Durbin to Menendez, finally: Get out

Talk about leading from behind. By the time Senate Democrat leadership offered any kind of action against Robert “Gold Bar Bob” Menendez and his latest indictment on corruption charges, over half of their caucus had called for the senator from New Jersey to resign.

Second-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin finally added his voice to those calls, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer still can’t seem to figure it out. Durbin changed his position just as Menendez went into court for his formal arraignment:

Leaders in New Jersey, including the Governor and my Senate colleague Cory Booker, have made it clear that Sen. Menendez can no longer serve. He should step down.

— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) September 27, 2023

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, on Wednesday called on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign — joining with a majority of Senate Democrats who have now urged their colleague to step down in the wake of a federal indictment on bribery charges. …

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) so far has stood by Menendez. He has called Menendez “a dedicated public servant” and said he has the right to due process in the criminal justice system.

Shouldn’t Durbin and Schumer been the leaders on this question from the beginning? One would have thought that this kind of crisis would prompt a strategy meeting of the caucus to determine the best way to present a unified front on a response to the indictment. Instead, it appears that Schumer and Durbin circled wagons while their caucus decided to cut their own losses with Menendez, especially after Gold Bar Bob’s ludicrous explanation for hoarding cash and gold bars in his residence:

MENENDEZ: “For 30 years I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash…because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba!” pic.twitter.com/7vMQneevEA

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 25, 2023

That statement, along with an accusation that his fellow Democrats were rushing to push a Latino out of office, also prompted two angry ripostes from the lower chamber. House Democrat Pete Aguilar, the highest ranking Latino in leadership, demanded Menendez’ resignation and scoffed at his accusation of racial bias in the charges:

Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California — the current House Democratic Caucus chair and the highest-ranking Latino in the House — said as much on Wednesday morning as he joined calls for Menendez to resign.

“Latinos face barriers and discrimination across the board in so many categories, including in our justice system. This is not that,” said Aguilar. “We should not conflate the discrimination, and the issues, and the barriers that Latinos have in the justice system, and across industries too, to what we see there today.”

Congressional Hispanic Caucus member Veronica Escobar (D-TX) also rejected Menendez’ claim:

“He absolutely deserves the full extent of due process as anyone accused of a crime does, but I’m a big believer in preserving the integrity of our institution and making sure that we do everything possible not to lose the public’s trust,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said Tuesday night in a brief interview. “I do believe he should step down.”

“I join an overwhelming number of Senators and members of Congress in saying that Senator Menendez has dedicated himself to public service for a long time, and now he should choose an honorable exit for the good of the public,” U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, said in a statement. …

“I absolutely agree there’s bias in our system. I don’t see it in this case,” Escobar said.

The strategy of supporting Menendez didn’t take long to crumble, and it’s not difficult to see why either. Menendez plans to run for re-election in 2024, and his indictment on corruption and bribery charges will make that into a national problem for Democrats on the ballot across the country, especially in high-risk Senate races in red and purple states. Democrats are already defending many more seats than the GOP in this cycle, and Menendez will neutralize their strategy to attack the GOP on Donald Trump’s legal woes.

NBC News caught onto this problem today, after Politico first brought it up earlier in the week:

Menendez’s defiant posture is creating heartburn for some in his party, who have pointed to Trump’s historic four indictments as a central reason why voters should stick with Democrats and not send the ex-president back to the White House next year. And it means that the political headache will continue to dog Democrats in Washington in the months to come.

“It’s a horrible look for him, first and foremost. It’s a bad look for Democrats. It’s also a bad look for Congress and a bad look for elected officials across the country,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., a former middle school principal who’s in his second term. “The almost general consensus from people who do not consistently engage in our democracy is that ‘Politics is corrupt. Politicians don’t care about us. We vote them in office, and they do nothing for us.’”

“So a senator with gold bars in their home and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash — I’ve got 50 bucks, 50 bucks! It’s deplorable, man,” he added.

Asked to respond to Menendez refusing to quit, Bowman replied: “He’s the embodiment of a selfish elected official, one that cares more about his bottom line, power, money, relationships, than he does the people he serves, than he does this body here, than he does the country.”

True enough … so why hasn’t Chuck Schumer done anything about it? Well, technically a punt is doing ‘something,’ I suppose:

Schumer took a different tack at the leadership press conference Wednesday, emphasizing Menendez’s right to due process. Schumer had already said last week that Menendez “rightly decided” to step down as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as required by Senate Democrats’ bylaws.

Though Menendez has not yet said whether he will run for reelection, Schumer’s support could give him slightly more wiggle room with that decision-making.

That’s not leadership. It’s pusillanimity.