Since taking over as White House chief of staff, former marine general John Kelly has purged some of the more radical, fringe elements from Donald Trump’s Wing Wing—Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, unhinged N.S.C. memo-writer Rich Higgins—putting him on a collision course with the president, who is reportedly growing increasingly irritated with the effort to control him. Already, Kelly’s attempts to impose something resembling discipline on the White House have proved less successful than some pundits hoped: Trump went disastrously off-script on Charlottesville and was widely criticized for pardoning Joe Arpaio. Unfortunately, Arpaio isn’t the only authoritarian, anti-immigrant ex-sheriff with a record of abuse and deaths in his prisons that Trump has been talking up as of late. This week, David Clarke, who has called for the suspension of habeas corpus and accused Black Lives Matter of being a terrorist organization, suddenly resigned as Sheriff of Milwaukee County, without explanation. Naturally, Politico reports that he is in talks to join the Trump administration.

A frequent Fox News contributor and an ardent Trump supporter, Clarke made a name for himself with his fiery, often racist rhetoric in the wake of the Ferguson protests in 2014. Clarke, who is himself African-American, has called blacks “uneducated,” “lazy,” and “morally bankrupt.” He has said Black Lives Matter activists are “subhuman creeps,” wrote an op-ed accusing the group of waging a “civil war” on law enforcement, and has urged vigilante violence against “our institutions of gov, WH, Congress, DOJ, and big media.” His fascistic tendencies go beyond the dozens of pins and medals he typically wears on his sheriff’s jacket during media appearances: earlier this year, he detained a man on a flight they shared because the man shook his head at Clarke, who was wearing a Dallas Cowboys shirt, and Clarke took offense. The man claims that Clarke confronted him, then had him questioned by his deputies and escorted out of the airport.

Four people, including a baby, have died in Clarke’s jails since April 2016. One man died of dehydration after being locked in solitary confinement and denied water. According to a lawsuit filed in March, at least 40 women in Clarke’s jails have been shackled while giving birth. One newborn died after a woman was forced to give birth in her cell without medical treatment.

On Sunday, as Hurricane Harvey slammed eastern Texas, the president took a break from tweeting about the storm to promote Clarke’s new book, describing it as a “great book by a great guy.”

Last summer, Clarke appeared at the Republican National Convention, where he gave Trump a ringing endorsement, leading to speculation that he would run for Senate. After Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security extended an offer for him to join the agency as an assistant secretary, which Clarke initially accepted but later turned down. At the time, it was reported that he had run into several roadblocks for the Senate-confirmed position, including not only his controversial record, but also allegations that he had plagiarized parts of his master’s thesis. (True to Trumpian form, Clarke called the reporter who unearthed his thesis a “sleaze bag.”) According to Politico, the White House may now have found a way around this situation, potentially offering him a position that would not require Senate confirmation. (The White House said they had no comment at the time, but Clarke hinted that he would have an announcement for his “future plans next week.”)