WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tuesday’s late night on Capitol Hill spilled into Wednesday morning as U.S. Senators, House manager and the White House legal team vigorously debated impeachment rule-related amendments; Chief Justice John Roberts (who is overseeing the historic trial) reprimanded both sides of the aisle for their conduct.
Cory Booker (D-Twitter) was there, too, though one of his many prospective 2020 GOP challengers doesn’t think his participation is appropriate.
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“During his failed presidential campaign, Cory Booker made patently false and malicious statements about the President, calling him ‘worse than a racist’ and said he would like to punch the President in the face,” said Hirsh Singh, a millennial Atlantic County resident who has previously run for governor and Congress. “It is fantasy to believe that Cory will be fair and impartial during the impeachment trial or that any of his fellow Democrat colleagues who have waged a campaign against the President would do the same.”
“Cory Booker needs to do what is right for the people of New Jersey and recuse himself from the Senate impeachment trial today,” added Singh.
Back in D.C. after his failed presidential campaign was shuttered earlier this month, Booker took to Twitter on Tuesday to criticize the GOP’s handling of the impeachment trial:
.@SenSchumer’s amendments shouldn’t have been partisan issues. How can we have a full, fair trial without all of the relevant evidence? Without documents or testimony?
We have a duty to the Constitution & the American people—we fail them when partisanship is put before country.
— Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBooker) January 22, 2020
Booker’s own partisanship remains the issue in question, and his history of over-the-top statements certainly precedes the current impeachment controversy.
For example, during the Senate’s hearings on now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, Booker famously made an ass out of himself, referring to himself as ‘Spartacus’ and even declaring at one point that Kavanaugh’s guilt or innocence did not matter.
All 100 members of the U.S. Senate act as a jury during a trial triggered by the delivery of impeachment articles; this is only the third time in American history that such a trial has taken place.
Booker and the Senate’s other 99 members recently took the following oath as the trial got formally underway:
“Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws: So help you God?”
Can Booker be counted upon to take the “impartial” part seriously?
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