Just as an onslaught of Democratic senators have demanded indicted Bob Menendez hand in his resignation, the New Jersey senator has found one rare defender in Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.
The Arkansas senator expressed mistrust in the Department of Justice, which late last week charged Menendez with a slew of salacious crimes.
‘The charges against Senator Menendez are serious and troubling. At the same time, the Department of Justice has a troubling record of failure and corruption in cases against public figures, from Ted Stevens to Bob McDonnell to Donald Trump to Bob Menendez the last time around,’ Cotton wrote on X.
Some 18 Democratic senators have publicly called on Menendez to step down, even as he remained defiant and said he would not do so.
Menendez and his wife Nadine Arslanian were indicted Friday over allegedly accepting over $600,000 in bribes.
He’s denied the allegations but stepped way from his role as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee while the legal drama plays out.
In 2015 Menendez had been indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami on bribery and fraud charges, but a judge later declared a mistrial and the DOJ dropped all charges against Menendez in 2018.
Just as an onslaught of Democratic senators have demanded indicted Bob Menendez hand in his resignation, the New Jersey senator has found one rare defender in Republican Sen. Tom Cotton
Senator Bob Menendez proclaimed his innocence in a press conference in New Jersey
For Democrats, a Menendez resignation would spell little political trouble – the state’s liberal Gov. Phil Murphy would appoint another Democrat to the seat. Come 2024, someone without the political baggage would be on the ballot, making it a more likely win for Democrats.
But many Republicans have spent the past year railing against the Department of Justice, beginning with the raid of Mar-a-Lago and pressing on after accusations the department slow-walked an investigation into Hunter Biden.
Trump now faces two federal indictments, in addition to one out of Georgia and one out of New York.
Hard-right Republicans have called to ‘defund’ the DOJ and the FBI – and have insisted funding for special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump be stripped from appropriations bills.
Speaker McCarthy did an about-face on Tuesday, when asked if he thought Menendez should resign.
Asked the question on Saturday, the speaker said: ‘Yeah, very much so.’
Asked again on Tuesday, he told reporters: ‘I think George [Santos] could have his day in court, I think Menendez should have his day in court.’
‘His choice on what he wants to do,’ McCarthy said of Menendez.
The indictment claims the couple had an improper relationship with three New Jersey businessmen: Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, who allegedly paid the couple in exchange for Menendez to use his influence in Washington D.C. to their benefit.
A June 2022 raid on their home found ‘over $480,000 in cash – much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe,’ the indictment notes, adding Nadine had over $70,000 in a safe deposit box.
There were two one-kilogram gold bars and eleven one-ounce gold bars.
According to the indictment Menendez and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using the senator’s influence to protect and enrich the businessmen.
‘Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value,’ the indictment said.
It also charges the senator with providing ‘sensitive U.S. Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt.’
Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, lays out the evidence against Democrat U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, from New Jersey and his wife Nadine
Prosecutors said Hana, who is originally from Egypt, arranged dinners and meetings between Menendez and Egyptian officials in 2018.
The officials pressed Menendez on the status of U.S. military aid and Hana put Nadine Menendez on his company’s payroll, prosecutors said.
At the time Egypt was one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid, but the State Department had withheld $195 million and canceled an additional $65.7 million until the country could demonstrate improvements on human rights and democracy.
Menendez told Hana non-public information about the status of the aid, prosecutors said.
Menendez has denied the claims.
‘To those who have rushed to judgment, you have done so based on a limited set of facts framed by the prosecution to be as salacious as possible,’ he said.
‘Others have rushed to judgment because they see a political opportunity for themselves or those around them. All I humbly ask for in this moment, in my colleagues in Congress, the elected leaders and the advocates of New Jersey that I have worked with for years, as well as each person who calls New Jersey Home is to pause and allow for all of the facts to be presented.’
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