Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
Kelley Paul, the wife of U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), called on U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) to condemn politically motivated violence and the privacy violations endured by some members of the Senate.
Booker who is discussed as a potential presidential candidate in 2020 encouraged activists at the National Conference on Ending Homelessness in July to “get up in the face of some congresspeople.”
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In an open letter published at CNN, Mrs. Paul discussed the violence and threats the Paul family has faced over the last eighteen months and called on Booker to retract his comments:
It’s nine o’clock at night, and as I watch out the window, a sheriff’s car slowly drives past my home. I am grateful that they have offered to do extra patrols, as someone just posted our home address, and Rand’s cell number, on the internet — all part of a broader effort to intimidate and threaten Republican members of Congress and their families. I now keep a loaded gun by my bed. Our security systems have had to be expanded. I have never felt this way in my life.
In the last 18 months, our family has experienced violence and threats of violence at a horrifying level. I will never forget the morning of the shooting at the congressional baseball practice, the pure relief and gratitude that flooded me when I realized that Rand was okay
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Earlier this week, Rand was besieged in the airport by activists “getting up in his face,” as you, Senator Booker, encouraged them to do a few months ago. Preventing someone from moving forward, thrusting your middle finger in their face, screaming vitriol — is this the way to express concern or enact change? Or does it only incite unstable people to violence, making them feel that assaulting a person is somehow politically justifiable?
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also recently experienced protestors “getting up in his face” when he and his wife Heidi were driven from a DC area restaurant.