Rubio: Menendez charges ‘nasty’ but colleagues shouldn’t decide fate

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Tuesday called the charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) “nasty,” while arguing a jury, not his Senate colleagues, should decide his fate. 

“The allegations against the Senior Senator from New Jersey are nasty & the evidence offered difficult to explain away,” Rubio wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “But in America guilt is decided by a jury, not politicians in fear of their party losing a Senate seat.”  

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York charged Menendez and his wife last week with bribery, fraud and extortion. The pair are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes from three businessmen in New Jersey in exchange for using the senator’s “power and influence” to benefit the business and Egypt. 

Prosecutors said the FBI discovered nearly $500,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes and hidden in clothing and closets, as well as more than $100,000 in gold at Menendez’s home in a raid last year. 

Rubio’s argument echoes that of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who said Tuesday the jury and voters should determine the New Jersey lawmaker’s fate. 

More than a dozen Democratic senators, several House Democrats and state leaders from New Jersey have called on Menendez to resign.

The embattled lawmaker has pushed back against the charges, telling reporters on Monday he has no plans to step down, arguing New Jersey Democrats are making a mistake by calling on him to resign and that he fully expects to remain in the Senate in the coming years. 

Menendez did step down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hours after the indictment was unveiled last Friday. 

This is the second time the embattled lawmaker has faced a federal indictment. The first ended in a mistrial in 2015.