Congress
Charges dropped for Booker staffer who brought gun into Capitol without a license
A staffer for Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) who was arrested in the Capitol last year for carrying a pistol without a license had his charges quickly dropped, according to the Justice Department.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia decided not to prosecute the staffer, Kevin Batts, in April 2025 after it received documentation from Batts showing that his “New Jersey retired law enforcement carry permit was active,” Timothy Lauer, a spokesperson for the office, said in a statement Thursday. Batts had been arrested about two weeks prior.
Batts is a retired Newark police detective who currently serves as a special assistant to Booker. The senator’s office said last year that he serves as a driver for Booker. Batts set up a legal expense fund and received $6,000 from donors, according to filings reviewed by Blue Light News.
At the time of Batts’ arrest, U.S. Capitol Police noted: “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.”
Batts was apprehended on the Senate side of the Capitol in March 2025 after he informed Capitol Police he was armed. Members of Congress are not typically subject to security screenings when entering the Capitol complex, and staff are often able to bypass security when accompanied by the members who employ them.
A Capitol Police spokesperson said the department “arrested Mr. Batts on March 31, 2025, for Carrying a Pistol Without a License (Outside Home or Place of Business), Unlawful Activities, Possession of Unregistered Firearm, and Possession of Unregistered Ammunition.” When asked separately what became of those latter three charges, the U.S. attorney’s office referred to their previous statement regarding Batts’ carry permit.
Batts established his legal expense fund in 2025 to pay for costs associated with his criminal arrest related to his official Senate duties, according to the filing.
He received two contributions: $5,000 from Elizabeth Naftali of Studio City, California, and $1,000 from Patrick Dunican Jr., of Ridgewood, New Jersey. Naftali is a prominent Democratic Party donor who has contributed to Booker’s campaigns in the past. She has also purchased artwork from Hunter Biden, the former president’s son. Dunican declined to comment; Naftali did not respond to a request for comment.
David Bergstein, a spokesperson for Booker, said in a statement that “the case was quickly dropped last year, and this fund follows standard Senate Ethics Committee rules to help pay for former Detective Batts’s legal bills associated with the investigation.“ Bergstein did not respond to a request to speak with Batts.
Typically, legal expense funds have been established by lawmakers in legal trouble, like former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and former Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). It’s rare for staffers to set them up.
In 2021, a House staffer brought an unregistered gun through security in a House office building but faced steeper consequences.
In that instance, Capitol Police missed a loaded Glock 9mm handgun as it passed through an X-ray screening machine at the Longworth House Office Building. The building was placed on lockdown until the staffer, Jeffrey Allsbrooks, came back to the screening area to have the gun inspected. Allsbrooks said he “forgot the gun was in the bag.” Ultimately, he agreed to a plea deal.
House Democrats’ top election leader has a message for states ahead of the midterms: count faster.
“We are, I think, nicely trying to encourage people to do their balloting as quickly as possible, and that means hiring additional staff so that it doesn’t call into question results,” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said in a Thursday interview with Blue Light News.
The advice is just one part of Morelle’s efforts to secure the midterm elections. He said Democrats have wargamed over 150 scenarios of how the Trump administration could attempt to interfere or complicate the November elections and its certification. He is encouraging states to have a “degree of urgency” when counting ballots to stave off Republican-led conspiracy theories about the reasons for delays.
Morelle said he is leaning on states to staff up on election officials to facilitate speedy ballot counting while emphasizing the process should still be “done properly,” “fairly” and that “we don’t want people with cast ballots not to have their ballots counted.” He is going to Los Angeles next week to deliver that message and meet with election security experts and election administrators — though he did not specify whom he is meeting with or where.
“We are trying to gently encourage people to staff up,” he said. Morelle added that if Democrats take the House majority, they’d “push for more resources for local and state administrators so they can hire additional capacity.”
Morelle has other big plans in the majority, including cracking down on dark money in politics, protecting voting rights and most notably, working on a bipartisan voter identification bill.
Asked whether he could accept some form of voter identification as part of a larger bipartisan elections package, Morelle said, “I’m personally not opposed to some form of voter ID,” adding that he has opposed multiple Republican-led proposals to tighten up identification requirements.
“I don’t know where my colleagues on the Democrat side will be, but I think voters think, ‘Okay, you show your ID for just tons of things. Is it really that much of a burden?’” he said. “And if it is, we’ll get state issued IDs or federally issued IDs to people who can’t afford it. So I do think that there’s hope for a bipartisan way forward, and I’ll be anxious to work with colleagues to do it.”
Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday curtailed the chamber’s pre-election calendar, putting a number of priorities at risk of being delayed until the lame-duck period or axed altogether.
Johnson cited pre-midterm political pressures and a lack of action in the Senate — which is due to return Sept. 14 — as reasons for canceling the House’s final two weeks of session before November.
But that means House lawmakers have just one more work week in Washington before the elections, and a short list of priorities some members wanted to see action on are now in serious doubt:
— DATA CENTERS: One key item that could slip off the pre-midterm agenda is a measure to rein in data centers. Several vulnerable Republicans, like Rep. Rob Bresnahan, say they want to respond to voter backlash against the AI infrastructure.
Rep. Brett Guthrie’s so-called Ratepayer Protection Act was the most promising bill poised for action this month given its bipartisan approval by Energy and Commerce. He’s been pushing Johnson for a floor vote for the bill meant to curb data centers’ grid impact — but the speaker has made no commitments as the broader data center issue has divided Republicans.
— RUSSIA SANCTIONS: Legislation aimed at sanctioning Russia’s trading partners is also at risk of languishing in the House after supporters earlier this week had hoped for a vote this month. Johnson on Thursday told reporters leaders were still trying to build bipartisan consensus on the measure.
Foreign Affairs ranking member Gregory Meeks, “apparently is vehemently opposed to it, and I think the Democrat leadership is as well,” Johnson said. “This should be a bipartisan effort.”
— EPSTEIN OVERSIGHT: House Oversight members, including Chair James Comer, wanted to hold a meeting as early as this month for Attorney General Todd Blanche to be interviewed as part of the panel’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation. But yesterday Comer sought to temper expectations given the shortened calendar.
An effort by Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna to force a second House vote requiring Blanche to provide more Epstein documents could also fall by the wayside. Massie had earlier this week been bullish on getting enough signatures to force the vote before the midterms, saying he thought the transparency effort would “help anybody who’s in a purple state.”
Anything that gets punted to November joins a lengthy list of other major priorities lawmakers have lined up to deal with when they return, including the annual defense policy bill, government funding legislation, a surface transportation package, a farm bill, a renewal of government spy powers and more.
The diminished likelihood of some of these members’ priorities reaching the floor before then is a likely welcomed fate to some Republicans, who hoped to avoid what could be politically tricky votes on data centers and further scrutiny of administration officials and the Epstein files.
Democrats, meanwhile, have cast the curtailed schedule as proof of the GOP’s dysfunction.
“No farm bill. No AI regulations. No affordability agenda. No transportation bill. No water resources bill. No college sports bill. No end to this war,” Sen. Brian Schatz posted about Johnson’s schedule change. “See you right before the holidays! Great job!”
What else we’re watching:
— BATTLEGROUND REPUBLICANS WARY OF TRUMP MIDTERM VISITS: Republicans facing tough elections are wary of tying themselves too closely to President Donald Trump despite his eagerness to get on the campaign trail. Trump’s promise to be heavily involved in the final days of the midterm elections has put many Republicans in an uncomfortable spot: Stay too close to Trump and they could be dragged down by the president’s low approval rating. But run too far away and risk alienating MAGA or Trump, whose super PAC is sitting on more than $400 million they desperately need deployed to help them win key races.
— DEM ELECTION CHIEF WANTS FASTER VOTE TALLIES: Count faster. That’s the message from Rep. Joe Morelle, House Democrats’ top election leader, to states ahead of the midterms. Morelle said in an interview with Blue Light News he’s been leaning on states to staff up on election officials to facilitate speedy ballot counting, while emphasizing the process should still be “done properly.” The advice is part of his efforts to secure the midterm elections and stave off Republican-led conspiracy theories about the reasons for delays. Morelle also said Democrats have wargamed over 150 scenarios of how the Trump administration could attempt to interfere or complicate the November elections and its certification.
Andrew Howard, Meredith Lee Hill, Erin Doherty, and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
Congress
Casten tells Waters he won’t challenge her for Financial Services gavel — but won’t rule it out publicly
Rep. Sean Casten privately told Rep. Maxine Waters this week that he would not challenge her for the House Financial Services gavel next year, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange, batting down speculation that he will run against her if Democrats take back the House.
The revelation comes after Punchbowl News reported that Casten is weighing a bid to challenge Waters for the top spot on the Financial Services panel. Waters, 88, heard rumors this week about Casten considering a challenge and asked him Thursday afternoon if he planned to run against her, one of the people said. He indicated he would not, the person said.
Yet, Casten, 54, is not publicly denying that he is considering a bid. The Illinois Democrat said in a statement Thursday that he has “great respect for Ranking Member Waters, who has made the Financial Services Committee my home in Congress.”
“My focus is on working to ensure we take back the majority,” he said.
Casten, who currently serves as the vice ranking member of House Financial Services, has privately expressed interest in succeeding Waters as Financial Services chair, according to two people with knowledge of his thinking. But Blue Light News cannot independently confirm that he is currently considering running against Waters.
A spokesperson for Waters did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the matter.
Casten has previously said he backs Waters. In an interview on Nov. 21, 2025, he told Blue Light News: “I think she does a great job and she’s got my support as long as she wants to stay in that seat.”
“She brings the fire,” he said at the time. “I think in this moment you want people who are fighters.”
Waters would be the oldest House Financial Services chair ever — a concern for some Democrats who want fresh blood in the seat. Asked about her age last November, Casten said he didn’t have any concerns about Waters’ abilities.
“I am a firm believer that when people are visibly past their time, it’s time to sort of have some hard conversations,” he said. “That’s a mental issue, not an age issue. And I don’t have any concern that she’s mentally up for the job.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become speaker if Democrats retake the House, has also signaled support for Waters. In a statement to Blue Light News in March, Jeffries said that Waters “has led the Financial Services Committee with vision, intellect, passion and skill.”
“It’s my expectation that such iconic leadership will continue in the 120th Congress,” he said at the time.
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