"I violate it because I sincerely believe that the public deserves to know this nominee's record, in this particular case, his record on issues of race and the law.Kirk Douglas, the prolific actor and producer whose “Spartacus” is credited with helping to end the Hollywood blacklist, patriarch of a successful entertainment dynasty and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s golden age, died Wednesday.
I take full responsibility for violating that, sir," Booker said. "I did willingly violate the chair's rule on the committee confidential process. "If there's going to be some retribution against the senator from New Jersey, count me in."ĭurbin also said Cornyn's "conduct unbecoming" accusation against Booker was personal and wrong.ĭemocrats continued to take exception to the influence of Republican attorney Bill Burck in the process of what documents were considered confidential.īooker went on to say he had not actually violated a Senate rule with his conduct, "because there's no Senate rule that accounts for this process."
"I concur with what you are doing, and let's jump into this pit together," Durbin said. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) and Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii) expressed solidarity with Booker and also said they were ready to accept consequences for publicly releasing documents that hadn't been cleared. That is irresponsible and conduct unbecoming a senator," he added.ĭemocrats have continuously voiced outrage about not getting sufficient time to review documents related to Kavanaugh's time as a lawyer and staff secretary in the Bush administration. "I hope that the senator will reconsider his decision, because no senator deserves to sit on this committee or serve in the Senate, in my view, if they decide to be a law unto themselves and willingly flout the rules of the Senate and the determination of confidentiality and classification. "This is no different from the senator deciding to release classified information that is deemed classified by the Executive Branch because you happen to disagree with the classification decision," Cornyn said. "I'm saying right now that I'm releasing committee confidential documents."Ĭornyn shot back that "running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the Senate or of the confidentiality of the documents we are privy to."
"I'm saying I'm knowingly violating the rules," Booker said. Booker said the email had nothing to do with national security. Bush White House, saying he was like Spartacus and prepared to accept the consequences.īooker announced at Thursday's Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing he was ready to release an email, which he claimed showed Kavanaugh was sympathetic to racial profiling by the police.īooker said he understood such a violation came with the potential penalty of expulsion from the Senate, inviting Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) dared a colleague to charge him with violating Senate rules over releasing an email Brett Kavanaugh sent when he was a lawyer in the George W.