[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 91 (Tuesday, May 25, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3390-S3392]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Kristen M. Clarke

  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, it is a real honor to be rising today to 
speak in advance of the vote on Kristen Clarke's nomination to serve as 
the Attorney General of the Department of Justice.
  If she is confirmed, Kristen Clarke will be tasked with overseeing 
the Justice Department's work to protect the civil rights of all 
Americans.
  I have known Kristen Clarke for years. I have worked with her. I know 
her, and I can tell you that there can be no one better for this job.
  To say that Kristen Clarke has an impressive resume is a gross 
understatement. She started her career at the Justice Department in the 
Civil Rights Division. She worked with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 
She led the Civil Rights Bureau for the State of New York Attorney 
General's Office and most recently served as president and executive 
director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
  No one could blame Kristen Clarke, after this entire career of 
service and all that she has given, if she decided to take a step back 
and find a less demanding job, perhaps a far more lucrative job. But 
Ms. Clarke has dedicated herself to the highest principles of our 
Nation--indeed, to the founding ideals of our country, formed with the 
Bill of Rights, focusing on this idea of civil rights for all.
  This is not just her job. This has been her calling. This is her 
consistent conviction--to serve, to sacrifice for our Nation's most 
sacrosanct ideals.
  She has chosen to serve this country now at a time when we need her 
leadership more than ever. She is an asset to our country, and I 
believe she will serve with extraordinary distinction as a guardian of 
our civil rights.
  We need her experience. We need her expertise. We need her heart, her 
commitment, her deep thoughtfulness
  She is the daughter of immigrants, and after growing up in public 
housing, in a low-income household, Ms. Clarke made it to some of our 
most prestigious institutions and made it her cause to make the best 
out of herself. She is an incredible success story. She is a person who 
has overcome tremendous odds and advanced herself, not just for 
personal excellence but for public service. This makes her, in my book, 
a champion.
  Yet there are still those in this confirmation process who want to 
say that Ms. Clarke is the wrong person for the job. They are actually 
using smear tactics and lies to try to misrepresent who Ms. Clarke is 
as a person. There is a saying, ``Let the work I have done speak for 
me,'' and I wish folk would listen.
  She has prosecuted hate crimes. She has defended people's voting 
rights. She has fought against religious discrimination. She has 
dedicated her career to the cause of equal justice under law.
  Ms. Clarke is the right person for this job. She is exactly who we 
need. At a time when we are confronting rising hate crimes in America, 
dramatically more instances of vandalism and violence against Asian 
Americans, against Jewish Americans, against transgender Americans, we 
need someone leading the Civil Rights Division who will stand up for 
all Americans, who has experience prosecuting hate crimes and makes it 
clear in this Nation that all are created equal and endowed by their 
Creator with fundamental civil rights. That is who she is now and who 
she has been for her entire career.
  There are folks and forces working to strip away and weaken and 
undermine these fundamental rights. We see efforts to weaken our 
democracy, to threaten our principles. We need someone who will stand 
up and affirm who we are as a people--a nation that believes in robust 
voting rights, a nation that believes in the equal dignity of all 
people, a nation that believes in protecting religious liberty. We need 
a champion now as much as ever. We need Kristen Clarke leading the 
Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.
  And it is not just me saying that. It is just not Democrats saying 
that. There are over 70 bipartisan former State attorneys general. We 
see police leaders, law enforcement leaders endorsing her, prosecutors 
endorsing her, the Anti-Defamation League and 69 different local, 
State, and national Jewish organizations, all agreeing that Kristen 
Clarke is the right person to stand for us, to work for us, to fight 
for us, to champion for our precious civil rights at the Department of 
Justice.
  So many different individuals from all across the political 
landscape, from all different backgrounds, and so many organizations 
representing all of our diversity are speaking out in a chorus of 
conviction about not just how good

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Kristen Clarke is but how urgent her nomination is because of who she 
has shown herself to be time and again: an unassailable, impressive 
career of service, service, service. She is and has been a servant 
leader for all of her career; a person of profound integrity; someone 
whose passion, whose sacrifice, whose struggle in the pursuit of 
justice has already made this Nation better.
  I will say something on a personal note in closing. I have worked 
with Kristen Clarke for years now on things that we have done together, 
like a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill.
  I had the occasion years ago of meeting her when she was out in 
Washington with her son. He was a young guy, not that tall. Then, 
during her hearings in the Judiciary Committee, I saw her again present 
herself in an extraordinarily powerful manner, with grace and 
expertise, but I saw that young man now had grown up. He is a big guy. 
And it would be a leap of ego for me to say that I saw myself in this 
young man because he is probably a lot smarter than I was when I was 
his age and clearly is a better athlete, even though I will say for the 
record that the older I get, the better I am in sports.
  But I think about her career, and then I align it to what she has 
done in raising a young Black man in America. While I couldn't project 
myself onto him, I thought a lot about my mom in her. My mom raised my 
brother and me in a nation that strove to be who we say we are, a 
nation of liberty and justice for all. But where she knew we were 
falling short, she didn't raise us to be bitter; she raised us to be 
better. She raised us by setting an example, a woman who--from sitting 
in at a lunch counter to desegregate a restaurant, to helping organize 
the March on Washington, she showed me by example. As James Baldwin has 
said, children are never good at listening to their elders, but they 
never fail to imitate them.
  I want you all to know that in Kristen Clarke, we have an 
extraordinary American, an extraordinary person, and a great mom. And I 
know what she has done with her life. She has lived perhaps with the 
greatest principle of all, which is for us in this generation to make a 
better way for the next, for us to make a more perfect Union, for us to 
understand that the arc of the moral universe is indeed long but we 
must bend it more towards justice.
  I tell my colleagues and urge you to confirm her to this sacrosanct 
and urgent position today because I am confident to the core of my 
being that she will not just make us proud, she will not just defend 
those who are having their rights trampled or their dignity 
marginalized, but that she will make a better way for an America that 
fulfills its promise, still not yet achieved, for us to be a nation 
with liberty and justice for all.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, here we go again. Just a few weeks 
ago, the Senate debated Vanita Gupta's nomination for Associate 
Attorney General, so let's review the bidding from that.
  Gupta was eminently qualified for her role. She had support from the 
foremost law enforcement leaders and groups in the country. She had 
proven herself handling high-level government responsibilities. But 
Republicans set their hair on fire trying to take Ms. Gupta down. They 
grasped for something, anything, to dent her prospects. Eventually they 
landed on contorting an 8-year-old op-ed, even calling her accurate 
responses to their questions about it lies. It wasn't pretty.
  Now we are back on the floor with Republican hair aflame again, this 
time over the nominee to run the Justice Department's Civil Rights 
Division, Kristen Clarke. Like Ms. Gupta, Ms. Clarke is eminently 
qualified. She knows civil rights law inside and out. She has run one 
of the Nation's leading civil rights organizations. She is a superb, 
well-trained, experienced lawyer.
  Conservatives have endorsed her, like President George W. Bush's DHS 
Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Republican National Committee 
Chairman Michael Steele. Law enforcement organizations like the Major 
Cities Chiefs Association and the International Association of Chiefs 
of Police support her.
  She ought to have flown through committee and been a quick vote here 
on the floor, but, no, it is hair-on-fire time again. Why all the coifs 
aflame? Look behind the smokescreens and remember that the No. 1 
strategy of the Republican Party for 2022 is to keep voters from 
voting. And guess what. Ms. Clarke will run the voting rights section 
of the Department, and Ms. Gupta, who used to run that same Civil 
Rights Division, will supervise her as Assistant Attorney General.
  Behind the ruckus over Ms. Gupta and now Ms. Clarke is a dark money 
operation out to suppress the vote. It has the trade craft of a covert 
operation--cutouts, front groups, secret money--and that covert 
operation is now focused on preventing, as our colleague Senator 
Warnock says, ``some people'' from voting. And Ms. Clarke and Ms. Gupta 
will be the lawful, legal opposition to the dark money, voter-
suppression apparatus.
  Here is what we know. When Trump was in power, this covert op ran a 
dark money-funded apparatus within the Federalist Society to select 
Federal judges. For 4 years, the Federalist Society's operation was the 
gatekeeper to the Federal bench. Virtually every judicial candidate who 
passed through this dark money-funded turnstile was approved by big, 
anonymous donors out to control the courts. Donors got to approve 
judges and Justices who would have their backs.
  That dark money turnstile was step 1. Step 2 was dark money-funded 
political campaigns for Senate confirmation of the nominees who got 
through the turnstile. For Trump's three Supreme Court nominees, this 
was done by the Judicial Crisis Network, headquartered literally down 
the hall from the Federalist Society--not just the same building, the 
same hallway, but they also share staff. In each Supreme Court 
confirmation, a $15 million or a $17 million check from a secret donor 
would fund the advertising campaign.
  Step 3 is dark money-funded front organizations appearing before the 
donor-selected Justices in orchestrated flotillas with common donors 
behind them, undisclosed to the Court.
  When Trump lost, of course, step 1 and step 2 lost their salience and 
closed up shop. But with Trump judges still on the court, these front 
groups are still at it. In one case before the Supreme Court right now, 
50 organizations--50 organizations--that filed briefs received funding 
through rightwing groups involved in this operation.
  Dark money funding can't be traced back to its original donors, 
obviously, because it is dark money, but a 2019 Washington Post 
investigation revealed that one guy, Leonard Leo, while executive vice 
president of the Federalist Society, from 2014 to 2017 coordinated $250 
million--a quarter of a billion dollars--across a network of the front 
groups engaged in this court capture operation. Recent testimony in my 
Courts Subcommittee raised that number to over $400 million--nearly 
half a billion dollars--through 2018. Four hundred million is a lot of 
money, but a captured court, that is a pearl beyond price.
  This Leo operation worked wonderfully during the Trump Presidency. 
Donors got their judges. Judicial Crisis Network and Leonard Leo got 
their dark money. But then that Post investigation came out, and 
Trump's polling started to tank. So, like a burned agent, Leonard Leo 
bugged out.
  Where did he bug out to? Well, Leo surfaced early last year with a 
group called the Honest Elections Project. These phony-baloney front 
groups love to have the name that is the exact opposite of what they 
are actually doing. So this one is called the Honest Elections Project, 
and it has been running voter suppression activities in key 
battleground States, sending threatening letters to local election 
officials, and filing lawsuits to restrict voting--and, of course, all 
dark money-funded.
  But poke a little further and you discover that the Honest Elections 
Project is a legal alias of something called the Judicial Education 
Project, which is--you guessed it--the sister group to Judicial Crisis 
Network--yep, Leo's judicial confirmation attack-ad organization. And, 
of course, behind this covert op was dark money, much of it run through 
DonorsTrust, the identity-laundering, dark money ATM established by the 
Kochs' donor network. Before it took on this Honest

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Elections Project alias, more than 99 percent of the Judicial Education 
Project's 2018 revenue was a single, anonymous $7.8 million donation 
that came through, of course, DonorsTrust. There is no way to know who 
cut that check
  What does all this dark money finagling and front group subterfuge 
tell us? As a reporter for the Guardian observed, the Honest Elections 
Project, so-called, melds two goals of the rightwing dark money 
operation: One, pack the Federal judiciary, and two, bring voting 
rights cases before the packed courts. Rigging elections by keeping 
``some people'' from voting is now a Republican priority, and if Trump 
judges will help, so much the better.
  Just recently, we actually learned more about the covert voter 
suppression operation. The watchdog group Documented and the magazine 
Mother Jones uncovered a video of a presentation by the dark money 
group Heritage Action to its top donors. In the video, the presenter 
brags about getting what she called ``key provisions''--``key 
provisions''--into voter suppression legislation in dozens of capitals 
around the country.
  She tells the donors, and I am quoting here, ``In some cases, we 
actually draft them for them''--they actually draft the laws for the 
State legislatures--``or,'' she said, ``we have a sentinel''--a 
sentinel; what a creepy word--``we have a sentinel on our behalf give 
them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-
up type of vibe.'' Big donors love that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up 
type of vibe.
  There is lots of dark money that fuels this covert op. Heritage 
Action says it plans to spend $24 million in eight battleground States 
to ``create an echo chamber'' of relentless lobbying for voter 
suppression bills. They say they will be coordinating with known Koch 
network groups like the Susan B. Anthony List, Tea Party Patriots, and 
FreedomWorks.
  This operation is the kind of stuff that we might want our 
intelligence services to do in enemy countries to create disruption and 
discord and provide secret influence. The idea that creepy billionaires 
are running covert operations in and against our own country, that 
ought to make you cringe.
  Not only is this behavior morally corrupt, it may have broken rules. 
One State legislature has already floated an ethics probe into Heritage 
Action's sentinels jamming phony bills through their chamber.
  So back to Senate Republicans getting their hair on fire over Kristen 
Clarke and Vanita Gupta. These two women scare the daylights out of 
this dark money operation behind Republican voter suppression. Ms. 
Clarke knows the Voting Rights Act cold; she won voting rights cases 
against voter suppression laws all over the country. Put Jim Crow 2.0 
up against a Department of Justice Civil Rights Division led by Kristen 
Clarke, and that dark money voter suppression operation has a problem. 
So the big dark money donors behind this covert operation will raise 
whatever ruckus they can--first, to try to stop Vanita Gupta, which 
didn't work, and now to stop Kristen Clarke, which won't work--all in 
an effort to protect their dark money scheme to prevent some people 
from voting. You have to look behind the smokescreen sometimes to 
understand what is going on. It is not pretty, but it is the truth.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to 
conclude my remarks before the vote begins.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.