Congresswoman Yvette Clarke denounces Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions

Caribbean-American Congresswoman Yvette Clarke denounces Steve Bannon and Jeff sessions appointments

168 members of the US House of Representatives in urging President-Elect Donald Trump to remove White nationalist sympathizer Steve Bannon from his White House team. Caribbean American congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke is one of them who did so on Saturday, November 19.

"I am deeply troubled by the President-Elect’s decision to nominate Senator Jeff Sessions for the position of Attorney General,” said Clarke. Clarke is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants.

“As a political appointee to the Department of Justice who was sworn to uphold our laws, Senator Sessions referred to some of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations as ‘un-American.’ He also cited approval for the Ku Klux Klan, and demeaned his African American colleagues,” said Clarke.

Clarke, who represents the largely Caribbean 9^th Congressional District in Brooklyn, said members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee found these comments “alarming.” And they refused to confirm his nomination as a federal judge.

yvette-clarke-denounces-steve-bannon-and-sessions — L-R Rance Priebus, Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions

Sessions’ nomination was ultimately withdrawn after several Senate Republicans refused to back his candidacy.

She said the next Attorney General will have to address matters involving voting rights; immigration reform; the criminal justice reform; the prosecution of white-collar crime on Wall Street; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights.

Who is Congresswoman Yvette Clarke?

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, a Brooklyn native proud of her Jamaican heritage, attended the New York City public schools. She graduated from Oberlin College, and was a recipient of the prestigious APPAM/Sloan Fellowship in Public Policy and Policy Analysis.

She was elected to the United States House of Representatives in November 2006 and today represents the Ninth Congressional District of New York. This district includes the communities of Brownsville, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush, Gerritsen Beach, Madison, Midwood, Ocean Hill, Park Slope, Flatlands, Prospect Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Sheepshead Bay, and Windsor Terrace.

Prior to being elected to the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Clarke served on the New York City Council. This where she represented the Fortieth District in Brooklyn. She succeeded her pioneering mother, former City Council Member Dr. Una S. T. Clarke, making them the first mother-daughter succession in the history of the City Council.