New Jersey state Republicans want to launch independent probe of allegations in Menendez indictment

A group of more than a dozen state Senate Republicans in New Jersey is urging the upper chamber's president to permit investigatory and subpoena powers to the judiciary committee to probe whether officials in the New Jersey Office of Attorney General were compromised by Sen. Bob Menendez's federal bribery scheme, as the indictment alleges. 

The lawmakers, led by Republican leader Sen. Anthony Bucco on the judiciary committee, wrote that "while much attention has been paid to the allegations that Sen. Menendez pressured officials to make criminal cases ‘go away,’ a close reading of the indictment also raises serious concerns about whether officials at the New Jersey Office of Attorney General were in fact compromised by that pressure, potentially complicit in the senator’s alleged crimes, or operating under inadequate or nonexistent protocols for safeguarding against public corruption."

Lawmakers also want to hire a special counsel to launch the independent probe. 

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Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey arrives to the federal courthouse in New York, Sept. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

According to the federal indictment against Menendez, his wife and three New Jersey businessmen, Jose Uribe – one of the businessmen accused – bought a new Mercedes-Benz convertible worth over $60,000 for Menendez and his wife after she fatally struck and killed a pedestrian.

In exchange, the indictment alleges Menendez sought to interfere in the New Jersey attorney general’s investigation of Uribe for a previous charge alleging he obtained loans under false pretenses.

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Sen. Bob Menendez holds a press conference as he rejects accusations of corruption on Sept. 25, 2023. (Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The full state Senate would have to approve giving subpoena power to the judiciary committee, and New Jersey Senate President Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat, and the judiciary committee chairman, Brian Stack, also a Democrat, would have to approve the effort before it's sent to the Senate.

State Senate Republicans said they have "no desire or intention to interfere" with the federal investigation, but allegations involving the state's attorney general office "fall squarely within the jurisdiction of the New Jersey Legislature and its constitutional duty to investigate and enact any reforms that may prove necessary."

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Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez at the federal courthouse in New York, Sept. 27, 2023.

"Among other allegations, the indictment asserts that Sen. Menendez ‘sought to interfere in a New Jersey state criminal prosecution’ of an individual who was an associate of one of the businessmen accused of having paid bribes to the senator. Subsequently, the senator allegedly sought to interfere in the ‘state criminal investigation’ of a second individual, who was an employee and relative of that same businessman," lawmakers wrote. 

In June 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at Menendez and his wife's New Jersey home, where federal agents discovered cash, gold, a luxury convertible and home furnishings. 

Prosecutors say $480,000 in cash, much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets and a safe, was discovered in the home, as well as more than $70,000 in cash in Nadine's safe-deposit box. Some of the envelopes contained the fingerprints of businessman Fred Daibes, another figure in the alleged bribery scheme, or his driver, according to the indictment.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Scutari and Stack for comment. 

Jamie Joseph is a writer who covers politics. She leads Fox News Digital coverage of the Senate.