U.S. Sens. Peter Welch, D-Vt. and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have joined a growing list of Democratic senators urging their colleague, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, to resign from his seat. The New Jersey Democrat and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee faces federal corruption charges over allegedly accepting bribes of cash and gold to aid in foreign business deals.
In a Monday evening statement, Welch said the allegations against Menendez “wholly compromised his capacity” to serve as a U.S. senator.
“I encourage Senator Menendez to resign,” he said.
On Tuesday afternoon, Sanders upped the ante, saying in a written statement that if Menendez refused to resign “a Senate Ethics Committee investigation must go forward immediately.”
Asked if he’d support a move in the Senate to expel or censure Menendez, Welch told VTDigger in an interview Tuesday afternoon, “I’ll wait to see where we go on this.”
Welch added that Menendez is “entitled to the presumption of innocence, but my view is he should defend himself on his own time.”
“The allegations against him are so specific and egregious — almost half a million dollars in cash in envelopes, in his pockets, in his home, gold bars,” Welch continued. “There’s no way he can be an effective senator for New Jersey or for the Senate.”
Welch and Sanders join an expanding list of senators calling for Menendez’s resignation, including U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who called on his fellow New Jersey Democrat to resign Tuesday afternoon.
Menendez has remained defiant in the face of his federal indictment and the resulting public outcry, insisting that the tens of thousands of dollars of cash stuffed in envelopes and clothing found by federal authorities in his home — as alleged in a federal indictment, which was unsealed on Friday — were his personal savings.
“This may seem old fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years,” he told reporters on Monday.
