The NAACP picked a controversial Biden appointee to serve as its new top counsel.
The black advocacy group called former Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke a “civil rights giant” and “legal expert” in its announcement.
CEO Derrick Johnson praised Clarke’s “record of fearless advocacy, leadership, and deep commitment to justice” and said she will be an asset in fighting the Trump administration.
“As we face unprecedented attacks on voting and civil rights, having Kristen Clarke at the helm of our legal operations brings strategic vision, disciplined leadership, and innovative advocacy,” Johnson said.
But conservatives had a different reaction, remembering the way Clarke weaponized the Department of Justice against pro-life activists and others while leading the civil rights division under the Biden administration.
“Clarke used the FACE Act to prosecute 26 pro-life protesters in 2022 alone,” Daily Signal editor Tyler O’Neil wrote on X. “That same year saw scores of pro-abortion attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and Catholic churches (as @CatholicVote recorded), but zero charges.”
O’Neil also knocked Clarke for working closely with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a discredited group that frequently labels Christians and conservatives as “hate groups.”
While at the Biden DOJ, Clarke also tried to stop states from protecting gender-confused minors from permanently damaging drugs and surgeries.
The new NAACP attorney “twisted civil rights law to try to block states from protecting kids’ from experimental s*x-rejecting procedures,” O’Neil wrote in a detailed X thread. “She claimed that defending kids’ right to develop naturally was a form of ‘discrimination.'”
In 2018, Clarke said it was “devastating” that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who challenged a state law that forced him to bake cakes for gay weddings. At the time, she was leading the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law.
She also signed an amicus brief asking the Court to allow Colorado to punish website designer Lorie Smith over her refusal to create materials for same-sex weddings. Smith won that religious liberty case in 2023, in the case called 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.
O’Neil warned: “If NAACP thinks she’s a ‘civil rights giant,’ conservatives should expect more weaponization.”
Clarke has faced questions in the past about a past domestic abuse allegation. While she says she was the victim, her ex-husband alleged that she cut his “finger to the bone” in 2006.
In 2024, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) called on President Biden to fire Clarke for perjury, after she had sworn under oath that she had never been arrested or accused of a violent crime.
The new NAACP general counsel told CNN that she did not believe she had to reveal the expunged arrest.
“When given the option to speak about such traumatic incidents in my life, I have chosen not to,” Clarke said. “I didn’t believe during my confirmation process and I don’t believe now that I was obligated to share a fully expunged matter from my past.”
[Featured image via Forbes Breaking News YouTube]
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