Thread by @JewhadiTM

Because he’s Spartacus!!

Nobody 'tougher than me': ⁦@CoryBooker⁩ pitches 2020 'unity' message nbcnews.com/politics/2020-…

"I’ve written legislation with these folks. But I want to tell you some things unique about me so you just know: I had to run something.”

”And it wasn’t just something — it was a very challenged city. I had to manage it through the worst economic crisis of our lifetime. I had to stand in the saddle and make difficult, difficult decisions” said Spartacus.

The Ugly Truth About Cory Booker, New Jersey’s Golden Boy thedailybeast.com/the-ugly-truth…

“Booker is friends with Oprah and Spike Lee. He saves the helpless from burning buildings and puppies from untimely deaths. He shovels residents out of their driveways when it snows and tackles muggers with the graceful force of a former All-American tight end.”

“And for the past year (2014), Booker has been in Washington, posting selfies with his fellow federal lawmakers and vowing to reform the criminal-justice system.”

“For all anyone knows, Booker is out on the turnpike right now stopping two semi-trucks from colliding with each other through the sheer power of his charisma.”

“The alleged FBI and U.S. Attorney investigations into the Newark Watershed may have something to do with that.”

“Months after he first entered the Senate, the NJ comptroller alleged that under Booker’s watch—or, likely, because he was not watching—corruption ran rampant at a publicly funded water-treatment and reservoir-management agency, where Booker’s former law partner was counsel.”

”And speaking of his former law career: Despite having resigned from his law firm once entering the mayor’s office, Booker received annual payments until 2011, during which time the firm was profiting handsomely off of Brick City.”

“That would be the Brick City that Booker professed to love with the fire of a thousand suns, but did little to fundamentally change. Murder, violent crime, unemployment, and taxes all rose dramatically under his stewardship.”

From 2006 to 2011, Booker was still receiving annual payments, which totaled close to $70K, from his former law firm—Trenk, DiPasquale, Webster—from which he had resigned once elected mayor to avoid “the appearance of impropriety.”

Booker’s campaign spokeswoman, Silvia Alvarez, told me: “He was paid out by the firm as part of his separation agreement for work he performed before he became mayor.”

OK, sure, but while Booker was profiting from the firm, they were profiting from Newark: over $2 million in work for Newark’s Housing Authority, the Watershed Conservation Development Corporation, and a wastewater agency.

As mayor, he presided over and strengthened the Newark Watershed Conservation Development Corporation—a publicly funded entity that managed the city’s reservoirs and treated water for its residents. Pretty boring stuff.

But a state audit by the comptroller’s office found that the agency’s director, Linda Watkins-Brashear, was a donor and close ally of Booker’s, was using the Watershed like her own personal bank account—paying herself $1.98M over seven years, when her salary came to just $1.16M.

The also doled out millions in no-bid contracts to her friends and husband. Further, Booker’s former law partner, Elnardo Webster, had been acting as the Watershed’s counsel—and his firm had profited $212,318.