Booker Insists T-Bone Is Real, Says He Put Drug Dealers Up In His House While Mayor

In an interview with NJTV’s On The Record with Michael Aron aired yesterday, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, insisted that T-Bone is a real person and not a composite or archetype as has been previously reported.

The mayor said the Newark police told him there are currently five people in the city using the alias “T-Bone.”  He went on to say that he, as an attorney prior to entering public office, “and after I became mayor”  would hold meetings with drug dealers, “100’s of guys involved in the narcotics trade,” in his house, ” even putting them up with me.”

The Booker interview can be viewed here.  Aron starts the T-Bone questioning at the 9:15 mark.  Booker talks about his meetings and his hospitality for drug dealers, while mayor, at the 11:29 mark.

Booker said he was dealing with non-violent drug dealers.  Aron did not ask him how he knew they were non-violent drug dealers.

When MMM first reported the T-Bone controversy, we asked, Did Booker Fabricate A Drug Dealer Or Did He Harbor A Fugitive?  Last week, I argued that Booker’s “story telling” to make a point or to inspire action was not a big deal and was politically insignificant.

However, if Booker is telling the truth in his stories, as he insists he is, it is a big deal.  It seems to me that Booker is confessing to his own crimes of harboring fugitives and maybe even aiding and abetting.

A key part of the Booker/Holder/Obama anti-urban crime program is to reduce prison recidivism and reduce the number of incarcerated African-Americans being held for non-violent crimes.  That is a worthy goal.  But Booker seems to be arguing that drug dealing is a non-violent crime.  It seems that he ignored, rather than fight to change, the current laws regarding how to handle criminals peddling poison.

Booker seems to be confessing to taking the law into his own hands, both as an attorney before entering public office, and as a mayor sworn to uphold and enforce the law.  It seems that he was attempting to start an unauthorized rehabilitation program in his own house.

I wonder if any of the shooters of the 64 people murdered in Newark so far this year were one the “literally hundreds of guys” Booker met with off the books.

I wonder if the shooter of 16 year old NaQueese McCollum, who was killed on Saturday, ever stayed in Booker’s house.

Booker told Aron that the T-Bone controversy is a “right wing fabrication.”  To his credit, Aron called Booker on that lie, reminding the mayor that it was Rutgers Professor Dr. Clement A. Price, a friend of Booker’s and a member of President Obama’s transition team, who said that Booker told him that T-Bone was an archetype.  “Clement Price is wrong,” Booker said.

It doesn’t matter if any of the five people in Newark going by T-Bone are the man from Booker’s legend.  What matters is that Booker says he let the violent drug dealer go when he knew there were warrants for his arrest.   What matters is that Booker, in his own words, took the law into his own hands with “literally hundreds of guys involved in the narcotics trade” and put them up in his house.

What matters is that Booker says these stories are true and the criminals involved real.  The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office or the U.S. Attorney’s Office should investigate and take appropriate action.

Members of the mainstream media who Booker will talk to should question Booker about his apparent harboring of fugitives.  I’d ask him about it, but he feels insecure about talking to me.

 

 

Posted: September 16th, 2013 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Cory Booker, Crime, Crime and Punishment, Newark, News, NJ Media, Senate Special Election | Tags: Cory Booker, Crime, Michael Aron, Newark, NJTV, Special Senate Election, T-Bone, violence | 4 Comments »

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