Like Trump and most of his appointees, Clarke has all of the same qualities. Clarke doesn't know his job - Clarke, the sheriff, tried to help a drunk driver instead of arresting him. Then like a true Trumpkin, Clarke tried to cover up his failure.
Clarke has many other qualities that make him a good fit. His lack of humane concern for his fellow man also resulted in the death due to dehydration of a mentally ill man in his Wisconsin jail for failure to provide water to inmates for seven days. Clarke also hates minorities, including his fellow African Americans. He likes to go on wild Twitter rants, just like Trump. He likes to boast of medals and quasi-military honoraria he hasn't actually earned.
And now Clarke has one more qualification to add to his resume - plagiarism:
Controversial Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who this week announced he will be joining Donald Trump's administration as assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, plagiarized sections of his 2013 master's thesis on US security, a CNN KFile review has found.
Clarke, a visible surrogate for Trump during the campaign known for his incendiary rhetoric, earned a master's degree in security studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. In his thesis, "Making U.S. security and privacy rights compatible," Clarke failed to properly attribute his sources at least 47 times.
In all instances reviewed by CNN's KFile, Clarke lifts language from sources and credits them with a footnote, but does not indicate with quotation marks that he is taking the words verbatim.
According to guidelines on plagiarism posted on the Naval Postgraduate School's website, "If a passage is quoted verbatim, it must be set off with quotation marks (or, if it is a longer passage, presented as indented text), and followed by a properly formulated citation. The length of the phrase does not matter. If someone else's words are sufficiently significant to be worth quoting, then accurate quotation followed by a correct citation is essential, even if only a few words are involved."
The school's honor code defines plagiarism as "submitting material that in part or whole is not one's own work without proper attribution. Plagiarism is further defined as the use, without giving reasonable and appropriate credit to or acknowledging the author or source, of another person's original work, whether such work is made up of code, formulas, ideas, language, research, strategies, writing or other form(s)."
Clarke lifted stuff from George W. Bush, Brennan Center and, of all places, the ACLU.
I will admit that at first glance, it seemed kinda petty, but Clarke's overreaction makes me now think otherwise. Instead of responding to reporters, Clarke took to his - and Trump's - favorite line of defense...Twitter:
This @CNN hack @KFILE oppo research MO is to accuse plagiarism. I'm next. Did it to Rand Paul, Monica Crowley et al. https://t.co/KgoHKermpe
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 20, 2017
Ample evidence of my previous tweet on @CNN political hack @KFILE. Guy is a sleaze bag. I'm on to him folks. https://t.co/D1kV8kg80G
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 20, 2017
Like I said, Clarke would be a perfect fit for Team Trump. The only thing that might make Trump reverse his decision, if he did indeed make one, is that he is concerned that Clarke would out-crazy and out-grandstand Trump himself.
Nicole Belle contributed to this post.
