Senate leaders are holding silent on whether they\u2019d move to expel disgraced New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat, in the wake of the House\u2019s recent expulsion.<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital asked the offices of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., if the senators would support expelling Menendez in the wake of the removal of now-former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y.<\/p>\n
Menendez is facing federal bribery charges that were announced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier this year. Santos, who is facing criminal charges in his own case, was expelled from the House on Friday, weeks after a damning ethics committee report.<\/p>\n
Only McConnell\u2019s office responded to Fox News Digital, pointing to the minority leader\u2019s comments to the press leaving action against Menendez up to the Democrats.<\/p>\n
The offices of Schumer, Durbin and Thune did not respond to Fox News Digital\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Thune appeared behind McConnell at the press conference earlier this week.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m glad he\u2019s not a Republican,\u2019 McConnell said, repeating his previous comments. \u2018This is an internal problem with the majority.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018[Menendez] obviously has some external problems, and I\u2019ll leave it up to the majority leader to decide how to deal with him,\u2019 McConnell said.<\/p>\n
Menendez is facing calls to resign amid criminal bribery charges levied by the DOJ earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Several gold bars discovered by federal agents in the senator\u2019s residence as part of a high-profile bribery investigation can be traced to a violent robbery a decade ago, it was reported this week.<\/p>\n
According to a sprawling indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in September, Menendez and his wife allegedly played a role in a years-long bribery scheme that involved the Egyptian government and local businessmen, including Fred Daibes, a wealthy New Jersey real estate developer. Prosecutors revealed they retrieved multiple gold bars from Menendez\u2019s home that were allegedly used as payment in the scheme.<\/p>\n
At least four of the gold bars discovered by investigators can be linked to Daibes, both because of their unique engraved serial numbers and thanks to court documents related to a 2013 robbery which Daibes was a victim of, an NBC New York investigation revealed Monday. In November 2013, four assailants beat and robbed Daibes at gunpoint in his Edgewater, New Jersey, apartment, stealing 22 gold bars, jewelry and cash.<\/p>\n
Photographs released by the Department of Justice in September showing the gold bars discovered at Menendez\u2019s home, for example, reveal one of the bars has a serial number of \u2018590005.\u2019 Daibes reported a gold bar with that same serial number stolen during the 2013 heist, NBC New York reported.<\/p>\n
And the federal indictment notes that the serial numbers on the gold bars indicate they had previously been possessed by Daibes.<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital\u2019s Thomas Catenacci contributed reporting.<\/p>\n\n
Senate leaders are holding silent on whether they\u2019d move to expel disgraced New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat, in the wake of the House\u2019s recent expulsion. Fox News Digital asked the offices of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Minority Whip John Thune, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}