There is, not surprisingly, a growing list of Democratic officials calling for Sen. Bob Menendez to resign, which seems like an inevitable reaction to the serious criminal charges the New Jersey senator is facing. But as The Hill reported, some Republican leaders are joining the same chorus.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) says Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ.) should resign after he was indicted on alleged federal bribery charges. “Yeah, very much so,” McCarthy said Saturday at the Capitol.
The California Republican also called the indictment against the Democratic senator “very damaging,” adding that what prosecutors presented “seems pretty black and white.”
I’m not generally inclined to agree with McCarthy, but so long as The Hill quoted him accurately, his position on Menendez seems entirely fair. His description of the indictment was accurate, and the House speaker’s suggestion that the senator step down in response to the bribery scandal was hardly outlandish. On the contrary, the GOP leader said effectively the same thing many Democrats have said.
What stood out for me as notable, however, was McCarthy’s evolving set of standards.
When Rep. George Santos’ multifaceted scandal broke late last year, McCarthy heard the calls for the New York Republican’s resignation. The House speaker also ignored them.
“You know why I’m standing by him? Because his constituents voted for him,” McCarthy said in January. “I believe in the rule of law,” the House speaker added. “A person’s innocent until proven guilty.”
Four months later, Santos was indicted by federal prosecutors and charged with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. If convicted, the GOP congressman potentially faces many years in prison.
But after Santos was charged — he pleaded not guilty and, like Menendez, he claims to have done nothing wrong — McCarthy again said his New York colleague should remain on Capitol Hill because his case would still “have to go to trial.”
In other words, the indictment wasn’t enough. Neither was the evidence of Santos being a prolific liar nor the scope of the investigations into his alleged wrongdoing. All that mattered to the House speaker was that Santos hadn’t been convicted of anything. That was in May. Now it’s September and McCarthy appears to have settled on an entirely different set of standards for an indicted Democratic senator. Menendez’s “constituents voted for him,” too, and Menendez is also “innocent until proven guilty.” So why would the House speaker call for the senator’s resignation but not the congressman’s? The answer, of course, is that standards and consistency aren’t the final motivators. As we’ve discussed, there’s no great mystery here: The House Republican majority is tiny, and if Santos were to resign in disgrace, the GOP’s advantage in the chamber would get a little smaller still. The House speaker, who’s already struggling mightily to pass routine bills, would almost certainly prefer not to have to worry about the lying congressman, but McCarthy also needs Santos’ vote. As a result, the House speaker is holding Menendez to one standard, and Santos to another.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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