[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 90 (Monday, May 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3330-S3331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Kristen M. Clarke

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, in just hours, we will be voting on 
the nomination of Kristen Clarke to be Assistant Attorney General for 
the Civil Rights Division in the United States Department of Justice.
  I am proud tonight to advocate for her, not that she needs my voice 
in her support. She is a brilliant leader and advocate. She has 
dedicated her entire career to protecting the civil rights of all 
Americans, and she has an extraordinary record to show for it.
  She reminds me of the legal warriors in the Department of Justice 
during the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s who battled for the rule of law in 
supporting children who were trying to gain entry to desegregated 
schools, in voters who sought to uphold the franchise, and in men and 
women who challenged the denial of their rights in the South and 
throughout the country. The Department of Justice became a beacon of 
law enforcement in its upholding of the civil rights of America, and 
she is in that great tradition--fierce and fearless, strong and 
unyielding and tenacious in defending and advocating for the rights and 
liberties of Americans when they are denied those rights and liberties 
guaranteed under the Constitution and our statutes.
  She served as the civil rights chief for the New York Attorney 
General in the civil rights bureau. She served as assistant counsel for 
the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. She served as a Federal 
prosecutor during the Bush administration in the Civil Rights 
Division's Criminal Section and Voting Section, the very divisions that 
she has been nominated now to lead.
  She knows these issues. She knows civil rights and civil liberty 
issues and law because she has worked on them for more than two 
decades. She cares about these issues because her life has

[[Page S3331]]

been dedicated to them, and she understands these issues on a deeply 
personal level. She knows them inside and out because she served to 
fight for them inside and out of the DOJ, inside and out of the New 
York Attorney General's Office, inside and out of the organization 
whose mission is to protect them, and she is the daughter of immigrants 
who grew up in the Nation's largest public housing complex. She is also 
the mother of a 16-year-old son, who is growing up in this moment of 
reckoning for racial justice, equality, and equity in America.
  If memory serves me, she also once took a field trip to the Hartford 
area, in Connecticut, and watched a then comparatively young State 
attorney general who was arguing in court in a desegregation case. Now, 
I have no illusions that this experience played any part in her desire 
to use her extraordinary skills and talents and gifts and education as 
a public servant and lawyer for the public good, but that has been her 
career, and that is exactly what we need now at the helm of the Civil 
Rights Division.
  There is no excuse for waiting another moment to confirm her to this 
most important post. She is the civil rights chief for this moment 
because we are in a moment of reckoning. Justice, equity, and equality 
are on the line now, and her strength and tenacity meet this moment.
  Unfortunately, there are some on the other side who have used Ms. 
Clarke's nomination to make baseless allegations against her, including 
allegations that she supports abolishing the police. To support this 
distortion, they have repeatedly invoked a 2020 op-ed written by Ms. 
Clarke and published by Newsweek. I want to meet that article head on 
because, at our Judiciary Committee's markup just 2 weeks ago, Senator 
Cruz selectively excerpted portions of that op-ed, claiming that they 
demonstrated that Ms. Clarke ``explicitly'' advocated abolishing the 
police.
  There is only one problem with this argument: Ms. Clarke never wrote 
that. It just isn't true. Ms. Clarke's piece is a thoughtful call to 
rethink how we approach law enforcement in a country that is going 
through a moment in which thousands of Americans have called out for 
real reform, real change, real action.

  I have been proud to be involved in peaceful demonstrations and 
rallies throughout the State of Connecticut--probably 20 or maybe more 
of them over the last summer--when young people led these public calls 
for justice in policing, justice in housing, justice in the workplace, 
and justice in healthcare--all of them implicated in this moment.
  The fact is the word ``abolition'' appears only once in the entire 
op-ed. That word appears once in the op-ed--``abolition''--when it is 
used to describe the huge range of views held by others, activists and 
local governments. That is it. That word ``abolition'' is used to 
describe the views of others, not her views.
  Senator Cruz has also distorted her record in another way in claiming 
she had written a provocative email comparing the police to the Ku Klux 
Klan. That is simply not true. In reality, the passage Senator Cruz 
quoted was written by someone else--an activist--in an essay that Ms. 
Clarke had simply forwarded in an email. In the email, the subject line 
includes the actual author's name, and the essay is signed at the end 
by the author.
  Had Senator Cruz bothered to look at the entirety of the email and of 
that document instead of cherry-picking a line to fit his preconceived 
narrative, he would have known, and it would have been truer to the 
facts here. Ms. Clarke no more wrote the words Senator Cruz attributed 
to her than he did.
  At a time when the country faces a moment of reckoning over racial 
justice, the Civil Rights Division needs someone with Ms. Clarke's 
knowledge, skill, dexterity of thinking, life experience, heart, and 
dedication because these challenges are immense and they need to be 
addressed. She is the person for this moment. That is exactly what she 
will do, address the need for equity and equality in civil rights 
enforcement. She will be tenacious but thoughtful and insightful and 
true to the law, serving the rule of law. She is a dedicated and 
devoted public servant, committed to equal justice, civil rights, and 
the rule of law.
  I have seen that firsthand, and I know I am not the only one who 
thinks so. The letters the Judiciary Committee has received in support 
of her nomination reflect a broad, professionally and ideologically 
diverse coalition of individuals and organizations that know that she 
is, without a doubt, eminently qualified for this position.
  That support includes law enforcement, like the Major Cities Chiefs 
Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement 
Executives, the National Association of Women Law Enforcement 
Executives, the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, 
and 71 former attorneys general from red States and blue States.
  The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives wrote:

       Ms. Clarke has displayed the qualities of leadership, 
     empathy, excellence, and persistence in supporting and 
     defending the U.S. Constitution while ensuring equal 
     protection and justice for all Americans.

  The 71 former attorneys general wrote:

       Kristen Clarke is someone with immense credibility among 
     community leaders in each of our states--she has handled 
     cases of hate crimes, constitutional policing, human 
     trafficking, and voting rights, and, most recently, has done 
     effective work on violent extremism and the threat that it 
     poses to our citizens.

  I believe strongly that Kristen Clarke should be confirmed right 
away, without delay, and I encourage all of my colleagues to see the 
baseless allegations against her for what they are--a distortion--and I 
urge them to support her nomination. I have confronted those 
allegations. They are unworthy of repetition, but I think my colleagues 
should know the truth behind them. The Civil Rights Division and the 
American people need Kristen Clarke.
  For me, this vote feels very personal. Two of my four children are 
graduating literally today and during this week from law school. I hope 
they will use the great gifts that they have, the skills that they have 
acquired, and the advocacy that they have been learning to advance the 
public interests in the way that Kristen Clarke has done throughout her 
extraordinary career. I hope they will regard her as a role model 
because she has sought justice.
  She has fought to uphold the rights of people who are vulnerable, 
Americans who are voiceless, and ordinary Americans, who all too often 
have been denied their rights. She has stood up for them; she has 
spoken out; and I hope we will confirm her tomorrow with a bipartisan 
vote.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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