(HorizonPost.com) – Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke admitted on Wednesday that she lied under oath during her 2021 confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Court documents and text messages revealed on Tuesday confirmed that Clarke, who now heads up the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, lied when she answered, “No,” to a direct question about whether she had ever been arrested or charged with a violent crime as an adult.
The documents showed that Clarke was arrested in July 2006 after she attacked her ex-husband Reginald Avery with a knife. A case against Clarke was initiated but in October of that year, the Maryland state attorney dismissed the charge and Clarke’s record was expunged.
In a statement on Wednesday, Clarke admitted that she was arrested but claimed that she had been a victim of domestic abuse. She argued that she was not “obligated” to answer truthfully about an arrest that had been “fully expunged” from her past.
Reginald Avery disputed Clarke’s claim of abuse, saying it was a “sad and pathetic effort” on the part of his ex-wife to portray herself as a victim.
Avery previously told Tom Jones from the American Accountability Foundation in 2021 that on the night in question, Clarke had become angry that he was seeing another woman and attacked him with a knife. He told Jones that he grabbed the knife blade to defend himself, cutting his finger down to the bone. Clarke was then arrested.
However, during her confirmation hearing, Clarke was asked by Senator Tom Cotton if she had ever been “arrested or accused of committing a violent crime against any person.” Clarke did not say, “Yes, but the arrest was expunged.” Instead, she said, “No.”
On Tuesday, Judiciary Committee member Mike Lee (R-UT) called on Clarke to resign.
In a post on X Tuesday evening, Lee said while Clarke has “aggressively” enforced civil rights laws against those who go “near an abortion clinic,” she ignores those “who vandalize churches.” He demanded that Clarke step down for lying under oath.
Copyright 2024, HorizonPost.com
