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.
Congress
GOP unity cracks with latest Iran war vote
GOP unity over the Iran war started to crack Thursday when Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted with Democrats to halt the conflict, marking the first time a Republican has changed their vote on the military campaign in the Middle East.
While the vote failed, the shift signaled President Donald Trump could soon face far more resistance over the conflict. That’s especially true as he blows past a legal deadline this week for the U.S. to exit the war without congressional authorization.
Just two Republicans — Collins and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — joined Democrats to support curtailing Trump in a 47-50 vote. Unlike Collins, Paul has supported all attempts to rein in the war. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania continued to be the lone Democrat to oppose the effort.
The measure is the sixth resolution the Senate has rejected since the conflict began in February.
The military campaign against Tehran will hit a 60-day deadline Friday that requires the administration to halt U.S. involvement unless Congress authorizes continued military action. Trump does not seem eager to end the military campaign unilaterally, and no legislation exists yet to green-light its continuation, meaning the war is certain to break the threshold.
Democrats have been counting on that deadline to sway Republicans, several of whom have said they’ll be hard pressed to continue their support beyond the deadline.
“Time’s up,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Republicans, stop sitting out, start speaking up.”
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 limits U.S. involvement in hostilities to 60 days after the president has notified Congress, which the Trump administration provided March 2. The White House can extend military operations for another 30 days in order to wind down U.S. involvement.
Collins flipped her vote a day ahead of the administration’s legal deadline, which she signaled would be a turning point for her. The move by Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, also reflects her tough reelection bid as Democrats count on unseating her to win the majority. The war is largely unpopular, and her challenger, Graham Platner, is running on an anti-war platform.
“I have said from the very beginning that the law is definitive that at 60 days, Congress has to either authorize or block the military hostilities,” Collins said ahead of the vote. “I’ve been pretty clear what I was going to do at that point.”
Collins gave a preview of her vote Tuesday, when she joined with Democrats on a separate measure to block potential military action against Cuba. That measure was also defeated by Republicans.
Other GOP senators who indicated the 60-day mark would be problematic for them held off joining with Democrats on Thursday. One such Republican, Sen. John Curtis of Utah, said in a statement that he was “engaged in thoughtful discussion” on the path forward. But he also warned: “I will not support continued funding for the use of force without Congress weighing in.”
A White House official, granted anonymity to describe the dynamics of the 60-day deadline ahead of the vote, said the administration “is in active conversations with Blue Light News on this topic.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, though, suggested to senators on Thursday that the ceasefire would effectively negate the 60-day clock. War powers advocates contend that’s not how the statute works and note the U.S. military is still blockading Iranian ports.
Congress
Senate approves FISA punt
Senators approved a 45-day extension of a key surveillance program by voice vote Thursday, just hours before it is set to lapse.
The extension will give Congress until mid-June to work out a deal on a long-term reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which targets foreigners abroad but can sweep in communications involving Americans.
The House is set to hold a vote Thursday afternoon to pass the extension and send it to President Donald Trump ahead of the deadline.
The Senate’s decision to do a short-term extension came after the House passed a three-year bill Wednesday but packaged it with a controversial digital currency provision that made it “dead on arrival,” according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
The Senate has been working on its own three-year extension, and supporters of the surveillance program say more time is needed to finalize a longer deal. “This will allow additional time to do that,” Thune said Thursday on the Senate floor.
Congress
Maxwell’s former boyfriend testifies in House Epstein probe
Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said they left an interview Thursday with Ted Waitt, Ghislaine Maxwell’s former boyfriend, largely empty handed after an hourslong grilling as part of the panel’s ongoing Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
The committee was interested in what Waitt knew about Epstein’s crimes during his relationship with Maxwell, a former British socialite who is now serving 20-years in prison for her part in Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme. Waitt amassed his wealth founding the computer company Gateway and has become a philanthropist supporting ocean conservation. He has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the late convicted sex offender.
“Epstein was committing some of his crimes while Waitt and Maxwell were in a romantic relationship, so [we] want to understand what if anything he knew about that,” said Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), a member of the Oversight panel, before entering the interview room Thursday morning, adding, “I find it very hard to believe that they had no knowledge or indication of it.”
But the interview did not appear to be fruitful. Partway through the interview, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) claimed that the committee had learned nothing new.
“I’m interested to see what the Republicans want to know from this,” Subramanyam told reporters. “Maybe it was to connect [President Bill] Clinton to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell a little more, because [Waitt] came up in the Clinton deposition.”
Waitt, whose communications with Maxwell appear in the Epstein files released by the Justice Department, also happens to be a friend of the former president and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He brought Maxwell as a plus-one to the wedding of their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, in 2010 and she appears in at least one photo taken during the ceremony.
Hillary Clinton said she did not recall speaking with Maxwell at the wedding during her deposition before the committee in February.
A GOP committee spokesperson countered the claim that the interview was ineffective in producing new information, saying in a statement that Democrats “made today’s interview as they always do all about President [Donald] Trump, and Ted Waitt had no information about him.”
“In fact, he said Maxwell never brought Trump up,” the spokesperson continued. “Unlike Democrats, Republicans asked substantive questions and gained new information. We will have follow up actions soon.”
During the interview, Democrats only asked about Trump once, according to a person familiar with the questioning who was granted anonymity to describe the closed-door conversation.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said Waitt could not recall the answers to many of the panel’s questions.
In her interview with then-deputy attorney general Todd Blanche in July, Maxwell said she began dating Waitt around 2003 after her relationship with Epstein and stayed with him until around 2010. She met him at a dinner with Bill Clinton in Hong Kong, she told Blanche.
Maxwell also maintained that her former paramour was the subject of blackmail because of her association with Epstein. She stated that Waitt “was asked for $10 million to keep me out of any of Epstein’s civil suits” in 2009, when the convicted sex offender was in litigation.
“He had everything. He was way, way more wealthy than Epstein, if anyone cares,” Maxwell said last July, of her former boyfriend.
A lawyer for Waitt did not return a request for comment.
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Uncategorized1 year ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship8 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words
-
The Josh Fourrier Show1 year agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?

