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President Trump awarded 'Bipartisan Justice Award' — Kamala Harris responds with boycott
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President Trump awarded 'Bipartisan Justice Award' — Kamala Harris responds with boycott

'A lawless president'

President Donald Trump was awarded the "Bipartisan Justice Award" by a group of black leaders Friday night for his work in passing criminal justice reform.

Trump was presented the award during a ceremony at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, hosted by 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center, a bipartisan group of black leaders — 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats — founded in 2015.

The group presented Trump the award for signing into law the First Step Act, which implemented numerous federal prison reforms.

Numerous Democrats were slated to attend event festivities, including top presidential contenders Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and Cory Booker.

But Harris, a California senator who voted for the First Step Act, announced Friday that she would boycott the event's weekend festivities because of Trump.

"Today, when it became clear Donald Trump would receive an award after decades of celebrating mass incarceration, pushing the death penalty for innocent black Americans, rolling back police accountability measures and racist behavior that puts people's lives at risk, and then learned all but 10 Benedict students are excluded from participating, I cannot in good faith be complicit in papering over his record," she said in a statement.

Harris also voiced disagreement with the organization's decision to present Trump — whom she called "a lawless president" — with the award.

"Not only does he circumvent the laws of our country and the principles of our Constitution, but there is nothing in his career that is about justice, for justice or in celebration of justice," Harris claimed, Fox News reported.

Instead of attending the main event forum that other presidential candidates will attend, Harris — who won the "Bipartisan Justice Award" in 2016 — said she will host her own roundtable.

Trump responded to Harris' decision Saturday by blasting the "badly failing" Harris.

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