Senior senator and criminal defendant: The strange twin identity of Bob Menendez

Bob Menendez is stranded between two different worlds: the courtroom and the Senate.

In the first one, he's a criminal defendant standing trial for grave bribery allegations and preparing to have his life’s intimate details spilled out in public — almost certainly ending his long career in Washington.

But back in the Capitol, he’s still a senior senator with nearly two decades of service under his belt, access to classified briefings and a front-row seat to private Democratic caucus meetings. In that second world, Menendez has become the Hill equivalent of a pariah since the Justice Department indicted him last fall, charging him with accepting bribes to influence policy for the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

“Bob’s done a lot of great work over the years, policy-wise,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said. “I just find it so disheartening.”

He may not be barred from those classified briefings, but he’s suffered in bigger ways that are clear to those familiar with the subtleties of Senate communication. The New Jersey Democrat is often iced out by colleagues on the floor, tangles regularly with his biggest intra-party critic, and has been pushed to resign by more than half the caucus.

Still, Menendez is hanging on in a narrowly divided Senate where his party holds one-seat majorities on committees. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly declined to push him to step down, and Democrats haven’t forced bigger consequences on him since Menendez gave up his Foreign Relations Committee gavel. He’s declined to rule out a surprise return to the campaign trail if his legal troubles ease up, though almost no one in politics expects a comeback.

For now, as much as Democrats might not like it, they need him — he’s essentially been a team player despite his ostracization, generally voting for President Joe Biden’s nominees and party legislation. Underscoring his point of leverage, there are probably some nominees Democrats can’t put on the Senate floor while Menendez is in court this month, given the party’s narrow 51-49 margin.

And while some fellow Democrats maintain sympathy for their erstwhile friend, party leaders are maintaining a notable degree of neutrality. Asked if there’s a plan for if Menendez is convicted, Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Democrats are “certainly not jumping ahead and taking over the role of the jury — let them decide.”

That attitude is a stark contrast with the House GOP push to expel former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) in the House after his first indictment, an effort that ultimately succeeded. Yet it's also clear that Menendez is facing a colder reception in the clubby Senate than ever before. During his last trial in 2017, both Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) served as character witnesses for him.

This time around, both suggested they would pass on doing the same — a sign of how much worse this round of legal peril is for Menendez.

Graham said he doesn’t have any plans to testify and that “I don’t know what I would talk about.” Booker similarly did not commit to testifying; the two New Jersey senators are close, and calling on Menendez to resign last year was an emotional endeavor for Booker.

For Democratic senators in particular, Menendez's absence in Washington this week while the trial continues is making it harder to avoid the glaring spectacle of a sitting senator being prosecuted by the same government he serves in. As Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the caucus’ no. 1 Menendez critic, put it: “It’s showtime."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that she and other caucus colleagues who’ve called on Menendez to resign "believe he shouldn't be here.”

“That's been months now," she added. "And it's been part of living with it every single day.”

Within a few weeks, a verdict could very well be handed down. Even if Menendez avoids conviction, he's unlikely to recover from the fallout; he’s missed the filing deadline as a Democrat, and while he's talked about running as an independent, he'd almost certainly lose if he did. Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) is running for his seat and has cleared the field of any serious challengers in the blue state.

Senate leaders studiously avoided the subject on Wednesday as the trial played out in New Jersey. Both Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to predict the consequences of a conviction, with McConnell wryly observing: “I’m really glad he’s not a Republican.”

Still, Republicans also lamented the sight of a sitting senator on trial — even if it could give them some talking points while former President Donald Trump’s own trial plays out one state away from Menendez's.

There is an inescapable bipartisan history of criminally charged members of Congress, although it’s certainly rare for things to reach Menendez’s level. He is accused of using his perch as a senator to benefit Egypt, Qatar and associates in New Jersey in exchange for bribes. His wife Nadine is also implicated in the alleged scheme. Menendez’s office did not respond to a request for comment but he’s denied the allegations.

“You don't like to see that for anybody around here or anybody generally,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee with Menendez. “But it'll play out the way it does. … The government has an obligation to prove their case. He deserves the right to put up his defense and poke holes.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said that “I 100 percent believe in his right to defend himself and his right to due process. I don’t want to presume that he’s guilty." He did acknowledge, however: “It doesn’t look good.”

Hawley is the only Senate Republican to have called on Menendez to step down, joining more than half of the Democratic caucus. If Menendez is convicted, North Dakota GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer said more Republicans could join the cause.

“But this is up to the people of New Jersey,” Cramer noted. “He works for them, not us.”

Some things have settled down for Menendez after he bowed out of the primary and at least tried to act like a normal senator. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who succeeded Menendez as Foreign Relations chair — the second time Cardin was elevated after a Menendez indictment — said the embattled New Jerseyan “has been absolutely focused” during committee work.

Cardin said he’s conspicuously left the subjects of classified briefings and access to committee material to the full Senate to decide on. After all, a functioning majority only works if all Democrats are working together: “I don't want to lose the one-vote margin we have on the committee. So it's up to the Senate and our caucus.”

But the lack of more grievous punishment on the Hill is a bit confounding for Fetterman, who quipped that his own penchant for hoodies “really activated a lot of my colleagues” more than Menendez’s alleged criminality.

“For God's sakes, how can he be getting classified briefs on the two nations that are at the center of the Gaza negotiations? It’s wild,” Fetterman said. “I don't know why more people didn't have a problem with that.”

By next year, importantly, Menendez will almost certainly not be a senator, whether it’s due to the trial or his failure to win reelection. So after months of tough questions for Democrats about their embattled colleague, one senator alluded to a possible silver lining element of the trial for the party: Getting the whole thing over with.

“It's now going to come to an end, one way or the other,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said.