Convicted former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., took to X on Friday to accuse his party of weaponizing justice and unfairly ousting him from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in order to advance its political goals.
Menendez, 71, resigned from the Senate in 2024 after being sentenced on Jan. 29 to 11 years in prison for accepting bribes and favors from Egyptian and Qatari government-connected figures.
That was not Menendez’s first political scandal, however.
In 2015, he stepped down from his Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship when unrelated corruption and bribery charges were filed against him by the Department of Justice.
Now, Menendez is saying he was unfairly targeted by his own party when he lost his committee post.
“People talk about the Trump DOJ, but it was the Democrats who started weaponizing the Justice Dept.,” Menendez wrote on X on Friday.
“When, as the Chairman of the SFRC, I didn’t go along with [then-President Barack] Obama’s Iran deal, I was indicted, and the next day after being stripped of my position, Obama announced the Iran deal,” the former lawmaker wrote.
He then proceeded to make elaborate allegations that his ouster from the committee was part of a conspiracy to push the Iran nuclear deal.
“Obama told me that he could not have the Democratic chairman of the SFRC be against him,” he continued.
“By having me removed as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama removed my major opposition to his Iran deal. It was a bad deal for the U.S. and for our ally Israel.”
Menendez concluded by suggesting Democrats have no right to criticize the current administration for supposedly weaponizing the Department of Justice.
“So, when Democrats talk about weaponizing the Justice Dept., they should look into their own past actions. Obama was willing to use the Justice Department to pursue and preserve the legacy issue he felt would earn him the Nobel Prize he had received.”
Menendez is scheduled to report to federal prison on June 17.
