Fetterman introduces resolution aimed at Menendez’s classified briefing access

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is taking a new step in his larger effort to pressure Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to resign.

Fetterman introduced a resolution on Thursday barring senators indicted for specific crimes from receiving classified briefings, serving on committees, or requesting government funds for international travel. The resolution did not mention Menendez, though it may as well have.

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The Pennsylvania senator included three offenses that would make a member eligible for the internal sanctions: acting as a foreign agent, compromising U.S. national security, and mishandling classified information. The two federal indictments against Menendez accuse him of accepting bribes for political favors and acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Egypt.

While Menendez sat out a classified briefing last month on Israel, he took part in an unrelated briefing on Wednesday covering the war in Ukraine. The embattled senator also pushed back on criticism for attending the briefing while under indictment.

AP

Menendez’s participation in Wednesday’s briefing was unacceptable to Fetterman, who told reporters on Thursday that “it’s important to make a statement and to force people to come down on: Is it appropriate for a man who’s been accused of acting as a foreign agent [to be] receiving [that] kind of classified briefings? It’s astonishing to me how anyone would be OK with that.”

Fetterman’s office did not provide a statement to media outlets on the resolution, but the senator’s opinions on the Menendez matter have been well documented.

Fetterman was the first senator to call for Menendez’s resignation after he and his wife were initially indicted on bribery charges in September. He went on to call on the Senate to expel the New Jersey senator after he was hit with additional charges alleging he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act through his work on behalf of the government of Egypt.

Federal prosecutors have accused Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, of illegally using the senator’s position as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to peddle influence with donors and benefit the Egyptian government in exchange for cash, gold bars, and other valuables.

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Menendez, who was required to relinquish his Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship after the September indictment, has dismissed both sets of charges as part of a larger “smear campaign” against him. He has vowed to fight the charges and has pleaded not guilty in both cases.

He decried the Fetterman resolution in a statement on Thursday as “a publicity stunt that disregards core constitutional principles of American democracy — due process, the presumption of innocence, and the rule of law.”