‘She lied under oath’: Sen. Mike Lee calls for DOJ’s Kristen Clarke to resign

(The Daily Signal) – Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee is calling for the resignation of Kristen Clarke, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

“Kristen Clarke is in charge of enforcing civil rights laws,” Lee said in a statement posted to X on Tuesday evening. “She enforces those laws aggressively against anyone who sneezes near an abortion clinic. And not at all against those who vandalize churches. She lied under oath during her confirmation proceedings, and should resign.”

“She lied under oath to mask her arrest for committing a violent crime, yet she zealously prosecutes peaceful pro-life protesters,” the senator added.

Lee weighed in on Clarke following a Daily Signal report revealing that Clarke, who testified in 2021 to senators that she had never been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime, was involved in a violent domestic dispute with her now ex-husband, one in which he alleged that she sliced his finger to the bone with a knife.

Court documents, records, and text messages obtained by The Daily Signal indicate that Clarke was arrested, but that arrest was ultimately expunged.

“Since becoming a legal adult, have you ever been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime against any person?” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked then-nominee Clarke in 2021, to which she responded, “No,” according to responses she submitted to the Senate under oath in a document called “Questions for the Record.”

Neither Clarke nor the DOJ has responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal. The FBI, asked about the background checks it performed on Clarke, declined to comment.

Ed Whelan, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center where he holds the Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies, similarly called for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to demand Clarke’s resignation.

“Kristen Clarke, loony ideologue at DOJ on transgender issues, appears to have flat-out lied under oath during her confirmation process when she denied ever having been arrested,” Whelan said in an X post on Tuesday night.

“Per article, she was arrested in 2006 for attacking her then-husband with a knife and slicing his finger to the bone,” he continued, before adding: “President Biden and AG [Attorney General Merrick] Garland should demand her resignation.”

“Expungement of arrest record has consequences under Maryland law, but it can’t excuse Kristen Clarke for falsely stating to Congress during her confirmation process that she had never been arrested for committing a violent crime,” Whelan said.

Whelan further suggested that the establishment media may abstain from covering Clarke out of a bias for Democratic nominees.

“If news broke that controversial DOJ official in Republican administration lied during confirmation process to conceal arrest for violent crime, it would be front-page news in NYT and WaPo,” Whelan said, referring to The New York Times and The Washington Post. “We’ll see if they pay any attention to Kristen Clarke’s lie.”

Clarke was nominated by then-President-elect Biden on Jan. 7, 2021, and later confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 25, 2021, to lead the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

The Daily Signal previously reported that Clarke, who oversees investigations into violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, has used FACE to charge dozens of pro-life individuals since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. This includes Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven arrested at gunpoint by the FBI and charged with violating FACE in September 2022.

A jury found Houck was not guilty in January 2023.