US Senator Cory Booker, risking expulsion, releases Kavanaugh emails on racial profiling amid Supreme Court questioning
Booker released the George W Bush-era emails despite potentially being removed from the Senate, with other Democratic senators saying they stood with him
US Senator Cory Booker has released confidential documents that he says reveal Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s approval of racial profiling during his time in President George W Bush’s White House. Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, did so at the risk of expulsion from the Senate.
“As I’ve been saying from the beginning, this process has been a sham,” Booker said in a statement on Thursday, the third day of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He added: “The public has a right to access documents about a Supreme Court nominee’s views on issues that are profoundly important, such as race and the law.”
As Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas read aloud from rules stating that a senator who discloses “the secret or confidential business” of the Senate could be “liable ... to suffer expulsion”, Booker responded by saying: “Bring the charges.”
Booker received support from his colleagues, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Dick Durbin and Senator Richard Blumenthal, who told Cornyn: “Apply the rule, bring the charges. All of us are ready to face that rule.”