Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has made a "huge political miscalculation" by snubbing the National Fraternal Order of Police's endorsement, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said Monday.
"Anyone running for public office knows that you want and have to have the support of law enforcement and other first responders," Clarke told Fox News. "She's made it clear she's all in with the criminal element. She doesn't care about victims of crime, she's a straight up cop hater and is rolling the dice on not having support of law enforcement."
Over the weekend, Chuck Canterbury, the president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, told
The Hill
that Clinton signaled through her staff that she would not seek the union's endorsement, a decision that left him "disappointed and shocked."
"You would think with law enforcement issues so much in the news that even if she had disagreements with our positions, that she would’ve been willing to say that," Canterbury said.
Meanwhile, GOP nominee Donald Trump's campaign is actively courting the union, with Canterbury and other leaders meeting with him on Friday morning.
Clinton's campaign opted not to fill out a questionnaire required for seeking the union's endorsement, even though there were all indications that the campaign would, and when the deadline date came, "we were advised that they declined," said Canterbury. Trump's campaign was the only one to fill out and return the questionnaire.
Clinton's camp said that she has been committed to the nation's law enforcement officers, and that will continue, but did not say why she didn't return the questionnaire.
Clarke on Monday said that middle America does back the nation's law enforcement officers, and by rejecting the union's endorsement, she risks alienating millions of people.
"There are nearly 900,000 law enforcement officers across the United States," Clarke said. "They all have spouses, significant others, kids who are voting age, extended family, parents, friends, neighbors, other relatives who do support a law enforcement all across the country."
Clarke also commented on the news that Clinton had emails on the private server she used as secretary of state about an Iranian nuclear scientist who was executed over the weekend for treason.
"Unfortunately the United States Department of Justice could not connect the dots when they looked at her and the criminal behavior she was involved in," Clarke said. "If it wasn't for the fact that our government is corrupt from the White House down to the Department of Justice she would have been doing the perp walk down her driveway from her home in New York."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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