Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, Aligned With Far-Right Conspiracy Theorists, Tapped For Homeland Security Post: Reports

MILWAUKEE, WI — Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who once claimed that Black Lives Matter activists were forming an alliance with overseas terrorists to destroy America, said Wednesday he has accepted an undersecretary position with the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke, a rising star among law-and-order conservatives and a brash anti-government TV pundit aligned with far-right conspiracy theorists, said he had been appointed as assistant secretary at DHS’s Office of Partnership and Engagement.

Homeland Security officials have not confirmed the appointment. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from MilwaukeePatch, click here to find your local Wisconsin Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

The assistant secretary of the Office of Partnership and Engagement serves as the administration’s liaison to the law enforcement community and likely would be called on to speak at funerals of police officers killed in the line of duty and perform other ceremonial duties.

“I will be leaving the position of sheriff to accept an appointment as assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I’m both honored and humbled to be appointed to this position by Secretary Kelly — working for the Trump administration. It will be in, specifically, the Office of Partnership and Programs, with several branches within there,” Clarke, an African-American, told WISN Radio host Vicki McKenna in an interview Wednesday morning. “I’ll be a liaison with state and local governments and with the private sector and one that’s really near and dear to me — liaison with the state, local and tribal law enforcement.”

The Department of Homeland Security said, “No such announcement with regard to the office of Public Engagement has been made,” CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta tweeted.

Among the responsibilities of the new post, which Clarke said he expects to assume in June, is to “take complaints of shortcomings in the Department of Homeland Security,” he said in the interview.

Local law enforcement officers “feel like they’re being ignored,” he said.

The position doesn't require confirmation from the Senate. Otherwise, four deaths that have occurred in the Milwaukee County Jail that he oversees would surely have raised questions. An inquest in one of those deaths ended with a recommendation of felony charges against seven jail officials. The inmate died after he went seven days without water in Clarke’s jail.

Clarke has called Trump protesters “anarchists” who “must be quelled.” He proclaimed in one tweet that “Black Lives Matter will join forces with ISIS to bring down our constituted republic.” He's also a member of an anti-government extremist group, Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the organization that keeps track of hate groups. He once told the group that "government is the common enemy."

Clarke was widely criticized in January after he ordered a man held at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee for shaking his head at him during a flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Milwaukee. The four-term sheriff interpreted the head shaking as menacing and ordered his deputies to detain the man when the flight landed. The passenger filed a formal complaint, and Clarke fired back on the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, calling the complainant a “snowflake” in a meme that stated: “Cheer up, Snowflake. If Sheriff Clarke were to really harass you, you wouldn’t be around to whine about it.”

Clarke has not only survived the criticism but seems to invite and relish it, if only to bolster his status as an authentic American hero among conservatives. He is a regular on Fox News and has the backing of the powerful National Rifle Association, whose members cheered Clarke’s suggestion in a keynote address to add an assault rifle to the national seal.

Clarke had briefly been mentioned as a wild-card candidate to replace fired FBI director James Comey.

The former homicide detective was appointed Milwaukee County sheriff in 2002. He won election four times on the Democratic ticke, and would have been up for re-election in November 2018.

He said Wednesday that he had informed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker of his intention to accept the Homeland Security position, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Clarke is expected to have say in the appointment of an interim sheriff to serve until an election to replace him.

(Susan Walsh/AP Photo)