Posted on May 26, 2021

Senate Confirms DOJ Nominee Kristen Clarke

Morgan Phillips, Fox News, May 25, 2021

The Senate confirmed Kristen Clarke as the first Black woman to run the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in a 51-48 vote Tuesday afternoon.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted yes with all Democrats, and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., did not vote.

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The Civil Rights Division under Clarke is expected to investigate policing throughout the country, already leading civil investigations into the Minneapolis Police Department and a probe in Louisville, Ky., where Breonna Taylor was killed. And as a number of states move to enact voting restrictions, the department is expected to investigate voting laws for discrimination under the Voting Rights Act.

Clarke’s confirmation was controversial because of her prolific Twitter use, where she would often launch broadsides against some senators, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Clarke also has a history of controversial writings, including a 2020 Newsweek op-ed headlined: “I Prosecuted Police Killings. Defund the Police—But Be Strategic.”

Clarke said in a hearing before the Judiciary Committee that she did not actually mean to say police should be defunded in that op-ed.placeholder

She has also labeled President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees as “white male extremists.”

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For the past five years, she was been working on the nonprofit Lawyers’ committee, which focuses on social justice.