President-elect Donald Trump met with Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke on Monday at Trump Tower. An avid supporter of Trump during the 2016 campaign, Clarke is expected to be tapped to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump has also met with Frances Townsend, formerly a security adviser for George W. Bush's administration, and plans to also confer with Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee. A fourth-term elected sheriff in Milwaukee, Clarke is known for his extreme views on policing. Here's four key positions he has taken in recent years:
1. Clarke has proposed that about 1 million people should be sent to Guantanamo Bay if they use"jihadi rhetoric" online.
Nearly a year ago, Clarke went on his radio show, "The People's Sheriff," on The Blaze network and said that terrorist and ISIS sympathizers in America should be rounded up and shipped to Guantanamo, according to Mother Jones. He proclaimed on the program, "It is time to suspend habeas corpus like Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War."
Clarke also said on the program, "I suggest that our commander in chief ought to utilize Article I, Section 9 and take all of these individuals that are suspected, these ones on the internet spewing jihadi rhetoric . . . to scoop them up, charge them with treason and, under habeas corpus, detain them indefinitely at Gitmo." He estimated that about several hundred thousand or even a million sympathizers were in the United States who needed to be imprisoned.
2. He has referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as "Black Lies Matter."
A regular contributor to Fox News, in August Clarke spoke on the channel, blaming progressive policies for perpetuating a culture of violence and poverty in black communities.
Earlier in the summer he wrote an article for Fox faulting the Black Lives Matter movement for the murder of Dallas police officers. "You see, Black Lives Matter is proving itself to seek only one end — and that is discord, alienation among Americans, rise in hate, and destruction of community bonds," Clarke wrote in the article. "Black Lives Matter has no more to do with black issues than Students for a Democratic Society had to do with Democracy."
He has also tweeted similar disparaging remarks about Black Lives Matter:
Before long, Black Lies Matter will join forces with ISIS to being down our legal constituted republic. You heard it first here.
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) Oct. 28, 2015
Last year The Huffington Post deemed Milwaukee the No. 1 "Worst city for black Americans."
3. Clarke doesn't believe police brutality is a problem and rails about the "war on police."
My biggest fear about the War on Police is being realized with real violence aimed at police across our country. https://t.co/RLeySHwjBf
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) Oct. 15, 2016
The sheriff has written multiple op-eds for Fox News and The Hill about the "war on police."
“There is no police brutality in America. We ended that back in the ’60s,” Clarke said on Fox News in October 2015. “You look at the data and the research, and there’s a new Harvard study out that shows that there is no racism in the hearts of police officers. They go about their daily duty, if you will, to keep communities safe.”
4. He favors riots to aid Donald Trump but is anti-protest when people are against him.
When Donald Trump claimed that voting was rigged during the election, Clarke used Twitter to call for riots.
It's incredible that our institutions of gov, WH, Congress, DOJ, and big media are corrupt & all we do is bitch. Pitchforks and torches time pic.twitter.com/8G5G0daGVN
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) Oct. 15, 2016
Yet when riots and protests took place in response to Trump's presidential victory, Clarke thought a state of emergency should be declared and said on Twitter that he wanted to call in the National Guard.
How to stop riots. 1)Declare state of emergency.2)Impose early curfew. 3)Mobilize Nat Guard.4)Authorize ALL non lethal force. 5)Tear gas. pic.twitter.com/laBvrRbiz3
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) Nov. 12, 2016
If Clarke were to become the homeland security chief, his duties would overseeing the Department of Homeland Security's work against terrorism and efforts to enhance security, as well as enforcement of immigration laws.
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