Schumer Broke with Netanyahu—Now How About Menendez?
Bob Menendez shouldn’t be in the Senate, and Chuck Schumer knows it.
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER shocked the world last week with his condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was unexpected, unusual, and—in some quarters—unwelcome.
But it was courageous. Because Schumer is the highest-ranking Jewish official in the nation, and a steadfast ally of Israel—and of Bibi himself—it was explosive. Despite the controversy it would invite, Schumer was compelled to tell the truth as he sees it.
Now he must call for Sen. Bob Menendez to resign. It’s nearly six months overdue.
Menendez and his wife Nadine are accused by federal prosecutors of accepting a Mercedes-Benz, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, and the now infamous gold bars in exchange for his use of his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the governments of Qatar and Egypt, to interfere in criminal cases, and to pressure regulators to protect a friend’s business. The Menendezes are both alleged to have obstructed justice by attempting to portray the bribes as loans.
The eighteen federal charges Menendez is facing is sadly nothing new—he is deeply corrupt. He was investigated in 2006 for allegedly helping “a nonprofit obtain millions of dollars in federal funding, then collect[ing] rent from it—in effect funneling the government dollars into his own pocket,” according to the Washington Post. In 2015, he was indicted for helping an ophthalmologist from Florida with a Medicare billing dispute who then gave him gifts and political donations. The case ended in a mistrial in 2017 and the Department of Justice dropped the charges.
When the new charges were announced in September—there have been superseding indictments since then—Schumer said that he was “disturbed” and “deeply disappointed” by the charges and that Menendez’s conduct was beneath the standards expected of U.S. senators.
But all Schumer asked Menendez to do was to step aside from chairing the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and even that only “temporarily.” Menendez had done this before—he relinquish his role as ranking member of the powerful committee in 2015, the day after his previous indictment was issued, resuming the role after the mistrial.
Other Democratic politicians returned contributions from Menendez and called on him to quit. Schumer remains the only member of the Democratic leadership in the Senate who has not. The governor of New Jersey, the state party chair, and leaders of the legislature all did so immediately. Nearly all the Democrats in the New Jersey delegation in the House have also called on him to resign, as has a majority of Menendez’s Democratic Senate colleagues, including his junior senator, Cory Booker.
A Monmouth University poll earlier this month showed 75 percent of New Jersey residents said their senator is probably guilty and 63 percent said he should resign. Among registered voters his approval was 16 percent.
Yet on March 6 Schumer refused—again—to say whether Menendez should resign.
In Trumpian fashion, Menendez, whose trial is scheduled to begin in May, is now considering running for re-election as an independent so he can use campaign funds to pay his legal bills, according to NBC News.
Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who back in September became the first senator of either party to call on Menendez to resign, is trolling the 70-year-old, and essentially shaming Schumer. He refers to the New Jerseyan as a “sleaze ball,” and “a senator for Egypt, not New Jersey.” He rightly asks why, if House Republicans expelled former Rep. George Santos, would Menendez be allowed to remain in the Senate. And he has questioned why Menendez is permitted to continue receiving classified briefings.
Seriously, WTF Chuck?
Schumer is protecting Menendez. Punchbowl reported last week that while continuing to resist calls for Menendez to step down, Schumer “re-appointed Menendez last month to the Senate’s National Security Working group, which gets its own staff and budget.”
Our government believes that Menendez is acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. He should not be involved—in any way—with a national security working group because he is a threat to national security.
Schumer’s break with Menendez is long overdue. It would be awkward and painful. It could rile donors and power brokers whom Schumer doesn’t want to upset. He would be abandoning the most successful and highest-ranking Latino in Congress. And Menendez himself could seek revenge—he has promised those “digging my political grave” that “I won’t forget you.”
But Schumer is out of excuses.
LIKE NETANYAHU WILL, Menendez would ignore Schumer. Yet Menendez’s defiance won’t absolve Schumer of his responsibility. This isn’t about what a corrupt Menendez will or will not do.
Unlike Republicans, who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to hold George Santos accountable and who are celebrating and renominating Donald Trump despite his four criminal indictments, Democrats are supposed to police their own. Menendez, a United States senator—not to mention Hunter Biden, President Biden’s own son—have been charged with crimes by a Democratic administration because there is evidence they committed them.
It is precisely because corruption and criminality have been normalized in the age of Trump that Democrats must remain stalwart defenders of the rule of law.
Schumer should show the leadership that his position requires and this perilous political moment demands.
