The National Review Is Suing Cory Booker To Find Out If One Of His Campaign Stories Is Real
The publication is suing to obtain public records relating to one of the stories Booker frequently tells on the campaign trail - one relating to the 2004 murder of Wazn Miller, who was killed in a case that remains unresolved.
Lowry said that National Review decided to file suit after weeks of stonewalling from "everyone involved" in obtaining the records, despite the fact that New Jersey is an open-records state.
The story of Miller is one Booker, who is running for Senate in New Jersey, often tells.
Here's a version published by The Star-Ledger, from 2004:
"Booker said he cradled Wazn and applied pressure to the wound to his stomach to stop the bleeding. He also kept checking the young man's pulse.
'The first time, I felt a weak pulse. The second time, I felt really strange sensations. Then there was no pulse at all,' Booker said.
Booker said he tried to talk to Wazn until the ambulance arrived.
'I said, 'Hold tight. Stay with me. You're going to be okay,' Booker recalled."
National Review's suit comes weeks after one of its reporters, Eliana Johnson, published a lengthy account that alleged a key character in one of Cory Booker's frequent campaign-trail stories - a drug dealer named T-Bone who once threatened Booker's life but then became his friend - is imaginary.
In response, the Booker campaign told Business Insider that National Review was simply trying to stir up trouble.
"This is a national, partisan, right-wing publication that's trying to make a fake controversy from 2008 into a fake controversy from today. That's essentially what it is," Booker campaign spokesman Kevin Griffis told Business Insider in an interview late Thursday."It's just not - it's old news."
The Booker campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.