Free Republic

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday declined to call on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign after his Democratic colleague was indicted on federal corruption and bribery charges. In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash, Durbin insisted that while the charges were “very serious,” Menendez is entitled to the presumption of innocence and that the decision of whether to resign must be made by Menendez and his constituents.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) on Saturday became the first Democratic senator to call for the resignation of colleague Bob Menendez (D-NJ). In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Fetterman wrote that while Menendez is "entitled to the presumption of innocence" in the federal corruption case against him, he "cannot continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations. "I hope he chooses an honorable exit and focuses on his trial," Fetterman added. Menendez was indicted Friday on charges including conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and...

This week, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted on federal bribery charges. Federal agents found more than $480,000 in cash, $100,000 in gold bars, and a key to a safe deposit box with $70,000 in it owned by his wife Nadine during a search of their home. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn) called for Menendez to resign, saying "a member of Congress who appears to have broken the law is someone who I believe should resign." Eric Holder, also demanded Menendez's resignation. "As both a leader in the Democratic Party, a former Attorney General, and given the seriousness of the charges,...

A legal obstacle that helped get New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez off the hook in his 2015 federal corruption case will factor into the new criminal charges he faces in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan Friday. The veteran Democrat, 69, was previously accused by New Jersey federal prosecutors of using his influence to help Florida eye doctor and pal Salomon Melgen in exchange for gifts and campaign contributions — but the case ended in a mistrial in 2017 when the jury deadlocked. New Jersey federal Judge William Walls then tossed seven of the 18 charges Menendez faced, finding that prosecutors...

Sen. Robert Menendez is no stranger to corruption investigations and indictments — and to eye-popping revelations about his private life. The New Jersey Democrat is facing charges of taking gold bars and bribes and stashing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash around his house in return for using his “power and influence” — including his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to benefit the Egyptian government and two local businessmen. He has denied the charges and called them a conspiracy by over-reaching prosecutors — a tactic which worked for him the last time he was...

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) has joined the small, but growing chorus of Democrats urging Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) to resign from the U.S Senate after the fellow New Jersey Democrat was indicted on federal bribery charges Friday morning. Murphy, in a statement reported by CBS News, branded the bombshell claims against Menendez “deeply disturbing,” adding that the claims “implicate national security and the integrity of our criminal justice system.”

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) will step aside from his chairmanship of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after his indictment on bribery charges, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Friday, as New Jersey’s governor called for the long-serving lawmaker’s resignation. “Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial,” Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement. “Senator Menendez has rightly decided to step down temporarily from his position as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee until the matter has been resolved.”...

Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is being charged with bribery offenses in a federal indictment out of the Southern District of New York, prosecutors announced Friday. "Today, I'm announcing that my office has obtained a three count indictment charging Senator Robert Menendez, his wife Nadine Menendez, and three New Jersey businessmen – Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes – for bribery offenses," U.S. Attorney Damien Williams said at a news conference late Friday morning.

A press event will be held today at 11:00 a.m. to announce the unsealing of an indictment charging Robert Menendez, U.S. Senator from New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, with bribery offenses in connection with their corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen.

The Qataris, and their ruling al-Thani family, are slavers, narcotics traffickers, and financiers of international terrorism. They also happen to be America’s closest ally under Obama. When analyzing the foreign policy interventions of the Obama administration with respect to the Middle East, it is hard to reconcile their respective approaches Libya (2011) and Iraq (2014). In 2011, Obama justified the military action to remove Muammar Gaddafi on the basis of anticipated genocide by the Gaddafi regime. Speaking at the National Defense University on March 28, 2011, Obama explained “I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves...

Dr. Salomon Melgen is being held in a Florida jail without bond on a second set of charges. The Florida ophthalmologist is one of three men involved in an August 2012 meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. That gathering is at the center of criminal charges of corruption brought by a New Jersey federal grand jury against Melgen and one of the other two key players, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ). The third key player, the man who actually organized that August 2012 meeting, is Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). He’s being protected by a selective Department...

Twice-elected Mendham Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner today announced her campaign to challenge Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, hoping to use her strong ties to the national GOP and former President Donald Trump to take out the scandal-tarred lawmaker. In a statement to Secrets, the mayor of Mendham Borough, which sits 40 miles from Manhattan, blasted Menendez’s “career of cronyism” and unbending support of President Joe Biden. “We need a fighter -- someone who believes hard working Americans matter, and who will stop Joe Biden’s failed economic policies,” she said. “Bob Menendez has failed New Jersey -- because he’s more interested in...

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) could face new corruption charges as prosecutors meet with lawyers to weigh a decision...A report earlier this summer found that another person caught up in the probe...has ties to the mob....Menendez's wife sold $400,000 in gold bars shortly before his office was facing a federal corruption probe.

Lawyers for Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) are expected to meet with federal prosecutors in the coming weeks as the Justice Department nears a decision on whether to charge the powerful lawmaker after a years-long corruption probe. The expected discussions between the 69-year-old’s legal team and prosecutors from the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office will provide Menendez an opportunity to make the case for why he shouldn’t be indicted, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. It’s unclear what potential counts could be leveled against the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman or whether his wife, 56-year-old Nadine Arslanian, has been implicated in...

Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ) held a meeting in his Washington, DC, office in 2018 with a New Jersey businessman who is at the center of a federal corruption probe into the senator, the Wall Street Journal reported. Southern District of New York prosecutors are investigating Menendez as part of a corruption probe, which reportedly stems from facts similar to a 2015 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against Menendez and Democrat donor Salomon Melgen for conspiracy and bribery. According to the Wall Street Journal: The meeting, which hasn’t been previously reported, came months before the businessman, Wael Hana, secured...

The Department of Justice is investigating whether expensive gifts were given to New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez and his wife, including a Mercedes-Benz, a luxury D.C. apartment, money and jewelry, sources familiar with the matter said. According to sources, investigators want to know if the gifts — which would be valued in the tens of thousands of dollars — came from the owner or associates of an Edgewater, N.J., business that won a controversial exclusive contract to perform Halal meat certification with the Egyptian government — even though U.S. Department of Agriculture officials complained that the firm had no previous...

A mayor in New Jersey has been subpoenaed as part of a criminal investigation into Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), NBC News reported Thursday. Nicholas Sacco, the longtime Democratic mayor of North Bergen, reportedly received a federal grand jury subpoena Wednesday. He was reelected Tuesday to a ninth term as mayor. While Menendez has been under investigation over a New Jersey meat company’s exclusive contract with the government of Egypt to certify halal exports, the newest subpoenas were reportedly unrelated to those allegations.

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NY) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he has concerns President Joe Biden could become the “asylum denier-in-chief” if he restates a family detention policy. Menendez said, “The best part of the administration’s immigration policy over the first two years is that they ended family detention, which proved to be a failure under both the Obama and Trump administrations as a way to deter individuals from coming. What we need is a comprehensive plan to deal with the border.”

On Wednesday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) called for the U.S. to take on China “in a much more robust way than we are” and responded to a question on whether he’s confident in assertions that the U.S. was able to jam the spy balloon from transmitting information to China by stating that he thinks the U.S. “worked to minimize any potential signatures that our sensitive sites had that could have been picked up” by China’s spy balloon and he believes “we succeeded largely in avoiding” the balloon capturing “incredible information.” Co-host Bianna Golodryga...

Following the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden appeared to catch one Democratic senator off guard as he made a comment to him. In the minutes following the speech, Biden made his way through Democratic lawmakers when he came across Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and he suddenly stopped to speak to Menendez. “Bob, I gotta talk to you about Cuba,” Biden said. A seemingly surprised Menendez simply replied, “Okay,” before Biden continued, adding, “I’m serious.” It’s unknown what exactly Biden intended to speak to Menendez about, but the New Jersey...