Plaskett was born on May 13, 1966, in Brooklyn, New York,[6] and grew up in the Bushwick housing projects.[7] Her parents are both from Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Her father was a New York City Police Department officer and her mother a clerk in the court system. Her family regularly traveled to St. Croix during her childhood, so she became familiar with island traditions and culture.[8] Her parents' home in New York was often home for students and other recent migrants moving to the mainland from the Virgin Islands. She attended Brooklyn Friends School (a Quaker school) and Grace Lutheran Elementary. She was recruited by A Better Chance, Inc., a nonprofit organization recruiting minority students to selective secondary schools. She was a boarding student at Choate Rosemary Hall, where she was a varsity athlete and served as class president for several years.[9]
Plaskett spent a term abroad in France during her enrollment at Choate. She has said that Choate awakened her commitment to public service and a deep sense of responsibility to others through the biblical verse "to whom much is given; much is required". She was one of few black students while she attended the school. In 1988, she graduated with a degree in history and diplomacy from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.[10]
Plaskett accepted the offer and served as counsel for the assistant attorney general for the DOJ Civil Division, and also as acting deputy assistant attorney general for the Torts Branch in the Civil Division.[3] She then joined the staff of Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, primarily working on the Justice Honors program and an initiative to increase the number of minority and women attorneys at the Justice Department.[13] While in the Justice Civil Division, she also worked on the Terrorism Litigation Task Force, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and United States v. Philip Morris, the case against several major tobacco companies for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) by engaging in a conspiracy to deceive the public about the health effects of smoking.[9]
After Thompson resigned, Plaskett joined the staff of his successor, James Comey. She later left government service to become a deputy general counsel at UnitedHealth Group.[3] There, she worked in the Americhoice division, handling legal work related to Medicaid and Medicare programs.[9] She then moved to the Virgin Islands, where she worked in private practice and from 2007 to 2014 served as general counsel for the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority, charged with the economic development of the U.S. territory.[14][15]
Plaskett switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party in late 2008.[4] She was initiated into Delta Sigma Theta sorority in 2019.[16]
During a 2023 MSNBC interview, Plaskett said that Donald Trump "needs to be shot" before correcting herself and saying that he needed to be stopped.[17] This resulted in several conservative commentators calling for her resignation.[18]
In January 2025, Stacey Plaskett protested the non-voting rights in Congress for the five delegates and one resident commissioner (Puerto Rico) for the territories of the United States Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the free state associated of Puerto Rico[19], and denounced United States colonialism in these territories[20].
In 2012, Plaskett challenged nine-term delegate Donna Christian-Christensen in the Democratic Party primary. Plaskett was unsuccessful, receiving 42.49% of the vote to Christian-Christensen's 57.48%.[4]
In 2014, Plaskett ran for the office again, after formally declaring her candidacy in November 2013. In the Democratic primary held on August 2, she faced Shawn-Micheal Malone, a Virgin Islands Senator, and Senate President, and Emmett Hansen, a former Virgin Islands Senator and former chair of the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands. She received 50.4% of the vote to Malone's 41.61% and Hansen's 7.92%.[21] She defeated Republican nominee Vince Danet in the general election held on November 4 with over 90% of the vote.[22]
Plaskett was challenged in the Democratic primary by former Virgin Islands Senator Ronald Russell. She defeated Russell with 85.48% of the vote to his 14.04%.[23] In the general election, she faced Republican Gordon Ackley, an Air Force veteran and business owner, who ran as a write-in candidate.[24] She won in a landslide, garnering almost 98% of the vote.[25]
On February 2, 2023, Plaskett was appointed by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as the Ranking Member of the United States House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.[29] Plaskett has criticized multiple decisions made by the Republican majority, saying in her opening statement of the select subcommittee's first hearing, "I'm deeply concerned about the use of the select subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories and advance an extreme agenda that risks undermining Americans' faith in our democracy."[30] On March 2, 2023, Plaskett and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler released a staff report titled GOP Witnesses: What Their Disclosures Indicate About The State Of The Republican Investigations, in which they criticized three alleged whistleblowers (George Hill, Garret O’Boyle,[31] and Stephen Friend) who had transcribed interviews with the Select Subcommittee. This document claims that the three have been the only ones who have been transcribed out of "dozens and dozens of whistleblowers" who have had discussions with House Judiciary Republicans. In the 315-page report, Subcommittee Democrats doubt the three whistleblowers' credibility, stating that they are heavily MAGA-biased and had no evidence of actual FBI misconduct.
Donations from Jeffrey Epstein
After receiving criticism in 2019 when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for new sex crimes, Plaskett was the first politician to announce she would give away Epstein's political donations, saying the funds would benefit The Women’s Coalition and The Family Resource Center.[32]
Plaskett is married to Jonathan Buckney Small, a community activist and former professional tennis player.[8] She has five children, four of them with Andre Duffy, her previous husband.[12] She has served on numerous nonprofit boards focused primarily on education, culture, and community development.[9] Plaskett is Lutheran.[39][40][41]
.jpg)
