text: Senator Cory Booker today got a lot of attention for testifying against Senate colleague and Trump AG nominee Jeff Sessions in what he called a matter of conscience but what more cynical observers felt was his kickoff to a 2020 presidential run. 
   
   Booker acknowledged at the outset today just how extraordinary his testimony is (more on that here), but said, “In the choice between standing with Senate norms or standing up for what my conscience tells me is best for our country, I will always choose conscience and country.” 
   
   Leading up to his testimony today, there were reports highlighting Booker’s praise of Sessions last year when the two senators came together to award the congressional gold medal to Selma marchers. He said at the time he felt “blessed and honored” working with Sessions on it. 
   
   Booker acknowledged this in his remarks today, but he maintained that he believes his colleague has shown “hostility” towards certain aspects of criminal justice that he believes are important for the U.S. attorney general to hold. 
   
   He said Sessions would not be a leader in tackling racial bias in police departments across the country at a time when America needs more “hope and healing.” 
   
   One of the biggest reactions to Booker’s speech circulating on Twitter was that he was using it to raise his national profile for a presidential run: 
   
   Cory Booker kicks off 2020 moves with testimony against Sessions: https://t.co/DkOoXeak8n pic.twitter.com/4tz391SjCy — The Hill (@thehill) January 11, 2017 
   
   Corrie Booker finishes Sessions testimony by handing out Booker2020 bumper stickers — Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) January 11, 2017 
   
   It was courteous of Cory Booker to begin and end his 2020 presidential campaign on the same day. — Ian Tuttle (@iptuttle) January 11, 2017 
   
   The "make America just again" theme Booker laid out in his testimony against Sessions will be a good animating theme for his 2020 campaign. — Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) January 11, 2017 
   
   Cory Booker begins his Booker for President 2020 campaign today. #SessionsHearing — Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) January 11, 2017 
   
   Sen. Booker just declared he's running in 2020 by smearing Sen. Sessions. Stay classy, liberals. — Brent Bozell (@BrentBozell) January 11, 2017 
   
   And one of Booker and Sessions’ Senate colleagues weighed in with this: 
   
   .@CoryBooker attacks on Jeff Sessions are so far-fetched I half-expected his make-believe friend T-Bone to be next witness. — Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 11, 2017 
   
   (Senator Cotton is referring to this controversy Booker got into a few years ago.) 
   
   Watch above, via CNN. 
   
   [image via screengrab] 
   
   — — 
   
   Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac 
   
   Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| Washington (CNN) New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker gave an impassioned and unprecedented plea to the Senate on Wednesday to vote against Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general and his fellow senator, Jeff Sessions. 
   
   Booker, civil rights legend Georgia Rep. John Lewis and Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Cedric Richmond each delivered emotional testimony that Sessions' record on civil rights disqualifies him from serving atop the Justice Department under President-elect Trump. 
   
   "The arc of the moral universe does not just naturally curve toward justice, we must bend it," Booker said. "America needs an attorney general who is resolute and determined to bend the arc. Sen. Sessions record does not speak to that desire, intention or will." 
   
   Booker became the first sitting senator to testify against a fellow sitting senator at a confirmation hearing for a Cabinet position. His panel with other lawmakers and supporters of Sessions was added to the hearings at the request of the top Democrat on the committee, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, though Democrats criticized Chairman Chuck Grassley for scheduling the members of Congress at the end of all proceedings. 
   
   The testimony from Booker, Lewis and Richmond against Sessions was the emotional finale of two days of hearings that returned repeatedly to the issue of race relations and civil rights in the United States. 
   
   Both Sessions' supporters and detractors were at times passionate in their position. Sessions and his backers defended his record as the victim of character assassination, saying that the events of his unsuccessful 1986 confirmation hearing to be a federal judge were being unfairly misconstrued 30 years later to malign a man with a record of fighting for civil rights. 
   
   The Democrats and civil rights activists who testified, however, said that the record from the '80s not only stood today, but that Sessions has shown a pattern of disregard for the at-risk members of society throughout his time in the Senate. 
   
   Democrats failed to land any knockout blows on Sessions during the hearing, with the Republicans on the committee unanimously coming to his defense as a fair enforcer of the law. The came closest when Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken questioned Sessions on exaggerating his civil rights record in past statements and his Senate questionnaire. 
   
   But the committee also treated Sessions with respect and warmness as a fellow colleague, a fact noted by his former staffer on the Judiciary Committee, William Smith. 
   
   "Members of this committee know Sen. Sessions ... is fair and honest," Smith said. "After 20 years of knowing Sen. Sessions, I have not seen the slightest evidence of racism because it does not exist. I know a racist when I see one, and I have seen more than one. Sen. Sessions is not one." 
   
   Sessions will likely be confirmed by the GOP majority Senate. 
   
   Booker, Lewis give emotional testimony 
   
   Booker's decision to testify has thrust him -- already a fixture on lists of potential 2020 presidential candidates -- into the limelight. 
   
   Booker said his "conscience" and "country" motivated him to speak out against his fellow senator, even though he acknowledged he has enjoyed "collegiality" with Sessions, working on a bill to give the Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights marchers. 
   
   "Yeah, I've been criticized, but if you're not being criticized in America, you're probably not doing a lot of good things," Booker said after the hearing. 
   
   The panel focused significantly on the issue of "law and order," which Sessions himself touted as part of his tough-on-crime pitch to be attorney general. While his supporters praised Sessions for being a "law and order" candidate, his critics say that "law and order" is more than law enforcement -- and Lewis spoke about how "law and order" was used to justify oppression when he grew up in the Jim Crow South. 
   
   "Law and order without justice is unobtainable," Booker said. "They are inextricably tied together. If there is no justice, there is no peace." 
   
   Booker said Sessions would uphold the responsibility of the Justice Department in pursuing "civil rights, equal rights, and justice for all of our citizens." 
   
   "In many times in his career, he has demonstrated a hostility toward these convictions," Booker said. 
   
   Lewis also testified against Sessions, citing his experience and history of the civil rights movement. 
   
   "It doesn't matter how Sen. Sessions may smile, how friendly he may be, how he may speak to you, but we need someone who's going to stand up, speak up and speak out for the people who need help, for people who have been discriminated against," Lewis said. 
   
   JUST WATCHED Pundit, former Sessions staffer clash on race Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Pundit, former Sessions staffer clash on race 02:10 
   
   "We all live in the same house -- the American house. We need someone as attorney general who is going to look out for all of us and not just for some of us," he added. 
   
   Richmond said the Congressional Black Caucus also opposed the nomination, and added his objection to the fact that he, Lewis and Booker were not given the courtesy of testifying earlier in the proceedings. 
   
   "To have a senator, a House member and a living civil rights legend testify at the end of all of this is the equivalent of being made to go to the back of the bus," Richmond said. 
   
   Defending Sessions 
   
   Sessions allies who have previously worked with him testified on his behalf, saying the media portrayal of Sessions during the hearing doesn't match their experience. 
   
   "One of the things I can say about Jeff is that he's always been the same person that I've known," said Willie Huntley, a former assistant United States attorney in Alabama. "He's always been available for me and always been there when I needed him. At no point in the time that I've known Jeff has he demonstrated any racial insensitivity." 
   
   South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham also asked the president of the NAACP about the racial equality organization's scorecard, reading aloud the rankings each member of the panel had received. Every Republican had 11% to 29%, while every Democrat save one had 100% -- and the exception got a 96% rating. 
   
   "You're picking things that conservative Republicans don't agree with you on and liberal Democrats do. I hope that doesn't make us all racist, and all of them are perfect," Graham said in a display of frustration. "Maybe we're all wrong and maybe we're all right. I doubt if it's that way." ||||| Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., delivered unprecedented testimony today against the nomination of his Senate colleague, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for attorney general, saying that his "conscience" outweighed Senate tradition. 
   
   “I know that some of my many colleagues aren’t happy that I am breaking with Senate tradition to testify on the nomination of one of my colleagues, but I believe, like perhaps all of my colleagues in the Senate, that in the choice of standing with Senate norms or standing up for what my conscience tells me is best for our country, I will always choose my conscious and country," Booker said. 
   
   Booker said he believed President-elect Trump's pick for attorney general has "not demonstrated a commitment" to a central prerequisite of the job -- to demand equal rights and justice for all citizens. 
   
   "In fact, at numerous times in his career, he has demonstrated a hostility towards these convictions," Booker said of Sessions. 
   
   The New Jersey senator said he was "deeply motivated" by the many issues the next attorney general will influence, especially the crisis of mass incarceration. 
   
   Booker said that while he and Sessions disagreed on the issues, they have always exercised a "collegiality and a mutual respect." In fact, Booker spoke of legislation that he and Sessions co-sponsored to award the Congressional Medal of Honor to the "foot soldiers who marched at Selma." 
   
   Andrew Harnik/AP Photo 
   
   It was an emotional plea in which Booker said that those marchers in Selma inspired him as a young lawyer to seek justice for all in New Jersey, and begin representing black families looking to integrate white neighborhoods who were turned away and denied housing. 
   
   "I am literally sitting here because of people, marchers in Alabama," he said. 
   
   Booker said that his colleague's record "indicates that he won't" pursue justice for women, defend the equal rights of gay and lesbian and transgender Americans, defend voting rights or defend the rights of immigrants as attorney general. 
   
   This was the first time a sitting senator testified against another sitting senator in a cabinet confirmation hearing, according to Booker's office, which contacted the Senate Historian's office for the records. 
   
   Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, who helped lead the 1965 march in Selma, and Cedric Richmond, D-Louisiana, leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, also expressed concern about Sessions' nomination at today's hearing. 
   
   "It doesn’t matter how Senator Sessions may smile, how friendly he may be, how he may speak to you, but we need someone who is going to stand up, speak up and speak out. For the people that need help for people who have been discriminated against," Lewis said. 
   
   ABC News 
   
   He told the senators that after decades of progress, many Americans are concerned that some leaders want to return to the "dark past, and the power of the law will be used to deny freedoms protected by the Constitution." 
   
   "We need someone as attorney general who is going to look out for all of us and not just for some of us," Lewis said. 
   
   However, others on today's panel came to the Alabama senator's defense. 
   
   "A lot has been said about Senator Sessions' character. We have seen people who have never met Senator Sessions claim to know him and know his heart. We have seen members of this body and members of the House of Representatives just now who have worked with Senator Sessions and praise him for his work and now attack him. This should not be," said Sessions' former staffer William Smith. 
   
   Smith, the former Chief Counsel on the Administrative Oversight and the Courts Subcommittee, said that his former boss had fought for civil rights and against the Ku Klux Klan and fought for people regardless of the color of their skin. 
   
   "I'm not testifying to someone who just met him yesterday. I've known his family, I've dined at his house. We've eaten Johnny Rockets burgers together," Smith added. "I've been in every political situation with him. Senator Sessions is unquestionably qualified for the job for which he has been nominated. He is a good Christian man, and a good family man. He is a man who has dedicated his public life to service." 
   
   ABC News' Hayley Walker and Ben Siegel contributed to this report.
target: – Jeff Sessions' two-day confirmation hearing came to a close Wednesday with something that's never happened before: a current senator testifying against another current senator up for a Cabinet position. CNN reports Sen. Cory Booker, despite having worked well with the attorney general nominee in the past, said his "conscience" forced him to take the unprecedented step. "The arc of the moral universe does not just naturally curve toward justice, we must bend it," Booker testified. "America needs an attorney general who is resolute and determined to bend the arc." The senator from New Jersey said Sessions has shown a lack of "commitment"—and has in fact shown "hostility"—toward supporting equal rights for all Americans, according to ABC News. During his five-minute testimony, Booker said he was worried Sessions wouldn't work to reduce mass incarceration, ensure equal rights for LGBT citizens, or protect the voting rights of immigrants. Mediaite reports he said he was also concerned Sessions wouldn't address racial bias in policing. Booker, who admitted his choice to testify wasn't a popular one among fellow senators, was joined by Rep. John Lewis and Rep. Cedric Richmond. Meanwhile, Mediaite states many are seeing Booker's first-of-its-kind testimony as a bid for attention ahead of a run for president in 2020. Supporters continued to deny all accusations of racism against Sessions, who's likely to be confirmed.