Senator Chuck Grassley drew chuckles from an audience in Atlantic this (Monday) morning after he was asked about New Jersey Senator Cory Booker’s White House ambitions. A G-O-P senator on Grassley’s Judiciary Committee openly accused Booker, a Democrat, of using last week’s confirmation hearing for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee as a platform for a presidential campaign.

(as said) “A lot of my colleagues said so and I may have thought so, but I’m not going to say that stuff in committee,” Grassley says. “I mean, we’ve got enough problems without me talking.”

Grassley is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Booker is scheduled to speak at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual fall fundraising banquet on October 6th, further stoking speculation he’s plotting a run for president in 2020. Grassley says it was “appropriate” for Booker to quiz Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but Grassley accuses Booker of misleading the public about an email Kavanaugh wrote.

(as said) “The title of it ‘Racial Profiling,'” Grassley said. “Well, if you through the email, he’s not in favor of racial profiling, but that’s the way the questioning went, as if he was. Then on Wednesday, as those questions went on, Booker sent out to his email list, (saying) what he did to defend the position of the progressive. I don’t know if he raised a lot of money, but he was attempting to.”

Grassley met privately with members of the Southwest Iowa Planning Council) in Atlantic this (Monday) morning, then had a brief question-and-answer session with local media.

(W/thanks to Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson)