Fetterman calls on full Senate to expel Menendez after new charge

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) on Thursday called on the full Senate to vote on a resolution to expel Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) from the chamber in the wake of new charges asserting the New Jersey senator has acted as a foreign agent on behalf of Egypt.

“Senator Menendez should not be a U.S. Senator. He should have been gone long ago. It is time for every one of my colleagues in the Senate to join me in expelling Senator Menendez,” he said in a statement. 

“We cannot have an alleged foreign agent in the United States Senate,” Fetterman added. “This is not a close call.” 

Fetterman called for Menendez’s expulsion after federal prosecutors filed a new charge alleging Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, conspired to act as an agent of Egypt while Menendez chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  

The superseding indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York points out that Menendez, as a public official, was prohibited from serving as a foreign agent.  

It also noted that between 2020 and 2022, Menendez made multiple requests for the Justice Department to investigate another person for failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  

The fourth count of the revised federal indictment against Menendez alleges that his co-defendants, including his wife and her business associate Wael “Will” Hana, “willfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed together and with each other to have a public officials, to wit, Robert Menendez, act as an agent of a foreign principal.” 

Fetterman told reporters last month he would vote to expel Menendez.  

“Whatever kinds of procedure that could bring about getting rid of him, I’m all for it, forcing it,” he said.  

“Honor, clearly, isn’t going to be the option to appeal to at this point,” he said, noting Menendez had been “defiant” in resisting calls for his resignation.  

More than half of the Senate Democratic caucus has called on Menendez to resign.

New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim (D), who has announced his plan to challenge Menendez in next year’s Democratic primary, earlier on Thursday called on the Senate to expel Menendez from the upper chamber. 

“As a former national security official who swore an oath to defend our Constitution, I cannot stand by as the Senator representing my family and my state has been accused of acting as a foreign agent,” Kim Thursday said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Given the severity of these charges, the US Senate should vote on expulsion.” 

Kim, who represents New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District, worked for the Pentagon, State Department and White House National Security Council before being elected to Congress in 2018.