Nomination of Kristen M. Clarke

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I will not be voting to discharge the nominee Kristen Clarke to run the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, so I come to the floor to explain to my colleagues why I feel this way.

While Ms. Clarke may be a very good attorney--in fact, I don't think there is any doubt that she is--she continues the trend of politicized nominees to the Justice Department under this President. While I disagree with her strongly on some of her views, especially when it comes to defunding the police, my issues with Ms. Clarke go beyond that.

The Justice Department and especially the Civil Rights Division need to be committed to impartial and equal justice. In the wrong hands, the Civil Rights Division can be used to target and harass the President's political opponents. It can threaten law enforcement, school choice advocates, religious schools, red States, and pro-lifers.

This isn't a hypothetical. Under Ms. Gupta, the Civil Rights Division defended an effort to take over Louisiana's school choice program. Now, can you imagine that? Luckily, a group of African-American mothers stopped them in the Fifth Circuit. Just think--African Americans stopped an obvious injustice by the Justice Department.

The fact is that our civil rights laws are broad, and the mere threat of their enforcement can chill legitimate political opposition. Because of that, I think that the head of the Civil Rights Division needs to be above reproach when it comes to partisanship.

Unfortunately, Ms. Clarke is a liberal partisan. She has opposed the enforcement of the law against Ike Brown, a Mississippi voter suppressor, either because of the color of his skin or because he was a Democrat. Neither answer is acceptable. She has disparaged religious freedom groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom. She has opposed important Supreme Court decisions protecting religious liberty, individual Supreme Court Justices, and even some of my colleagues. She has held Republican nominees to a standard she didn't want to apply to herself.

Ms. Clarke has run away from her record. I asked her at the hearing whether Mumia Abu-Jamal, the country's most notorious cop killer, was a political prisoner, like someone said at a conference that she helped organize. She wouldn't answer, telling me she was unfamiliar with the case. Given her youthful activism, I find that very hard to believe. Last summer, she wrote an article in Newsweek advocating for defunding the police, but she insists the words on the page aren't what she meant. I am sorry, but if it is not what she meant, then she shouldn't have said it.

I don't think she is the right person for this job at this time. A nominee to lead the Civil Rights Division should be nonpartisan, should be independent, and should be upfront about her beliefs. Unfortunately, I think Ms. Clarke misses all three marks.

As I have said, I don't want to return to the Eric Holder days, so I will vote no.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source