(CNN) Sam Clovis, President Donald Trump's nominee to be the Department of Agriculture's chief scientist, maintained a now-defunct blog for years in which he accused progressives of "enslaving" minorities, called black leaders "race traders," and labeled former President Barack Obama a "Maoist" with "communist" roots.



Clovis, a long-time Iowa political activist and former economics professor, wrote the blog posts on the now-deleted website for his radio show "Impact with Clovis," which aired for several years on Sioux City KSCJ. Copies of the show are not available online, but the blog is archived on The Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Most of the available blog posts are from 2011 and 2012.



Trump's nomination of Clovis, a fervent supporter of Trump during the presidential campaign, has drawn criticism from Senate Democrats and climate activists, who have attacked his lack of scientific credentials and skepticism of climate science.

Clovis is currently serving as the senior White House adviser to the USDA, but as his old blog posts highlight, his background is strongly rooted in the politics of conservative talk radio. His nomination requires Senate confirmation.



Clovis did not respond to an email from CNN's KFile requesting comment. A spokesperson for the USDA said, "Dr. Clovis is a proud conservative and a proud American. All of his reporting either on the air or in writing over the course of his career has been based on solid research and data. He is after all an academic."

