A matter of conviction?
Or a clever attempt to reinvent his image?
While most Democrats outside of New Jersey, concerned over their slim Senate majority, seem willing to let Bob Menendez skate (for now) as his second lifetime federal indictment plays out, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman continues to hammer his colleague from across the Delaware. On Thursday, Fetterman introduced a resolution which would bar Menendez from attending classified briefings and receiving classified information.
The resolution – click here – doesn’t specifically cite Menendez but Fetterman’s accompanying statement removed any possible ambiguity as to the resolution’s true target.
“When you find gold bars stuffed in a mattress, the jokes write themselves. But our national security isn’t funny, it’s often life or death,” Fetterman explained in a statement, adding that he believes the Senate “must act to protect national security and the institution itself.”
Until his indictment, Menendez served as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Troublingly, the Menendez indictment includes allegations that he accepted bribes from shadowy characters with questionable allegiances and acted as a de facto unregistered foreign agent for Egypt. Menendez was either chairman or ranking Democrat member of the committee for the entirety of the timeline covered by the federal indictment.
Menendez has refused to resign and seems inclined to run for reelection in 2024 despite losing establishment support. A Democrat field to replace him is growing which includes Congressman Andy Kim (D, NJ-03) and Phil Murphy’s wife Tammy.
Fetterman, for his part, is probably best known nationally for a series of public cognitive incidents in the wake of a neurological event that transpired during his 2022 campaign. Hammering Menendez is undoubtedly part of a public relations strategy to recast the far-Left, deep “blue” legislator as a bit of a maverick for the decidedly “purple” Keystone State electorate.
