JUST IN: Cruz Grills Clarke Over Parents' Right To Protest Critical Race Theory At School Boards

thank you thank you so much for your testimony today and um thank you for your determined and capable leadership of the Civil Rights division thank you Mr chairman thanks Senator Senator Cruz thank you Mr chairman Ms Clark when when you testified before this committee and when attorney general Garland testified before this committee you both promised to be nonpartisan and impartial I'm sorry to say that I think neither of you have lived up to that promise Within weeks of President Biden being sworn in the Department of Justice dismissed a civil rights division lawsuit it had against Yale University for explicit racial discrimination Yale has a policy that discriminates against Asians Americans and admissions it does so brazenly and openly and yet the Department of Justice decided that preventing racial discrimination did not fit within the purview of the Biden doj now in your defense you were not yet there neither was Merrick Garland so that was merely the initial political operatives of the Biden Administration doing what they believed was consistent with the preferences of the president but just this week after you were there after Merrick Garland was there the Department of Justice issued a memorandum to the FBI instructing them to mobilize against parents across the country parents of school kids who have the temerity to show up at school boards and express their opposition to the teaching of critical race Theory a pernicious theory that divides us on racial lines that tells school children the lie that America is fundamentally racist that America is a redeemably racist that all white people are racist it spreads racial division many parents are understandably quite dismayed at schools that are teaching this to their children sometimes as young as five and yet the Department of Justice looked at that issue and decided to label the parents objecting to this teaching as domestic terrorists did you participate in discussions about the memo before it was issued um Senator I can't talk about internal deliberations you can't talk about whether you participated in discussions about the memo no but what I can tell you is that the Civil Rights division will play a role going forward the attorney general has uh asked the department to undertake a review and the division will participate in that review to determine how Federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute uh crimes do you believe parents objecting to the teaching of critical race Theory have civil rights in the Democratic process uh I I don't I don't follow the question Senator you don't understand the question whether parents objecting to critical race Theory have civil rights the the first amendment is a core value in our democracy and I didn't say free speech I said civil rights school board meetings are democratic that they are petitioning your local government do they have civil rights that the Voting Rights gives a damn about yet they have the right to express their view to uh challenge uh the school boards to ask and is it beneficial for the Attorney General to label them as domestic terrorists and direct the FBI to Target them the Attorney General's memo deals with threats against public servants and says that threats against public servants are not only illegal they run counter to our nation's core values do you believe parents objecting at school boards or domestic terrorists I don't Senator do you believe antifa or domestic terrorists um I I I don't have a view about antifa or do you believe the black lives matter protesters who burned shops Who firebombed police cars who murdered police officers do you believe they're domestic terrorists um Senator I believe that we live in a society where people espouse different views but what we don't want our theater Miss Clark it is amazing that you're not willing to condemn people who are murdering police officers and firebombing cities because your politics aligns with them but at the same time when it comes to parents at school boards you're perfectly comfortable with calling a mom at a PTA meeting a domestic terrorist Ms Clark with all due respect this demonstrates why the Democrat proposal to take someone with as long a partisan record as you have and to put you in charge of striking down any voting rights law in the country that you disagree with is nothing but a partisan power graph let me let me give another example because your division has operated in a purely partisan way uh the Department of Justice dismissed the Civil Rights lawsuits against the state of New York the state of Pennsylvania the state of Michigan for those governors policies that sent covid positive patients into nursing homes forces forced the nursing homes to take those patients a decision a political decision that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths one of those governors Andrew Cuomo has now resigned in disgrace and his staff had admitted they lied Under reporting the deaths that policy caused and yet your division dismissed the lawsuit against those Democratic governors how are we to see that as anything other than a purely partisan decision the the letters that uh were issued to officials in the uh matters that you referenced were put together by career officials inside the department career officials can't be partisan this department carries out its work free from political are you testified to this committee that there are no career officials in the Department of Justice who are partisan uh partisanship does not impact the way that we carry out ourselves miraculously you dismiss the lawsuits against Democratic Governors even when their policies may have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people you also dismissed a lawsuit uh that was brought against a medical center that had a pattern of discriminating against health care providers that for conscience reasons didn't want to implement abortions even though clear federal law protects their civil rights why did you dismiss that civil rights lawsuit in in contravention of federal law um General Garland has made clear and uh I agree that partisanship has no place in the enforcement except every decision you make as part of Department your actions contradict those statements your time is expired we're going to

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 1,445,898

Keywords: Sen. Ted Cruz, Kristen Clarke, critical race theory

Id: AHO0Gn8RKYI

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/APDSmith]

Look, it's just the Democrat party respecting it's long and storied history.

The one where they advocate for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"

[u/Muskaos]

Performative theater that will accomplish nothing.

[u/Ricwulf]

Is this like last time when Cruz grilled Zuckerberg (or any other person for that matter) and then nothing came from it? And wasn't that while Trump was president? What chance is there of a conservative doing anything now other than their status quo of compromise?

[u/WindowsCrashuser]

Zodiac killer is back it again!