{"id":471397,"date":"2021-05-04T15:50:49","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T19:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=471397"},"modified":"2021-05-04T15:50:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T19:50:50","slug":"records-contradict-doj-nominees-testimony-on-controversial-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/records-contradict-doj-nominees-testimony-on-controversial-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Records Contradict DOJ Nominee\u2019s Testimony on Controversial Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frecords-contradict-doj-nominees-testimony-on-controversial-conference%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=471397&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1295084693.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Records obtained by the <em>Washington Free Beacon <\/em>appear to contradict Justice Department nominee Kristen Clarke&#8217;s sworn statement that she was not involved with a conference in which convicted cop killers were hailed as political prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that she merely provided &#8220;logistical support&#8221; for a 1999 Columbia University conference, &#8220;Black America vs. The Prison Industrial Complex.&#8221; But an itinerary from the conference shows Clarke moderated a panel on alleged human rights violations in the prison system.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke, who will head the Justice Department&#8217;s influential civil rights division if confirmed, has already come under fire for <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/courts\/biden-doj-nominee-conceals-ties-to-anti-semitic-professor\/\">shading the truth<\/a>\u00a0 in response to other questions from the <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/biden-administration\/kristen-clarke-bigot-and-liar\/\">Senate panel<\/a>. Lawmakers have repeatedly pressed Clarke on past anti-Semitic writings and racially charged activism.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke said last week in written responses to a question from Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) that she &#8220;did not have a speaking or other substantive role at the conference,&#8221; which was hosted by Columbia University&#8217;s Institute for Research in African-American Studies on April 23, 1999. She doubled down during her April 14 confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n<p>The itinerary tells a different story. It shows Clarke moderated a panel on alleged human rights violations in the prison system. One of the panelists was Linda Thurston, whom Clarke introduced as a cofounder of Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. His case became a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre for social justice activists who believe he received an unfair trial.<\/p>\n<p>The Columbia conference featured several speakers who praised Abu-Jamal and other convicted cop killers, including Assata Shakur. &#8220;We must march in Philadelphia tomorrow because Mumia Abu Jamal never received a fair trial and was tried by a racist judge,&#8221; said Manning Marable, Clarke&#8217;s mentor at Columbia, according to a transcript of the Columbia symposium.<\/p>\n<p>The American Accountability Foundation obtained the schedule and transcript of the conference from Marable&#8217;s archives. The group shared the documents with the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The inconsistencies in Clarke&#8217;s Senate response, as well as other associations she had with left-wing activists, may complicate her nomination. Clarke has come under scrutiny over a 1994 article she wrote for the <em>Harvard Crimson<\/em>\u00a0in which she promoted a pseudoscientific theory of black racial superiority. Months later, Clarke invited Tony Martin, the author of the anti-Semitic treatise\u00a0<em>The Jewish Onslaught<\/em>\u00a0to speak at a Harvard student group.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke told the Judiciary Committee that her 1994 article was intended as satire and that she would not give someone like Martin a platform again. At the time of the event, however, the<em>\u00a0Crimson <\/em>reported that Clarke&#8217;s article seemed serious, and its editors\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecrimson.com\/article\/1994\/11\/4\/clarke-should-retract-statements-pbtbwo-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called on her<\/a> to retract her claims.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans have also pressed Clarke over an article she wrote last year entitled &#8220;I Prosecuted Police Killings. Defund the Police\u2014But Be Strategic.&#8221; Clarke told lawmakers that the article&#8217;s title was poorly worded and that she does not support defunding the police.<\/p>\n<p>If confirmed, Clarke will oversee investigations into racial discrimination, hate crimes, and alleged police brutality.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke, who serves as the executive director of the Lawyers&#8217; Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, gave conflicting answers in response to other questions about her radical affiliations at Columbia.<\/p>\n<p>She told Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) in written responses that she did not serve with Marxist poet Amiri Baraka on the editorial staff of <em>Souls, A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society<\/em>, a journal on black studies founded by Marable. <em>The Free Beacon<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/courts\/biden-doj-nominee-conceals-ties-to-anti-semitic-professor\/\">reported<\/a> that Clarke is listed as an assistant editor and Baraka as a contributing editor in eight issues of <em>Souls<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/04\/22\/kristen-clarke-amiri-baraka-mumia-abu-jamal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">endorsed a Baraka essay<\/a>\u00a0that compares police to the Ku Klux Klan and refers to Abu-Jamal as a &#8220;lynch victim,&#8221; according to a June 1999 document obtained by the American Accountability Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Baraka, who died in 2014, made numerous anti-gay, <a href=\"https:\/\/uh2307.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/11\/baraka_americansexualreference.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">anti-white<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/01\/10\/arts\/amiri-baraka-polarizing-poet-and-playwright-dies-at-79.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">anti-Semitic<\/a> remarks throughout his career.<\/p>\n<p>The Lawyers&#8217; Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon appear to contradict Justice Department nominee Kristen Clarke&#8217;s sworn statement that she was not involved with a conference in which convicted cop killers &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2277309,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1295084693.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Records Contradict DOJ Nominee\u2019s Testimony on Controversial Conference","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1295084693.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Records Contradict DOJ Nominee\u2019s Testimony on Controversial Conference","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}