Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just the latest voice in a Democratic chorus calling for the New Jersey senator to leave office

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined the calls for Bob Menendez to resign, after the Democratic US senator from New Jersey was charged with accepting gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz and other gifts as bribes.

Speaking on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez said the charges against Menendez were “extremely serious” and he should step down.

A growing number of Democrats are calling for Menendez, who has represented New Jersey in the Senate since 2006, to resign.

Menendez is accused of using his position to aid Egypt’s authoritarian government and pressuring federal prosecutors to drop a case against a friend.

    • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Don’t worry, I found it.

      From Wikipedia:

      Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent Tweeden’s accusations to the Senate Ethics Committee for review, a decision supported by members of both parties, including Franken.

      Although Franken had asked to be allowed to appear before the Senate Ethics Committee to give his side of the story, on December 6 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told him he had to announce his resignation by five o’clock or he could be censured and stripped of committee assignments.

      Got to love due process and justice for all.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Fair enough. I thought he testified - so actually, Democrats are worse than I thought. They don’t care about The Process or ethics lol

        It’s… a lot of women though. And looking at the article:

        In September 2019, a ninth accuser told New York magazine that in 2006 Franken touched her buttock in a photo line at an event for Patty Murray. The unnamed woman, described as a “former staffer who served on Democratic campaigns and works at a large progressive organization”, said she had not come forward because she feared it would be held against her in her career.[155] In response, Franken told New York, “Two years ago, I would have sworn that I’d never done anything to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but it’s clear that I must have been doing something. As I’ve said before, I feel terrible that anyone came away from an interaction with me feeling bad.”[156]

        I can’t help but notice he doesn’t say say “these accusations are lies and the women are liars”. He couches everything he’s saying in “I would have sworn” and “I’m sorry you feel that way”. That’s such obvious bullshit he was trained to say by his lawyers lol

        • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I guess people do only what their lawyers tell them to say and not actually go through personal growth; learn that their actions may have negatively affected someone, learn from that experience and grow as a person to become better from what they were before.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            They accused him of inappropriate touching and kissing. Am I supposed to believe he didn’t know that would negatively affect people, but now he’s learned better?

            If those things actually happened I want him in prison. If they didn’t and those women are all liars, why does he avoid calling them out?

            • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Why does he avoid calling them out? IDK, I can’t speak for him or put words in his mouth and I’m not going too either. The cynic in me says he knows he is a high profile political figure that he has gotten on the bad side of dems and republicans and saw him a strong political contender. So strong that if you had ambitions of higher offices he could easily get in your way. But if a convenient opportunity arrived to oust him from office, and get him out of the way so be it, all the better.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Well if he did grope and kiss them, if he called them liars they could take him to court for it. Then, because the burden of proof is lower in civil court, he’d risk actually being found liable even if there isn’t enough evidence to convict him of a crime. So, if the allegations are true, then he has a lot of incentive to use this mealy mouthed legaleeze to keep it out of civil court.

                And then that swings the other direction! Why hasn’t he sued for defamation? The legal burden of proof is lower so he should be able to prove they’re lying. Yet he didn’t do that.

                We’ll probably never know for sure, but it really doesn’t look good for him.

                • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Franken did say, “I would have sworn that I’d never done anything to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but it’s clear that I must have been doing something.” That alone is reason enough not to call them liars. It’s clear that he admits he did something to make these women feel uncomfortable, but he himself at the time didn’t feel like there was any inappropriate actions at the time. Men are often oblivious to things they do that make women feel uncomfortable, trust me I know, been there before.

                  Now, for why he hasn’t sued them for defamation? The burden is wildly different for public figures vs. private figures in the U.S. The bar for defamation is higher and harder to prove for political figures, to the point it’s almost impossible for politicians to prove, so they don’t even bother with it. Who knows though, with this Supreme Court I guess that’s subject to change now tbh.

                  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    He was accused of groping and kissing. Unless he was raised in a literal sex cult there’s no fucking way he wouldn’t know that would make people uncomfortable.