.
Kimberly was one of the few people in the cutthroat broadcast news industry who wasn’t. Even after she moved to Fox News, Kimberly was warm and engaging every time we met. I remember one particularly memorable night at the Plaza in 2007 when she heard I was at the Plaza from our mutual friend Dan Abrams and went out of her way to seek me out in the crowd. She gave me a hug. We stood in that big, beautiful lobby in painfully high heels, catching up again for a long time.
She divorced Gavin (a decision I was against back in my Town Car days) and married her second husband, Eric Villency, which was her next fateful move, but I still admire her fighting spirit and ambition, and the way she used her big smile and family connections to get ahead.
Kamala Harris ran for district attorney in San Francisco in 2003.
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Kimberly came in right after Kamala and me in San Francisco. We are all female criminal lawyers, outcasts in our multiple identities (Kimberly is Puerto Rican and Irish). San Francisco has a big national presence, but it’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody. Multiracial women in criminal law make a little Venn diagram.
Kimberly was teetering between two worlds: her own Camelot and the greater New York City, but in her absence the spotlight shifted to someone else: Kamala, so Kimberly set out to bring someone back.
“I want you to understand that I came with a great resume,” Guilfoyle told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003, complaining about not getting hired.
If so, why dig it up years later? She got the job. She took on a big case. The case made her nationally famous.
But that was the reality: In her self-imposed exile, seeking her own spotlight, Kimberly found that Camelot’s servants and allies were operating without her, so she made things worse.
“Kimberly is Kimberly,” a former Court TV colleague said.
Kimberly Guilfoyle spoke at the 2021 Republican National Convention victory rally and at a 2004 GLAAD event.
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Once there, she worked the dog attack case as if she were the lead attorney. Anyone who watched the trial saw that the case was handled by a much older Jim Hammer. Once at Court TV, she worked hard enough, but producers felt they had to support her. Some say she had to be “hand-held.”
This shocking moment is etched in Court TV lore. Kimberly sits at the anchor desk, flanked by her Both Sides co-host Vinnie Politan. The show is live. Kimberly reads from a script off a teleprompter. Then, for no apparent reason, she starts reciting camera instructions, also live: “Point camera one,” “Alt PF1,” etc. This goes on for about 15 seconds. The control room is aghast. Everyone makes mistakes, but this one will go down in Court TV history.
The public defender who faced Kimberly in San Francisco court said he wasn’t surprised by the story, but “would have been just as surprised” to find her presiding over a dog attack trial or other major case.
Prosecutor Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, District Attorneys Terrence Hallinan and James Hammer listen as family members of Diane Whipple make statements to Superior Court Judge James Warren during the sentencing hearing for Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel in San Francisco on June 17, 2002.
Reuters
“That’s so stupid,” he said, before quickly adding that he’d always felt the same about her. “This isn’t political. It’s just the truth.”
During the plea bargain, the popular but “no-tolerance-for-idiots” judge, Wallace P. Douglas, had previously resented Kimberly’s excessive reach in seeking an “extraordinary” sentence far beyond what was contemplated by the sentencing guidelines.
“He just rolled his eyes, rolled everything,” the lawyer said, denying the request.
Let me tell you, Kimberly wasn’t particularly gifted on the court.
And this became a point of contention between me and Kimberly: her understanding of the law, or lack thereof.
Kimberly Guilfoyle with Donald Trump Jr. in 2019 and her then-husband Gavin Newsom in 2003.
Getty Images/Reuters
I set aside the sexual harassment allegations made against her at Fox News. She is innocent until proven guilty. But will she show constitutional courtesy to criminal defendants whom we cover? No.
In my weekly editorial meetings with my boss, Marlene Dunn (vice president of Court TV), and her number two, Tim Sullivan, we met with fellow anchors fighting over cases — from the superficial to the serious, from Michael Jackson to Saddam Hussein to Enron — she always failed to understand this fundamental principle of American law: the presumption of innocence.
By all accounts, Kimberly had always been a moderate, but when a new opportunity presented itself in the form of Donald Trump, she made a sharp turn to the right. Her final, and indeed her final, fateful move was to bet on the wrong Camelot: the Trump version.
“I’ve known her for 25 years,” she thundered at a recent Republican event about Kamala, “and let me just say this: Do whatever you can to keep her out of the White House!” But the one-time favorite of Trump supporters was met with a resounding silence.
Kimberly Guilfoyle speaks during the third day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, July 17, 2024.
Mike Seeger
We’ve seen this movie before: Kimberly sees the sun go down, bets go unpaid, past fateful choices bear negative consequences, and, desperate for the spotlight again, that old “job snub” resurfaces in her desperate bid for public attention.
So what if Kamala had expressed “vehement opposition” years ago? If this story is true — if Kamala dissuaded Terence Hallinan from hiring Kimberly — then maybe she was just being prescient. Maybe she saw then what it took me 20 years to learn. Kimberly believes in nothing but Kimberly.
