Milwaukee County Sheriff Says He Will Not Join Homeland Security Department

WASHINGTON — David A. Clarke Jr., the polarizing Milwaukee County sheriff and a vocal supporter of President Trump, has said he would not accept a senior position that he had been offered at the Homeland Security Department.

Sheriff Clarke, who once claimed that the Islamic State and Black Lives Matter activists were forming an alliance to destroy America, notified John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary, of his decision on Friday, according to an adviser.

“Sheriff Clarke is 100 percent committed to the success of President Trump, and believes his skills could be better utilized to promote the president’s agenda in a more aggressive role,” Craig Peterson, an adviser to the sheriff, said in a statement.

The Washington Post first reported Mr. Clarke’s decision on Saturday.

Mr. Peterson said that Mr. Clarke met with the president on Tuesday to discuss other roles — both inside and outside the government — that the sheriff might consider to help carry out Mr. Trump’s agenda.

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Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security ever acknowledged that Sheriff Clarke was actually offered a job at the agency. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to request for comment.Juliette N. Kayyem, who was assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, wrote on Twitter: “I am floored. And feel for my career staff.”

Senator Kamala Harris of California, a Democrat who sits on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wrote in a Twitter post: “Sheriff David Clarke’s unconscionable record makes him unfit to serve. This appointment is a disgrace.”

Sheriff Clarke, who gained national attention when he spoke at the Republican National Convention last July, is a vocal proponent of gun rights and is a member of the National Rifle Association. That association has often brought him into conflict with the Black Lives Matter movement, which rose to prominence after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager, in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

In May, a grand jury recommended criminal charges against several staff members at a jail run by Sheriff Clarke in connection with the death of an inmate last year.

Most recently, Mr. Clarke had been accused of plagiarism. According to a report by CNN, he reportedly failed to properly attribute sources at least 47 times in his 2013 master’s thesis on national security.