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.
Senate Republicans are hopeful they will be able to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general by the end of the week. But he’s not in the clear yet, as several undecided GOP senators continue to mull it over.
Blanche’s prospects were nonetheless much improved Monday — less than 24 hours after some GOP senators were predicting he was unlikely to get confirmed as a war of words escalated between President Donald Trump and holdout Republicans.
But then Blanche cut a deal with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) late Sunday night to clarify a controversial settlement between Trump and the IRS, giving Blanche the votes he needed to get through the Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
He still needs to get through the full Senate, where he can only lose two Republican votes given likely unified opposition from Senate Democrats and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence.
Several GOP senators who raised alarms last week about Trump’s public threats to rekindle the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” Cornyn and Tillis worked to kill declined to say Monday how they’d vote on Blanche.But in a positive sign for the acting attorney general, several are looking to Tillis and Cornyn, who are now supporting him, as a lodestar for their own deliberations ahead of likely floor votes later this week.
“I think certainly the fact that he has signed this order, basically disbanding [the fund] — that’s a pretty good step,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), before adding that she would “like to find out a little bit more about the negotiations.”
Murkowski said she plans to speak with Tillis and Cornyn.
“I’m curious about what went on over the weekend,” she said.
Blanche has made efforts to ingratiate himself with Murkowski. In July, he trekked to Alaska, in part at Murkowski’s urging, to better understand public safety and tribal jurisdiction matters. He recently announced a nine-figure settlement benefiting Alaska natives’ health care that Murkowski was pleased with.
“I just appreciated the fact that he went to the state,” Murkowski said. “He was only there for two days, but I had asked him in my initial meeting to go up to the state.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who like Cornyn lost his primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed challenger, declined to discuss Blanche Monday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) added that she also wanted to talk to Tillis and Cornyn and read the agreement they struck with Blanche.
“Until I do that, I am not going to make a judgement,” Collins said.
Another Republican who hasn’t yet committed to supporting Blanche is Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah). He met with Blanche last week but hasn’t yet weighed in since Sunday night’s agreement. He had indicated before Sunday’s deal that he would be closely tracking Tillis and Cornyn during Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee meeting.
Getting Blanche’s nomination on a trajectory to pass the Senate this week would relieve some of the pressure on Senate Republicans, who are juggling a long to-do list and a shrinking runway to get it done. Trump, amid last week’s standoff, demanded that Senate Republicans confirm Blanche, including warning during a Cabinet meeting that they “will never get anybody like him.”
Tillis told reporters Monday that “the back-and-forth over the weekend was not helpful” but that the talks “ended up at an acceptable place.”
If Blanche gets out of the Judiciary Committee Tuesday as expected, the soonest the Senate could confirm him as attorney general is Saturday unless Democrats unanimously agree to help speed up a final vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that he’s hopeful the Senate will be able to confirm Blanche but didn’t give an ironclad guarantee as the remaining undecided members review the agreement and talk to Tillis and Cornyn.
“I’d like to figure out a way, a path forward to get him done,” Thune said.
Democrats are likely to use Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee meeting, and the days leading up to a full Senate vote, to hammer Republicans over the deal Cornyn and Tillis struck. Many predicted Monday that Trump wouldn’t stick by the agreement that limits the scope of the IRS settlement and nullifies the $1.8 billion payout fund.
“There are so many loopholes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the president went ahead with the program,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) warned the remaining undecided Republicans about the deal: “I don’t think that that commitment is worth what it’s written on.”
While Democrats can drag Blanche’s confirmation into the weekend, they aren’t able to prevent him from being confirmed if at least 50 GOP senators support him. But they are determined to use the debate to hit at one of their central midterm campaign messages — corruption — with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling Blanche the “architect of Trump’s grifts.”
Tillis suggested Monday he still has questions about who in Trump’s orbit played a role in the roller coaster negotiations over the past week. While the retiring senator is prepared to support Blanche, he said that he’s “not done analyzing the anatomy of this deal and who played a role in there.”
“I’m not going to speak for other members, but I think that it’ll be a solid vote,” he added about Blanche’s chances of being confirmed.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who appeared skeptical during a Sunday morning talk show interview that Blanche would get through the Senate, did a 180 Monday when asked whether he would get confirmed: “Yes, I do.”
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Multiple Senate Republicans joined Sen. Bernie Moreno in calling for Rep. Max Miller to step down from office Monday amid domestic abuse allegations from the Ohio senator’s daughter.
Bernie Moreno — father of Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno — said in a statement Sunday that Miller should not serve in the House soon after the House Republican did a livestream video attempting to defend himself from abuse accusations.
Many of Bernie Moreno’s GOP colleagues were quick to back him following the statement.
“I don’t know [Miller]. I haven’t read a whole lot about him, but if [Moreno] thinks he ought to resign, I’m supportive of that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said in an interview.
Miller has denied the allegations, which include pouring hot water on his ex-wife and holding a gun to her head. He has also denied accusations from his ex-wife that he broke his daughter’s collarbone.
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas condemned Miller, adding, “He should resign. He should quit.”
“I don’t know Mr. Miller’s story, but I trust Bernie so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values,” Marshall said in an interview. “I couldn’t imagine them wanting this out in public. So to go through with this, it makes me think that they’re telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
The surge of support from Bernie Moreno’s Senate colleagues marks the first significant crack in a wall of GOP silence regarding the allegations against Miller. The skepticism from Miller’s own party will almost certainly weigh down the congressman’s already floundering campaign as he battles Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter to keep his Cleveland-area House seat.
Miller has until Wednesday to withdraw from the ballot and allow a crash primary to select a replacement.
Some Republican lawmakers stopped short of calling on Miller to withdraw or resign while expressing grave concern about the allegations.
“The accusations are very serious, and if there is truth to them, I am one who says that our elected officials need to be held to high standards,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said. “And certainly, when it comes to allegations of domestic abuse, child abuse, that’s not what we want in our lawmakers.”
A spokesperson for Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In response to Moreno’s statement, Miller said on Sunday, “If my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn’t wait two years before holding him accountable.”
“You know this isn’t true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus,” he added in the post on X.
Notably still silent was GOP Sen. Jon Husted, Ohio’s other senator, who while leaving the Capitol Monday did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether Miller should resign.
Other Republicans in the Ohio House delegation are also staying quiet for now. Almost every House Republican from the state either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on Moreno’s statement.
The exception was Rep. Jim Jordan, who brushed off questions in a Thursday CNN interview about Miller but noted he was “a good man” and was recently campaigning for him.
Asked Monday if Miller should still serve in Congress following Bernie Moreno’s statement, spokesperson for Jordan Stefanie Farrell said, “As Mr. Jordan has said, it’s up to the voters of Ohio’s 7th District.”
Back in the Senate, other Republicans who were unaware of the situation declined to weigh in on the incident.
“I am not aware of the situation, so I don’t have a comment right now,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has been a leading GOP voice on domestic violence issues within the military.
But a steady drip of Republican senators said Monday evening they trusted Bernie Moreno.“It would surprise me if Bernie were being untruthful,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said. “I guess I was surprised that it bubbled up to the public sphere, but I suspect that Bernie has got a beat on the situation.”
Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia said he was unaware of the details of the allegations but that “Bernie’s a pretty level-headed guy.”
“I don’t know enough about the allegations, but like Bernie said, it sounds like he thinks he needs psychological help,” Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said, adding, “I trust Bernie.”
Chris Marquette contributed to this report.
Senate Budget Committee Republicans will meet Tuesday morning to talk about advancing a fiscal blueprint for a new party-line spending bill.
Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) declined to say , in an interview Monday if he plans to introduce a resolution this week, noting that he was “working with leadership” and that the “first priority” is to pass a stopgap spending bill. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a panel member, said he didn’t expect the Senate to take up a budget resolution this week because “I don’t think my leadership wants to do it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune hasn’t ruled out taking up a budget resolution but has been frank about the challenges it faces among GOP senators.
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