With President Joe Biden having withdrawn from the 2024 race, Vice President Kamala Harris has ascended to become the Democratic presumptive nominee for president, which has sparked renewed scrutiny of her background and rise in politics.

That includes her mid-1990s affair with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, then the California Assembly Speaker, which conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly insisted was "fair game" to be discussed, according to the New York Post.

Brown himself has taken credit for boosting Harris' political career early on with lucrative appointments to influential boards and commissions that some argue she was not remotely qualified to hold and provided her with an unearned advantage over her competitors.

"I'm sorry, it's fair game"

During a recent episode of her SiriusXM show, Kelly discussed VP Harris' "cringe vibe" and "political failures" with National Review writers Charles Cooke and Jim Geraghty, and at one point said "I’m going there" when the topic of her affair with Willie Brown, who at that time was married to but separated from another woman, was mentioned.

"There's a debate about this on Twitter right now about whether her sleeping with Willie Brown when she was an up-and-coming aspiring politician in San Francisco is fair game -- it's fair game," Kelly said. "It's part of a pattern of her ascending to positions that she does not deserve based on merit for other reasons."

"First she slept with this guy Willie Brown, who was this extremely popular, powerful" California politician, she continued, "and he put her in two different positions that she did not deserve when she was only 29 or 30, he was 60. Already that affair is sus."

"And she was making the equivalent of 130 grand a year, by today's money, for meeting twice a month for these medical boards and another position for which she had zero qualifications," Kelly added. "That's -- he was trying to lay the road for her political career. He admitted that he's the one who helped her win the role as DA, and she was sleeping with him. I'm sorry, it's fair game."

Brown has taken credit for boosting Harris' career

Fox News reported that Harris, then an assistant prosecutor in Alameda County and fresh out of law school at 29, met and began having an affair with then-Assembly Speaker Brown, 60, while he was estranged from his wife, and he appointed her to at least three well-paid positions on the state Insurance Commission, the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, and then the California Medical Assistance Commission.

Harris then got a job in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office but was demoted and moved over to the city attorney's office, but with Brown's electoral and financial help returned to the San Francisco DA's office as the new boss -- a position she used to later run for and win elections to become the California attorney general and then as a U.S. senator from California.

In 2019, as Harris was getting ready to launch her failed presidential bid, USA Today reported that the retired but still influential Brown acknowledged his prior affair with Harris and admitted that he'd boosted her career early on.

"Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker," Brown wrote in a column at the time. "And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco."

Harris distanced herself from Brown despite help; he continues to support her career

Interestingly enough, USA Today observed that Harris attempted to distance herself from Brown during her 2003 run to become the San Francisco DA, even as he was supporting her, and said at that time that him and his allegations of corruption and cronyism were an "albatross around my neck." She also said at the time, "His career is over; I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years. I do not owe him a thing," and vowed, "If there is corruption, it will be prosecuted."

For his part, in the 2019 column, Brown also took credit for boosting the careers of "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a host of other politicians," but added of his former paramour, "The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I 'so much as jaywalked' while she was D.A. That’s politics for ya."

Apparently, there are no lingering hard feelings for Brown, though, as The San Franciso Standard reported this month that the former mayor has not only endorsed Harris' sudden run for the presidency but even called upon President Biden to resign immediately so that Harris can be named president and use that position to her advantage to defeat Republican former President Donald Trump in November.