Cotton calls Booker testimony ‘disgraceful breach of custom’

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Tuesday hit Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) for his plans to testify against Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) during his confirmation hearings as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general.

“I’m very disappointed that Senator Booker has chosen to start his 2020 presidential campaign by testifying against Senator Sessions,” Cotton wrote Tuesday in a Facebook post.

“This disgraceful breach of custom is especially surprising since Senator Booker just last year said he was ‘honored to have partnered with Senator Sessions’ on a resolution honoring civil-rights marchers.”

{mosads}Cotton said Booker feels “compelled” to speak out against the Alabama Republican because Sessions wants to “keep criminals behind bars, drugs off our streets, and amnesty from becoming law.”

“He’s welcome to oppose these common-sense policies and vote against Senator Sessions’s nomination, but what is so unique about those views to require his extraordinary testimony? Nothing,” Cotton wrote.

“This hearing simply offers a platform for his presidential aspirations. Senator Booker is better than that, and he knows better.”

Booker said Monday night he doesn’t “take the decision lightly” to speak out against his fellow senator, but he thinks Sessions’s positions on myriad of issues are “deeply troubling.”

“Senator Sessions’ decades-long record is concerning in a number of ways,” Booker said.

“The Attorney General is responsible for ensuring the fair administration of justice, and based on his record, I lack confidence that Senator Sessions can honor this duty.” 

Booker will be the first sitting senator to testify against a colleague during a Cabinet confirmation hearing.