Republicans play dumb over Jared Kushner while decrying Bob Menendez corruption

MILWAUKEE — Senate Republicans gathered at the Republican National Convention are predictably pressuring Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to resign his office after a federal jury found him guilty on 16 counts, including accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and acting as a foreign agent.

But those same Senate Republicans shrug off concerns about Jared Kushner — President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a former senior adviser — who many Democrats accuse of corruption involving his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, and its $2 billion business deal with the Saudi crown prince.

Kushner, unlike Menendez, has not been criminally charged and maintains he’s done nothing wrong.

“I agree with [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer that Menendez should resign,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Raw Story from the Fiserv Forum, where the Republican National Convention is being conducted. “And I’ve stayed quiet on this case up until this point, but now that the jury has returned a verdict — a jury of his peers have found him guilty of blatant bribery. The facts are appalling and I think Chuck Schumer is right that it’s time for him to resign.”

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“Some people say that Kushner’s corrupt too — with his $2 billion Saudi fund — what do you make of that?” Raw Story pressed.

Cruz’s face soured before he turned around and was swept away by his entourage, including three big, elbow throwing security guards.

Menendez has “gotta leave,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Raw Story after addressing delegates at the Republican National Convention Tuesday.

“Do you think the Senate should vote on booting him?” Raw Story asked.

“The best thing for him is to go ahead and leave,” Scott said.

“When it comes to corruption, do you remember the charges against Jared Kushner getting $2 billion from the Saudis for his fund?” Raw Story asked. “What do you make of those charges?”

“I don’t know much about it,” Scott said. “No, you know, it’s my understanding that for a lot of people these sovereign funds invest in a lot of different things. I don’t know enough about it.”

On the convention floor, the cheerful, celebratory mood of Republicans changed whenever Menedez was mentioned.

“At this point he’s a convicted felon,” Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) told Raw Story. “My message has been, let’s wait and see what happens, which I think is perfectly right. And now that he’s been convicted, I think he should go.”

For senators, the Menendez matter is personal. When one senator is found with gold bars and a free Mercedes-Benz, voters might suspect that other senators in the “world’s greatest deliberative body” are on the take, too.

Menendez has “gotten himself in this position. It’s sad for him and his family. It’s also sad for the institution,” Boozman said. “And that reflects on all of us and, so many people, that’s the view that they have of us. One of the big problems of governing this country is that Americans have lost faith in their institutions, and so this is just another blow to that.”

“What do you think, cause when it comes to corruption, some people point to Jared Kushner and that family thing — the $2 billion from the Saudis?” Raw Story pressed.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Boozman said. “I think just apples and oranges.”

Meanwhile, the matter of Trump’s own legal issues — particularly a Manhattan jury finding him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in service of keeping former porn actress Stormy Daniels quiet about a sexual affair before the 2016 election — are almost never mentioned here in Milwaukee.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in September. Far from asking Trump to step down from the Republican ticket, almost all Republican leaders have decried the Trump verdict as a miscarriage of justice and maintain Trump is innocent, particularly in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.