As Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) continues his tiresome gabathon on the Senate floor, news is breaking that one of his staffers was arrested for carrying a gun onto Capitol grounds. It turns out that the staffer, identified as Kevin A. Batts, bypassed security at the Hart Senate Office Building on Monday, mere minutes before Booker began his seemingly-endless tirade, while concealing an unlicensed pistol.

Scoop: Just minutes before Cory Booker began his marathon speech on the floor (which is still ongoing), his staffer Kevin Batts was arrested for carrying a pistol without a license on Capitol grounds

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Batts, identified as a "special assistant" to Booker, was seen by reporters being handcuffed by U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) officers Monday evening. Inquiries revealed that the staffer was arrested after failing to go through the security screening area of Hart, which is just one block over from the U.S. Capitol. USCP officials have revealed that Watts was led around the screening area by "a Member of Congress":

“Yesterday afternoon a Member of Congress led an IDed staff member around security screening at the Hart Senate Office Building. Later that evening, outside the Senate Galleries, the IDed staff member — who is a retired law enforcement officer — told our officers he was armed,” a rep for US Capitol Police said in a statement Tuesday.

“The staff member, 59-year-old Kevin A. Batts of New Jersey, was arrested for Carrying a Pistol Without a License. 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.”

After eluding security measures in the Senate office building, Batts later confessed to USCP officers that he was carrying a pistol; he has now been charged with carrying that pistol without a license. 

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Batts is apparently a long-time friend and aide to Booker, and once appeared in a video on Booker's Facebook page in which the senator called Batts his "best friend." Batts is a retired Newark police officer, and has been seen frequently with Booker—who served as Newark's mayor from 2006 to 2013—since Booker headed to the U.S. Senate in 2014.

So far, Sen. Booker's staff is downplaying the arrest, presumably in an attempt to stop it from overshadowing the senator's ongoing, headline-grabbing screed against the Trump administration.

“Senator Booker’s office employs a retired Newark police detective as a New Jersey-based driver who often accompanies him to events. We are working to better understand the circumstances around this,” said Jeff Giertz, a spokesperson for Senator Booker.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been at least two instances in which armed individuals were either able to skirt security screenings in the Capitol altogether or were caught trying to bring a cache of weapons into the building. It certainly doesn't make the place more secure when unidentified "Members of Congress" flout the law and allow their staffers to bring in concealed weapons.

Spartacus is not going to be happy that his bloviating has been overshadowed by a bungling staffer, but that's kind of how Democrats roll these days. You have to wonder how this kind of thing plays with the party's anti-gun base?