A former Court TV employee, who worked as an attorney and journalist in San Francisco when Kimberly Guilfoyle and Kamala Harris were launching their legal careers, has questioned Guilfoyle’s decades-long claim that the Democratic presidential candidate tried to unfairly block her from getting a job in the San Francisco District Attorney’s office.
But if Harris did voice opposition to then-District Attorney Terence Hallinan hiring Guilfoyle in 2000, she “was just prescient,” writes Jami Floyd, a former San Francisco public defender and contemporary of both Guilfoyle and Harris, in a column for the Daily Beast.
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – JULY 17: Kimberly Guilfoyle speaks on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Delegates, politicians, and the Republican faithful are in Milwaukee for the annual convention, concluding with former President Donald Trump accepting his party’s presidential nomination. The RNC takes place from July 15-18. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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“Maybe Kamala could see back then what it took me 20 years to learn. Kimberly doesn’t believe in anything but Kimberly,” Floyd said, adding that that the press always “loves a catfight” between two powerful women. But Floyd said: “I do not.” She also said, “I know both women and it’s time to put this story to bed.”
Guilfoyle’s claim has been resurrected in 2024 in stories for the New York Times and the Daily Mail, as she campaigns for Donald Trump to defeat Harris on Nov. 5. Guilfoyle is engaged to Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr. and, as Vanity Fair reported, she has become one of Trump’s most vocal surrogates in attacking Harris, telling a crowd at a recent Florida fundraiser: “I have known her for 25 years. And let me tell you something: Do whatever it takes to keep her out of the White House.”
Guilfoyle’s grudge against Harris goes back to around 2000 when Guilfoyle and Harris were ambitious, up-and-coming attorneys, trying to make their mark in San Francisco’s elite political and social circles. Harris was an assistant district attorney in San Francisco, working for Hallinan. Guilfoyle was a prosecutor in Los Angeles but wanted to return to her hometown of San Francisco. She also was dating and would soon marry another rising political star, then-San Francisco Supervisor Gavin Newsom. With Newsom, Guilfoyle began to enjoy the spotlight as one half of a new liberal power couple.
But as Guilfoyle first alleged to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003, Harris had called her several years earlier to discuss her desire to join the San Francisco D.A.’s According to Guilfoyle, Harris suggested there was no job for her, to which a flummoxed Guilfoyle said, “You have to understand, I came with an excellent resume, and talented women should support other talented women.”
Harris denied ever telling Guilfoyle there was no job for her in San Francisco. And if she did tell Hallinan not to hire Guilfoyle, he didn’t listen, as Floyd pointed out. Guilfoyle returned to San Francisco, married Newsom in a splashy society wedding at Ann and Gordon Getty’s Pacific Heights mansion and gained national attention as the telegenic “second chair” in prosecuting the infamous dog-mauling death of Diane Whipple.
The dog-mauling case helped Guilfoyle land a job at Court TV in New York City in 2004, just as Newsom was sworn in as mayor. The Court TV gig made Guilfoyle and Floyd colleagues.
“I was delighted to find Kimberly at Court TV when we both landed there in 2004,” Floyd wrote. “We both had husbands in California and would hit the red carpet together — her stunning figure always in Chanel. In town cars, we talked about long distance romance, San Francisco politics, and our youthful dreams.”
NEW YORK – MARCH 8: (L-R) Henry Schleiff, Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom and Catherine Crier of Court TV, musician Richie Sambora and Lisa Bloom and Jami Floyd of Court TV attend People For the American Way “Spirit of Liberty” Gala at Plaza Hotel on March 8, 2005 in New York City. (Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images)
At the time, Floyd saw Guilfoyle as “one of the few people in the cut-throat broadcast news business who was not.” Even after she left Court TV for Fox News, Guilfoyle was “warm and engaging whenever we met,” Floyd wrote in the Daily Beast.
As is well-known, Guilfoyle’s bicoastal marriage to Newsom didn’t last. She also revealed her politics were never liberal by joining Fox News in 2006, the same year she divorced Newsom.
In looking back, Floyd noted in the Daily Beast that Guilfoyle wasn’t exactly a TV natural. Floyd also questions her legal prowess, saying she was bothered by things Guilfoyle revealed during weekly editorial meetings at Court TV. Floyd found that Guilfoyle didn’t seem to “grasp this fundamental principle of American law: the presumption of innocence.”
In observing Guilfoyle’s departure from San Francisco and her marriage to Newson, who is now California’s governor, Floyd said Guilfoyle “left Camelot for Court TV.” In noting Guilfoyle’s turn “hard right,” Floyd said that Guilfoyle decided to gamble on “the Trumpian version” of Camelot when she began dating Trump Jr. and allied herself with his father’s MAGA politics.
Perhaps now, Guilfoyle realizes that her gamble hasn’t paid off in ways she would like, Floyd wrote. But Guilfoyle continues to crave the spotlight, Floyd said, and resurrecting the old “job snub” story is her way of staying “relevant.”