Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.), whom federal prosecutors indicted last year on charges of acting as a foreign agent, attended a classified briefing with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday.
“Look to my past answers,” he told reporters who asked for a response to concerns about his attendance at the meeting, CNN’s Manu Raju said on X, formerly Twitter.
Menendez previously dismissed concerns about his attendance at a November classified briefing on Ukraine when Raju questioned him at the time.
“You know, Manu, I know you gotta make news,” Menendez said in November. “Bottom line is: I’m a United States senator. I have my security credentials, and an accusation is just that. It’s not proof of anything.”
Prosecutors charged Menendez in September with accepting lavish gifts—including gold bars—to help Egypt’s government and interfere with law enforcement proceedings into New Jersey businessmen. They charged him weeks later with acting as a foreign agent on behalf of Egypt, and, earlier this year, they accused him of helping a businessman in his state seek an investment from a company with ties to the Qatari government. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, vowing in an emotional Senate speech last week to fight them.
Many of Menendez’s Democratic colleagues called on him to resign after authorities handed down the charges. One of the first to do so was Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.), who called him a “senator for Egypt, not New Jersey” early last month. Fetterman had similar words for Menendez Thursday in response to his attendance at the briefing.
“I don’t know why anybody would take a meeting with that sleaze ball,” Fetterman said, according to Fox News’s Chad Pergram. “We should have chucked him. I don’t know why we haven’t chucked him. And I sure hope eventually we do chuck him.”
Original News Source – Washington Free Beacon
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