Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, was hit Monday with three ethics complaints and a criminal referral for “knowingly and willfully” committing “perjury” during her Senate confirmation, the Daily Signal reported.
Clarke allegedly hid her domestic violence arrest from Senate investigators ahead of her highly contentious confirmation hearing in May of 2021.
Clarke’s ex-husband, Reginald Avery, told the Signal last April that she “attacked him with a knife, slicing his finger to the bone” in 2006. That domestic violence arrest was later expunged, the Signal reported.
Avery told the American Accountability Project that Clarke had attacked him with the knife because he was “seeing another woman.”
“I called 911 … they called the cops,” Clarke’s ex said. “Cops came because my finger was cut off,” he added. “I went to the ER in Bowie.”
During the confirmation process, Clarke was asked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in a questionnaire if she’d “ever been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime against any person.”
According to a 66-page document Clarke submitted under oath, she responded “No.”
The complaints and criminal referral were filed by the Article III Project, a conservative non-profit organization that advocates for constitutionalist judges, opposes radical judicial nominees, and pushes back on “radical assaults on judicial independence.”
The group is calling upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to open a criminal probe into Clarke on the grounds that she made “materially false statements” before the Senate.
“There is ample evidence to support this referral for false statements and perjury,” Article III Project founder and president Mike Davis said in the criminal referral.
After the Daily Signal’s bombshell April 30 report, Clarke admitted to CNN that she was arrested for domestic violence and chose not to disclose the bust during her Senate confirmation process because it had been expunged from her record.
Clarke also told CNN that she was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her ex-husband for years.
“Nearly 2 decades ago, I was subjected to years-long abuse and domestic violence at the hands of my ex-husband,” Clarke said in a statement to CNN on May 1.
“This was a terrorizing and traumatizing period that I have sought to put behind me to promote my personal health, healing and well-being,” she added. “The physical and emotional scars, the emotional abuse and exploitation, and the lying are things that no woman or mother should ever have to endure.”
For his part, Avery denied that he ever abused his ex-wife, according to the Signal.
“Avery has accused Kristen Clarke of a violent crime,” the Article III Project criminal referral states. “He also has alleged that local Maryland police arrested her. Police and court records corroborate the occurrence of the arrest.”
“Most crucially, Kristen Clarke acknowledged it in her statement to reporter Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN,” the criminal referral continues. “Kristen Clarke answered Senator Cotton’s question under oath in a manner contrary to her admission three years later.”
Davis called Clarke’s duplicity “egregious,” because Cotton had asked her a straightforward question.
“Kristen Clarke claims that she had an ‘option’ not to disclose this incident,” Davis continues in the referral. “This assertion shows an utter disregard for the role of the United States Senate in evaluating the worthiness of a nominee for confirmation. Neither Kristen Clarke nor the State of Maryland is entitled to decide what information the Senate deserves to know. That prerogative lies with the Senate. Senator Cotton asked a routine question, and Kristen Clarke failed to answer it honestly.”
The referral goes on to note that Garland has repeatedly stated that “nobody is above the law,” in reference to former President Donald Trump.
“But,” Davis said, “with Garland’s refusal to take any action more than seven weeks after uncontroverted evidence and public reporting of Kristen Clarke’s perjury to the Senate, it is very clear Kristen Clarke is above the law.”
According to the Daily Signal, the Article III Project also “filed ethics complaints with the New York and Washington, D.C., offices of disciplinary counsel, as well as with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility.”
“Kristen Clarke’s misrepresentation is aggravated by her continuing refusal to acknowledge it three years later,” the New York ethics complaint states. “Instead, she maintains that the Senate was not entitled to know the truth about the July 4, 2006, incident.”
Since the Daily Signal’s April 30 report, multiple Republican lawmakers, the New York Post Editorial Board, and others have call for her to resign.
During Clarke’s confirmation process in the spring of 2021, her past advocacy for radical, anti-white, and anti-police policies was exposed, as well as her defense of unrepentant cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
It was also discovered that Clarke in the past had shared “crackpot theories” about “black supremacy,” partnered with anti-Semites, amplified Jussie Smollett’s absurd hate crime allegations on social media, and called for defunding the police.
Clarke was confirmed in the Senate on May 25, 2021 on a party-line vote of 51 to 48, with one Republican senator not voting.
What does it take to get an arrest record “expunged”. Maybe being a candidate for the DOJ?