Why Republicans in Congress aren’t condemning corrupt politicians

Last month, a federal grand jury indicted Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine on charges of bribery. Menendez allegedly provided sensitive information to the Egyptian government and assisted a businessman whose company certified halal meat imports. Following a text by his wife to an Egyptian contact — “Anytime you need anything you have my number and we will make everything happen” — Menendez expressed his “concern about the stalled negotiations” over a dam on the Nile River to State and Treasury Department officials.

In return, the couple allegedly received more than $500,000 in cash, “much of it stuffed in envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets and a safe deposit box”; gold bars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; a Mercedes-Benz convertible; payments toward a home mortgage; compensation for a “low-or-no-show” job; and “other items of value.” Menendez, denouncing a rush “to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat,” has pled not guilty.

31 Senate Democrats have called for Menendez’s resignation. Pointing to “shocking allegations of corruption and specific, disturbing details of wrongdoing,” Cory Booker, the other senator from New Jersey, declared that the faith and trust of citizens in his state, which are “essential to our ability to do our work and perform our duties … has been shaken to the core,” and urged Menendez to step down.

The response from congressional Republicans has been dramatically different.

No Republican senators have publicly called for Menendez’s resignation. Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz maintain Menendez deserves a fair trial, a claim no one disputes. While acknowledging the charges are “serious and troubling,” Sen. Tom Cotton declared Menendez “should be judged by jurors and New Jersey voters,” and pointed to the “troubling record of failure and corruption” of the Department of Justice “in cases of public figures.”

At first, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called the evidence in the indictment of Menendez “pretty black and white.” Asked if the senator should resign, McCarthy replied, “Yeah, very much so.” But a few days later, when a reporter wondered whether New York Rep. George Santos — who lied about the universities he attended; his volleyball prowess at Baruch College; employment at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs; Jewish lineage; his mother’s presence at the Twin Towers on 9/11; and has been indicted for fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds — should resign as well, McCarthy changed his tune. “I think George could have his day in court,” he said, “and I think Menendez could have his day in court.” Reminded of his previous statement about Menendez, McCarthy opined, “It could be his choice of what he wants to do, yes.”

Preserving the Republicans’ slim majority in the House of Representatives was a factor in the refusal of all but Sen. Mitt Romney and a dozen GOP congressmen and women to call for the resignation of Santos.

But the elephant in the room is the former president. As McCarthy discovered, demanding that Menendez and/or Santos step down requires explaining why the same logic doesn’t apply to Trump, who has been criminally indicted four times. An explanation neither McCarthy — who told his colleagues in January 2021 that Trump should resign, and then made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to ask forgiveness — nor the vast majority of Republicans want to make.

Nor is this the only recent example of Republicans’ obeisance to Trump.

Republican politicians have avoided commenting on the civil trial for Trump’s company, in which a judge has already found fraud that may result in the dissolution of his business empire. Or when the former president falsely accused Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of committing “a treasonous act … so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been death.” Republicans in the House, who censured Rep. Adam Schiff in June for “misleading” the American public during investigations of then-President Trump, have not taken any action against Rep. Paul Gosar for tweeting, “In a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.”

Do congressional Republicans really support law and order, with no one above the law; respect military leaders; and demand high ethical standards for government officials? Or do they sacrifice these principles to the personal and political interests of one man?

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) of “Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.”