Above Photo: From ActivistPost.com
Controversial Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke said he will be accepting a job as assistant secretary in President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.
On Wednesday, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke – an advocate of indefinite detention of domestic “extremists” – announced that he plans to accept an offer to serve as deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The Hill reported that Clarke discussed the matter with conservative radio host Vicki McKenna during an interview on 1130 WISN.
“I’m both honored and humbled to be appointed to this position by Secretary Kelly, working for the Trump administration,” Clarke told McKenna. He said he plans to leave Milwaukee County in June to work with Office of Partnership and Programs as “a liaison with state, local and tribal law enforcement.” The DHS has not confirmed Clarke’s new position, but in a tweet they did acknowledge that the job does not require Senate confirmation.
Clarke has been mentioned as a possible appointment to the DHS since the moment Trump was elected. However, the possibility of Clarke working with the feds has not been without controversy. The Human Rights Campaign blasted the news, calling Clarke’s appointment “a grave mistake.”
“His homophobic, transphobic, racist and sexist views have absolutely no place anywhere, including and especially in law enforcement agencies or the federal government,” the HRC wrote.
What makes Clarke so dangerous? For starters, Sheriff David Clarke is responsible for a prison in which four people have died and been tortured. At least one prisoner died of dehydration after the water in his cell was shut off for seven days. New York Mag also reported that Clarke previously called for the DHS to round up hundred of thousands, possibly millions of people who he labeled as domestic extremists.
“I suggest that our commander in chief ought to utilize Article I, Section 9 and take all of these individuals that are suspected, these ones on the internet spewing jihadi rhetoric … to scoop them up, charge them with treason and, under habeas corpus, detain them indefinitely at Gitmo,” Clarke wrote in his book Cop Under Fire: Moving Beyond Hashtags of Race, Crime and Politics for a Better America. Clarke says this may require rounding up hundreds of thousands or “maybe a million” people. How would he do this?
He believes the DHS would “hold them indefinitely under a suspension of habeas corpus.” Habeas Corpus, also known as the Great Writ, is the legal procedure that keeps the government from holding suspects indefinitely. Americans are guaranteed this freedom under the U.S. Constitution, Article One, Section 9, clause 2, which states that “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” The idea that Clarke would suspend habeas corpus and call in the police to round up dissidents is not far off from reality considering the Sheriff requested Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker send in the National Guard after a riot in August 2016.
Clarke has also been criticized for comparing Black Lives Matter to terrorists, stating that the activist group may one day “join forces with ISIS.” Clarke also displayed his ignorance for political philosophy by claiming that BLM has a “radical ideology of terrorism: anarchy.” However, anyone who has spent more than ten minutes researching Anarchism knows that the philosophy is about removing the statist, authoritarian power structures and allowing free people to self organize.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Clarke seemed to call for violence against BLM and activists who opposed Trump’s election.
They only understand one thing, Tucker. And that is force. And I am talking about reasonable force by law enforcement. But I’m also talking about law-abiding citizens standing up for their constitutional right and not have their constitutional right trampled on at these rallies. I’m not encouraging them to start the fight, but I’m one of those that comes from the school, if the fight is inevitable, hit first, and hit hard.
NY Mag and other critics of Clarke are right to call him our for his authoritarian vision. The man who claims to be about law and order seems to want to use the state’s law in attempt to establish totalitarian order that will repress freedom of speech and legitimize violence against political opponents. If President Trump truly cares about freedom, or is an outsider to the totalitarian New World Order/Deep State vision, why is he surrounding himself with banksters, globalists, and tyrants?