“President Trump has tapped Clarke to join the Department of Homeland Security as the assistant secretary of the Office of Partnership and Engagement.”
The ever-controversial Sheriff David Clarke once again entered the national political discussion, as it was rumored (and then confirmed) that he would be joining the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the administration of President Donald Trump. Old controversies, as well as new ones, have been talking points without context of actual facts to frame the conversation.
David Alexander Clarke Jr. is currently serving his fourth full term as the sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. The son of an Army Ranger, Clarke began his career in law enforcement in 1978; he served as a patrol officer for 11 years before becoming a homicide detective and later rose to lieutenant in 1993 and captain in 1999. He was appointed sheriff in 2002 by Governor Scott McCallum. He is a registered Democrat and has been elected as such in 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014.
However, the outspoken lawman frequently cited political views that are more aligned with the Republican party than the Democrats. This has led to him frequently appearing on Fox News, as well as being invited to speak at the 2016 Republican National Convention. For 2015, Clarke disclosed he had made over $150,000 in speaking fees, travel reimbursements, and gifts. His annual salary as sheriff is $132,290.
President Trump has tapped Clarke to join the Department of Homeland Security as the assistant secretary of the Office of Partnership and Engagement, where he will be acting in the capacity of a liaison between DHS and the approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies that currently operate in the United States.
Sheriff Clarke has drawn significant attention as a high-profile African American law enforcement officer for his views on race relations in the United States. Clarke has repeatedly criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, calling for their designation as a hate group. The movement was born out of the riots surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO in 2014. Clarke stated that the rioters were “vultures on a roadside carcass.” In October of 2015, Clarke predicted that the organization (which he referred to as “Black Lies Matter”) would eventually join forces with ISIS to bring down America.
Clarke also caused outrage when media outlets reported that Clarke accused African Americans of selling drugs because they are lazy and morally bankrupt. However, the comments were actually directed at drug dealers, regardless of race. In a later interview, Clarke responded to the controversy by stating, “Any drug dealer, whether it be white, black, Hispanic, it doesn’t matter. They are the scourge of our communities.”
In 2015, Clarke travelled to Russia on a trip financed by the National Rifle Association and a similar Russian organization called The Right to Bear Arms. As part of the trip, Clarke met the Russian foreign minister and attended an event where Aleksander Torshin was a speaker. Torshin has been a major figure in the United Russia political party and therefore has professional connections with Vladimir Putin. However, the reason for the connection between Torshin and Clarke is that Torshin is a lifetime member of the NRA and is actively involved with the organization and their events.
When it was rumored earlier in 2017 that Clarke may be running against Senator Tammy Baldwin in 2018, Sen. Baldwin started making allegations about Clarke’s Russian connections while attempting to convince the public to donate to her reelection campaign. The evidence presented was that Clarke had travelled to Moscow in 2015 and had met the deputy prime minister while there. Even though the trip was a personal one and he was under no obligation to do so, Clarke filed an ethics disclosure form with Milwaukee County. However, given the mainstream media’s drive to continue the Russian narrative in the 2016 election, these unsubstantiated allegations have gained traction again.
In 2009, control of the Milwaukee House of Corrections in Franklin was turned over to Clarke’s Sheriff’s Department following an audit by the National Institute of Corrections that found the institution was dysfunctional and poorly managed. Clarke’s tenure as head of the prison has generated multiple controversies and claims of abusive treatment of prisoners; some of the alleged abuses involve serving tasteless food and waking up inmates with bullhorns.
However, more serious claims of abuse surfaced in 2014 when an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that 10 inmates had died in the jail between 2008 and 2013. In 2015, the death rate in the jail was three times higher than the national average. In April of 2016, an inmate died of dehydration after water to his cell was allegedly turned off for 6 days. In April of 2017, prosecutors did open a criminal inquest into this death, and in May, a grand jury recommended criminal charges against seven deputies serving under Clarke.
Clarke has several times called for the suspension of habeas corpus for American citizens accused of terrorist ties. Habeas corpus is a recourse in law challenging the reasons or conditions of a person’s confinement. This privilege is not a right against unlawful arrest, but the right to be released from imprisonment after an unlawful arrest. The ninth section of Article 1 of the United States Constitution 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.” For example, during the American Civil War, President Lincoln unilaterally suspended the right of habeas corpus in Maryland.
In Clarke’s book, Cop Under Fire, he has stated that Americans suspected of terrorism should be treated as enemy combatants. In 2015, he stated that there could be a million people who had “pledged allegiance or are supporting ISIS” who should be shipped to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite imprisonment. However, the United States Supreme Court declared this an impossibility in 2004. In a ruling on the case of Hamdi v. Rumsfield, the Supreme Court re-confirmed that every American citizen has the right to access habeas corpus, even if declared an enemy combatant. This ruling means that as it stands now, habeas corpus could not be revoked if the subject was an American citizen.
