It turns out Sen. Cory Booker’s, D-N.J., self-aggrandizing act of “civil disobedience” was a dishonest stunt.
Feigning bravery, Booker was eager to inform the world on Thursday morning that he had “knowingly violated the rules” by releasing a chain of emails from Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. “This is about the closest I’ll ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment,” Booker boasted.
But as the day went on, it started to look more and more as though the documents had been cleared for release before the senator’s theatrical reveal. And he knew it.
[More: GOP mocks Cory Booker for ‘Spartacus’ gaffe]
After Bill Burck, an attorney overseeing the review of Kavanaugh’s records, went on the record with a statement saying Booker had been informed the documents were cleared for release, reports emerged to confirm that account. As the Washington Post reported, “Booker’s office responded [to Burke] by criticizing the process — while acknowledging Burck’s point about the documents.”
“Cory and Senate Democrats were able to shame the committee into agreeing to make last night’s documents publicly available, and Cory publicly released those documents as well as other committee confidential documents today,” a statement from the New Jersey Democrat’s office read. That’s some serious spin, turning an inquiry about the dubious timeline into an opportunity to laud Booker for pressing Burck’s team into clearing the documents, all without acknowledging his misleading antics.
And it all went downhill from there. By late afternoon, for instance, the Wall Street Journal’s Byron Tau had reported, “Democrats knew full well that the documents that Booker and [Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii] released this morning were no longer confidential, according to D+R lawmakers and aides.” (Though it seems the same could be said for Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who had rebuked Booker during the hearing.)
The bottom line is that Booker knew the documents had been cleared, but elected to go through with his misleading melodrama anyway, portraying himself as a bold civil dissident. Why would a senator risk the exposure to win favor with #resisters? Because he wants to run for president. It’s likely as simple as that.
