While New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker was engaging in his marathon bit of bloviating on the Senate floor Monday night, one of his longtime buddies and staff members was getting busted by the Capitol Police for illegally carrying a firearm on the grounds.
The New York Post reports that Booker staffer Kevin Betts, a former law enforcement officer in New Jersey, was arrested on Monday evening after informing Capitol Police that he was carrying.
“Yesterday afternoon a Member of Congress led an IDed staff member around security screening at the Hart Senate Office Building. Later that evening, outside the Senate Galleries, the IDed staff member — who is a retired law enforcement officer — told our officers he was armed,” a rep for US Capitol Police said in a statement Tuesday.
“The staff member, 59-year-old Kevin A. Batts of New Jersey, was arrested for Carrying a Pistol Without a License. All weapons are prohibited from Capitol Grounds, even if you are a retired law enforcement officer, or have a permit to carry in another state or the District of Columbia.”
That’s mostly true, though there is an exception for members of Congress, who can have firearms in their office and carry them in some parts of the Capitol building, though not on the House or Senate floor and several other locations.
The big question is whether Booker knew that Betts was armed. While the Capitol Police statement only refers generically to a “member of Congress” who led a staff member around the security checkpoint, the obvious guess as to who that might be would be Booker himself. While Booker has been blathering on for close to 24 hours (as of this writing) about any number of subjects, he’s yet to address the arrest of his pal or whether he was aware that Betts had a gun on him when he bypassed security on Monday night.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Booker spokesperson Jeff Giertz said, “Senator Booker’s office employs a retired Newark police detective as a New Jersey-based driver who often accompanies him to events. We are working to better understand the circumstances around this.”
In 2016, Booker shared a video of Batts on social media, who he identified as a former detective in Newark. At the time, Batts said he had worked for either the city of Newark or Booker’s office for 28 years.
“Kevin Batts has been a friend and team member since 2006 when I became mayor and even before. I so deeply appreciate his steadfast friendship, incredible dedication to Newark and now his service to the state. Kevin was raised in Columbus Homes projects in Newark, then spent 6 years in the United States army reserves and then joined the Newark Police Department and became a detective in 2004. In 2006, he joined my security detail as a member of Newark’s executive protection unit. In 2013 he joined my Senate staff. I am truly blessed by his friendship and loyal hard work,” the senator wrote on Instagram.
Another question: just how common or routine is (or was) it for Betts to be packing a pistol while on the Capitol grounds with his “friend and team member”? Booker’s never met a gun control law he didn’t like, so his buddy carrying in a “gun-free zone” is hugely hypocritical, to say the least. If this was a one-off, then what exactly prompted Betts to choose to carry on Monday night? And if this is something Betts does on a regular basis, has Booker been aware of his bud breaking the law all this time?
Given how close the relationship between the two appears to be, at least in Booker’s telling, it would be incredibly odd if Betts’ decision to carry a gun was completely unknown to the senator. It’s also gonna be tough to find any hard evidence, however, that Booker knew his friend was bearing arms where he wasn’t allowed. Still, I think we can chalk this up as yet another example of the hypocrisy of the gun control crowd, whose mission is to make it impossible for you and I to keep and bear arms while they’re still protected by guys (and gals) with guns.
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