Sen. Bob Menendez, who has been charged with corruption, has endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries, to the delight of Republicans eager to question her integrity in the general election.
“To say there is a pattern of corruption with the Clintons and their allies would be the world’s biggest understatement,” Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short said Wednesday in response to the Menendez endorsement.
Menendez is a New Jersey Democrat and foreign policy leader, but he had to step down in April 2015 as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the Justice Department indicted him on corruption charges.
His endorsement comes as another key Clinton ally, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, is being investigated by the FBI over potential campaign finance charges and on the same day that the State Department inspector general confirmed that Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct all of her government business violated federal rules.
“Given that Hillary Clinton and her top political ally Terry McAuliffe are both facing FBI investigations, the endorsement of indicted Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez makes perfect sense,” Short jibed.
Menendez faces bribery charges as Justice Department officials allege that he traded political favors for campaign donations and gifts from a donor in Florida.
Menendez maintains his innocence and said he was “outraged” that DOJ brought any charges against him. “I’m gratified to live in a country where prosecutors’ mistakes can be corrected in courts and with juries,” he said when he was indicted. “No matter how long it takes to clear my good name, New Jersey is my home and I will continue to fight for it.”
The formal charges weakened the senator’s ability to oppose the Iran deal, but his endorsement of Clinton contained a hint of his opposition to that pact even as he argued that she would make a better commander in chief than Donald Trump.
“As someone who has worked closely with Hillary, I’ve seen her commitment to defending Israel’s national security interests first-hand,” Menendez wrote in a Politicker NJ op-ed published Wednesday morning.
“As secretary of state, she devised and fought to maintain sanctions that crippled Iran’s economy, and she negotiated a ceasefire between Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and Palestinian leaders at a critical moment in Gaza after increasing violence and rocket attacks on Israeli homes.”
He dismissed Trump as a lightweight. “His foreign policy views — to the extent he has them — are often invented on the spot,” Menendez wrote. “Unlike Donald Trump, Hillary will be a commander in chief who knows that when it comes to our security and that of our allies, some things are simply non-negotiable.”
New Jersey Democrats will cast their votes in a presidential primary on June 7. California’s primary takes place the same day and offers a far larger number of delegates to the victor, but Clinton would still like to avoid the embarrassment of another defeat to Bernie Sanders.
