Pressure grows for Menendez censure and expulsion

A congressional watchdog group called on the Senate Ethics Committee on Thursday to expel Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who is facing a new wave of bribery allegations.

The Washington-based National Legal and Policy Center is the first to ask the panel to act on its authority to dump the senator, who was slapped by the panel in a 2018 fraud case that ended in a hung jury.

SENATE WORKING ON MULTIPLE FRONTS WHILE HOUSE REMAINS SPEAKERLESS

“He should be expelled from the Senate,” the ethics group said.

Menendez and his wife were indicted recently for bribery. A new charge added to the case claimed his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, and a third defendant conspired to use the senator as an agent of Egypt.

His wife and the other defendant pleaded not guilty this week. The senator said he would show he is innocent of the charges.

The initial indictment was a tale out of The Godfather and included charges of receiving gold bars and nearly $500,000 in cash bribes allegedly stuffed in the senator’s clothes.

In its letter, provided to Secrets and posted below, NLPC said the committee should open its own investigation and not defer to the courts and prosecutor in the new case.

“Sen. Menendez is not only a career politician but a career criminal,” the group’s president, Peter Flaherty, said.

SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS

NLPC counsel Paul Kamenar added, “The Ethics Committee should do its job and not wait until the criminal case is completed. The Ethics Committee should do the Senate a favor and recommend that he be expelled from the Senate. Menendez’s excuse for having $480,000 in cash stuffed in his clothes and closet because he was saving for a rainy day is laughable and insults the intelligence of his constituents.”

Menendez stepped down from his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after his arrest last month, but the group wants the ethics panel to force his resignation or at least censure him now. That is unlikely since it has indicated it will defer action until after the New York case is closed.