The O’Toole Chronicles: Moment of Truth, D.C. Style

Where is the last place you would expect two very different personalities from different political parties to be part of a public apology acknowledging prior mistakes?  The answer is a United States Senate Judiciary hearing.  But it happened, last week during the hearings for incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi as she was being questioned by United States Senator Cory Booker.

For those not watching the confirmation hearings, I offer some explanation. Pam Bondi has been nominated by incoming President Donald Trump to be the United States Attorney General, and is the former Attorney General for the State of Florida.  Senator Booker is now the senior member on the Judiciary Committee and was leading the background investigation on the nominee.  For those who know Senator Booker – and I have known him before he was a council member and mayor of Newark – understand that he is wickedly intelligent and has oratory skills that few can match. Senator Booker has served as our Senator for twelve years and is considered a contender for the 2028 Presidential Election. One of his greatest achievements is his ability to work in a bi-partisan manner. Senator Booker is wildly popular and has astonishing name recognition.

Let’s get to the point of the column. During the committee hearing, Senator Booker stopped the committee and nation in its tracks when he did something revolutionary – he admitted that he made a monumental mistake, and went on at great length, to explain that mistake and how he was proven wrong. Someone should notify the Smithsonian because this Washington rarity needs to be preserved for time immemorial. To properly deliver this point and not to short-change anyone, I include the actual transcript of the moment.

Senator Corey Booker’s Statements regarding Former New Jersey United States Attorney Craig Carpenito during Confirmation Hearing of Attorney General Nominee Pamela Jo Bondi
January 15, 2025

I hope that should you be confirmed, you understand there is an urgency in not just demonstrating that action through your independence but beginning to heal this country’s lack of faith and shaken faith in that independence in the U.S. Constitution.  History may not long remember what any of us individually do here, but for the sake of our democracy, what you do to restore and repair the American faith – whether they be Democrats, Independents, or Republicans – is vital.

I want to switch here to say publicly that when Donald Trump appointed Craig Carpenito as the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, it was over the objections of myself and then Senator Menendez.  I was wrong in my anticipation that he would not do good things in our state.  He partnered with local leaders like those in Newark, New Jersey to dramatically drive down crime.  He was good for the safety of the city in which I live and the one that I led.  Part of his strategy was to focus his resources on the most violent criminals.  But that also meant that he used something that you know of called prosecutorial discretion.  His strategies aligned with that of local leaders and was able to create historic drops in our murder rate. 

You know through your experience, and you’re intimately familiar that enforcement decisions prosecutors must make every day – which charge to bring, which plea deal to offer, or what sentencing recommendation to make – it’s very important that local prosecutors understand that, given this enormous discretion…. 

For those who do not know the history behind Senator Booker’s comment, let’s take a look back.  It is no secret that there has been acrimony between the two major political parties nationally during the Trump and Biden administrations.  When it came time for President Trump to make his nominations in blue states in 2016, New Jersey was no exception.  As a result, as Senator Booker noted, New Jersey’s blue slips on President Trump’s nominations were not returned during his administration.  Instead, our federal district court had to step in and unanimously selected Craig Carpenito to be our US Attorney in 2018, a role in which he served until January 2021.  As I noted in a prior column, something very special resulted in New Jersey.  On Wednesday, our Senior Senator proudly agreed.

For those who do not know Craig, who is currently a partner at King & Spalding’s highly-regarded Special Matters & Government Investigations practice, he is Jersey through and through.  He attended Rider University and Seton Hall University School of Law.  He served as an Assistant United States Attorney under Governor Christie early in his career and has remained engaged in our community throughout his career.  Having spent most of his adult life going to school and working in Newark, he has a deep love of the city.

When Craig was appointed US Attorney, he did not hold a grudge over our two democrat senators declining to return his blue slips.  To the contrary, Craig knew it would take a bipartisan effort to successfully execute his duties to New Jersey’s citizens, and he immediately set out to work with folks on both sides of the political aisle to accomplish what our state needed.  He identified quality-of-life issues for New Jersey citizens as his highest priority.  He was determined to address the scourge of opioids and other illegal drugs.  He was going to get guns off the streets and protect lives in our inner cities, where violence was growing.

Recognizing that this was not a mission that could be accomplished alone, Craig set out to create relationships with local law enforcement in our most vulnerable cities – Newark, Camden, Trenton, Jersey City and Paterson.   The first person he met with was New Jersey law enforcement legend, Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose, an appointee of Democrat Mayor Ras Baraka.  If you have heard Craig speak, you would know that he credits Director Ambrose with opening his eyes as to what it would take to make a real impact.  And it was going to take a lot of honesty and cooperation between his office, its federal law enforcement partners, and state and local officials.  An unprecedented union was formed.  State and local.  Republican and Democrat.  US Attorney Carpenito, Director Ambrose, Essex County Prosecutor Ted Stephens, FBI SAC Greg Ehrie, DEA SAC Sue Gibson, and ATF SAC Charlie Patterson put together a team of dedicated and hard working lawyers and law enforcement personnel to build the Newark Violent Crime Initiative.  The US Attorney’s Office agreed to begin taking cases prior administrations declined for federal prosecutions.  Mayor Baraka and Director Ambrose committed resources to assist in the fight, for the first time ever assigning a special unit of intelligence officers to work directly out of the US Attorney’s Office under DOJ supervision.  Director Ambrose assigned a number of Task Force Officers to his federal agency partners.  Prosecutor Stephens committed a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney to work full-time on the VCI.

As Senator Booker recognized during the AG nominee’s hearing, the results were staggering.  In Carpenito and his team’s first year together, crime in Newark reached a 50-year low.  In its second year, Newark announced its lowest murder rate in 60 years. The Department of Justice immediately recognized how special it was.  Then Attorney General Barr selected the District of New Jersey for the William French Smith Award for Outstanding Contributions to Cooperative Law Enforcement – the only such award presented by the Attorney General that year. At the same time, Mayor Baraka  issued a proclamation recognizing Outstanding Achievements in Violent Crime Reduction in the City of Newark to John Gay and Mary Toscano from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for their leadership of the Newark VCI.

The spirit of collaboration in Newark was so infectious during the first Trump administration that Attorney General Barr even invited Mayor Baraka to the DOJ Attorney General’s Award Ceremony at US Attorney Carpenito’s request.  In his opening remarks, AG Barr called out Mayor Baraka as his esteemed guest and thanked him for his collaboration.  Later, when Carpenito resigned from his post, Mayor Baraka issued the first ever proclamation by the City of Newark recognizing the contributions of a U.S. Attorney to the City.  Indeed, something special happened in New Jersey during the first Trump administration and we as citizens of NJ all benefitted.

But perhaps even more special, on January 15 during AG nominee Bondi’s hearing a sitting U.S. Senator put his politics aside and spoke his truth – that he made a mistake by assuming an appointee of another party could not put politics aside and put his state first.  Kudos to my friend Senator Booker for being an example for all of us last week.  Let’s all learn a lesson here and do the same.

From the O’Toole Chronicles Archives:  A Tribute to Craig Carpenito