Why Kristen Clarke Shouldn’t Lead The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division

President Joe Biden has nominated Kristen Clarke to be the assistant attorney general for the U.S Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, but many people have raised concerns over her troubling and divisive comments in the past. While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are two of the most important pieces of legislation regarding racial discrimination, Biden’s Civil Rights nominee has made it clear that she intends to only protect her left-wing version of racialism, rather than all Americans.

During Clarke’s confirmation hearing, lawmakers brought up controversial pieces she wrote and alarming stances she took in the past. She has faced a number of accusations regarding anti-police and anti-Semitic views, as well as leading investigations under the lens of race.

Back in 1999, Clarke organized an event at Columbia Law School to support the freeing of death row inmates, whom she referred to as “political prisoners.” This included convicted cop-killers Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur, as well as Susan Rosenberg, a convicted domestic terrorist and radical left activist who was arrested for possessing explosives and weapons while planning a number of bombing operations. Rosenberg was released in 2001 when then-President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence.

In 2008, Clarke even met with Christopher Coates, the former head of the Civil Rights Voting Section, to demand that the Department of Justice dismiss its case against Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee chairman Ike Brown. He was the first Black political official in which the Voting Rights Act had been used to allege racial animus towards white people. Even after Brown was found liable for engaging in these illegal acts by a federal district court, Clarke argued that the case should have filed.

Clarke has also tried to keep Alabama from implementing a DNA testing program for felons, as well as working to keep department prosecutors from serving as election observers.

And while Clarke has insisted that she opposes defunding the police, a recent article she wrote claims otherwise. During her confirmation hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz points to an article she wrote with the title “defund the police.” He goes on to discuss the body of the op-ed piece in which Clarke talks about how defunding the police unites everyone more. She wrote that the 2020 protests had “opened up space for transformative police discussions” and that “into this space has surged a unifying call from the Black Lives Matter movement: ‘Defund the police.”

Clarke argues that the “defund the police” title was chosen by the editor but that she doesn’t support taking resources away from the police. She said there should be greater investments in social workers, schools, and mental health assistance, but that she does not believe in putting the community in harm’s way.

Sen. Cruz warned Clarke that she was testifying under oath, but she replies that she wrote the piece without having the power of the purse string behind her and that it is a “great thing” that Biden plans to commit to giving $300 million to police.

Here is the full clip:

The most outrageous case on Clarke’s record is when she tried to pressure former president Barack Obama’s Justice Department political team to drop the already-won case against two New Black Panther Party members who were threatening voters with police-style baton weapons at a Philadelphia polling place.

Clark’s record screams of a liberal and racially motivated agenda rather than stable support for equal justice under the law, no matter which race is supposedly advantaged or hurt. The Department of Justice isn’t a left-wing advocacy organization, but if Clarke gets confirmed, it could be one.