{"id":7863,"date":"2025-04-01T17:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T17:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/cory-booker-staffer-arrested-for-allegedly-carrying-a-pistol-without-a-license\/"},"modified":"2025-04-01T17:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T17:46:07","slug":"cory-booker-staffer-arrested-for-allegedly-carrying-a-pistol-without-a-license","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/cory-booker-staffer-arrested-for-allegedly-carrying-a-pistol-without-a-license\/","title":{"rendered":"Cory Booker staffer arrested for allegedly carrying a pistol without a license"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Capitol Police arrested a staffer for Sen. Cory Booker for allegedly carrying a pistol without a license, the department announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities arrested the staffer, named by Capitol Police as Kevin Batts, Monday evening after Batts told officers outside the Senate galleries he was armed, the department said. Batts had been led by Booker around security screening at a Senate office building earlier in the day, according to the department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll 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,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers are given broad leeway to request bypasses of security screening for staffers and guests who accompany them into Capitol buildings, though the department frowns on the practice.<\/p>\n<p>Booker has been giving a marathon speech on the Senate floor in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/03\/31\/congress\/cory-booker-talk-a-thon-00262482\" target=\"_blank\"><u>protest<\/u><\/a> of President Donald Trump\u2019s administration and Hill Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSenator Booker\u2019s office employs a retired Newark police detective as a New Jersey-based driver who often accompanies him to events,\u201d said Jeff Giertz, a spokesperson for Booker. \u201cWe are working to better understand the circumstances around this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NOTUS earlier <a href=\"https:\/\/www.notus.org\/senate\/cory-booker-staffer-arrested-police-say\" target=\"_blank\"><u>reported<\/u><\/a> the arrest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Capitol Police arrested a staffer for Sen. Cory Booker for allegedly carrying a pistol without a license, the department announced Tuesday. Authorities arrested the staffer, named by Capitol Police as Kevin Batts, Monday evening after Batts told officers outside the Senate galleries he was armed, the department said. Batts had been led by Booker around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}