Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke Quits Job Homeland Security Never Confirmed

MILWAUKEE, WI — Controversial Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr., who announced in a radio interview last month that he’d taken a key Department of Homeland Security job, said this weekend he is withdrawing his name from consideration. Despite Clarke’s widely reported announcement, agency officials never confirmed his appointment as assistant secretary in DHS’s Office of Partnership and Engagement.

Clarke adviser Craig Peterson issued a statement saying that late Friday, Clarke notified Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly “that he had rescinded his acceptance of the agency’s offer to join DHS as an assistant secretary.” According to the statement, Clarke and President Donald Trump met last week and “discussed other roles where the sheriff could be of greater assistance to the president and the country.”

Options Clarke, a commentator for Fox News, is considering are inside and outside of government, according to the statement. Peterson said Clarke remains “100 percent committed to the success of President Trump, and believes his skills could be better utilized to promote the president’s agenda in a more aggressive role.” (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Milwaukee Patch, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and click here to find your local Wisconsin Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Clarke was a visible surrogate for Trump during the campaign and a rising star among law-and-order conservatives, fueling some speculation that he would be tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security. But Trump passed him over after the two met in a pre-inauguration meeting at Trump Tower.

Senate confirmation for the top Homeland Security job would have been a tough battle for Clarke, whose brash, shoot-from-the-hip approach makes him a darling of far-right conspiracy theorists — he once claimed the Black Lives Matter movement was aligning with overseas terrorists to destroy America — but raises civil rights and other concerns among his detractors.

He also has been scrutinized over four deaths in the Milwaukee County Jail he oversees, including one in which an inmate died after going without water for seven days. A prosecutor’s inquest ended with the recommendation of felony charges against seven jail officials, though Clarke wasn’t among them. Just days after Clarke said he was taking the DHS undersecretary position, he was accused of plagiarizing his master’s thesis — an allegation he denied but admitted might cost him the appointment.

The undersecretary position wouldn’t have required approval from the Senate, but his withdrawal from consideration may signal that Clarke is too great a political liability even for an administration that is rewriting the rules of political correctness and protocol.

Clarke withdrew his name after significant delays, a person close to the administration and familiar with the situation told The Washington Post. He had been expected to start at the end of June.

Signs that Clarke was, at the least, premature in his acceptance came from DHS immediately after Clarke told WISN-TV that he planned to resign as sheriff.

It’s unclear if Clarke still plans to resign. The position is up in the 2018 election. Clarke also has been suggested as a candidate to run against U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Madison Democrat whose term is also up in the midterm elections.

Susan Walsh/AP Photo