Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) went on a grandstanding rant during Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Thursday, saying that he would “knowingly” violate Senate rules by releasing “confidential” Kavanaugh emails.
Booker, a 2020 presidential hopeful, then released the emails, saying, “This is about the closest I’ll probably ever have in my life to an, ‘I am Spartacus’ moment.”
But, as it turns out, there is a major problem with Booker’s theatrics: Booker is a liar.
“We cleared the documents last night shortly after Senator Booker’s staff asked us to,” said Bill Burck, who is the George W. Bush records representative that led the review of Kavanaugh’s records. “We were surprised to learn about Senator Booker’s histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly. In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make public documents public.”
“All of this drama this morning apparently was for nothing and it’s unfortunate,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters. “The irony is after Senator Booker said basically he was going to release the document anyway… it had already been worked out that this was going to be then released to the public.”
“The restrictions were waived early Thursday morning,” Fox News’ Alex Pappas reported. “Therefore, Booker’s act of defiance was not an actual violation of the rules because nothing that he released was marked committee confidential at the time of its release.”
