Ever since rumors began to circulate that California Senator Kamala Harris would stage a run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination — rumors she made real on January 21 with the official announcement of her candidacy — the 54-year-old former state attorney general has come under attack by prominent supporters of one of Harris’s potential rivals, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who staged a surprising challenge to eventual nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary race. As far back as the summer of 2017, Sanders supporters launched public attacks on Harris, according to a report by the politics and culture site Mic.

Sanders himself has yet to comment on his supporters attacks against Harris, but on Sunday, a lawyer who has authored a book on the Sanders political movement, What Happened to Bernie Sanders?, took to to his Twitter account to launch an especially crude attack on Harris, who is African-American, and on African-American women generally, following an acknowledgment by former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown that he dated Harris about 20 years ago, as Inquisitr reported.

That Harris and Brown dated in the early 1990s has not been a secret, even reported in Brown’s biography for the online encyclopedia InfoPlease.com, and in a biographical book about Brown. Though Brown has never divorced his wife of 51 years, Blanche Vitero, the couple were separated in 1981 and the now-84-year-old Brown has been open about his prolific dating life ever since, even fathering a child by another woman in 2001, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (pictured) have attacked Democratic President Featured image credit: Scott Olson Getty Images

Harris’s relationship with Brown 20 years ago, however, prompted lawyer Jared Beck — who sued the Democratic National Committee last year, claiming a conspiracy against Sanders in the 2016 election, as Courthouse News reported — to take to Twitter where he crudely insulted Harris as “a repository for Willie Brown’s decrepit penis.” He also taunted “black women” as “funny” for supporting Harris.

Black women who think Kamala Harris is "just like them" are funny. As if every black woman has an opportunity to be a repository for Willie Brown's decrepit penis. — Jared Beck (@JaredBeck) January 27, 2019

Other Twitter users quickly jumped in to defend Harris and slam Harris’s offensive attack.

What an ugly tweet: How dare you. Think you’re going to hurt Harris with this offensive garbage? Watch black women help Kamala win the presidency. https://t.co/H2EtjFiT5T — LiberalPhenom (Obama is my president forever) (@LiberalPhenom) January 27, 2019

Stick with filing nuisance lawsuits on Bernie's behalf, you soft balled-up piece of dingleberry. — Art Crow (@Bad_Lizard) January 27, 2019

It's so cute how scared you guys are of her. — Ghost of Joad (@Ghost_Of_Joad) January 27, 2019

This tweet is disgusting. It’s simultaneously sexist and racist and typical of berners. #NeverBernie #TeamKamala — Hotshot Canary says Hillary is our real president (@HotshotCanary) January 27, 2019

Your ratio isn't nearly big enough, so let me say that you are a pig. I am so freaking tired of frightened little men who feel inadequate, so they go after women. — Mary Michel Green (@marymichelgreen) January 27, 2019

The Bernie supporters are the worst. — Don't reach youngblood! (@Dontreachyngbld) January 27, 2019

In another Twitter post made shortly after his crude remark about Harris, Beck, who is white, again attacked African-American supporters of Harris, writing, “If you think Kamala Harris is a great person because she’s ‘black just like you,’ you just might be another stupid piece of worthless racist American s**t.”

Despite the publication of his book about the aftermath of Sanders’s campaign, and his lead in the lawsuit claiming that Sanders was the victim of a conspiracy to stop him from winning the Democratic 2016 nomination, Beck claimed on Twitter to “hate Bernie Sanders.”