After Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted for acting as a foreign agent of Egypt while he was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) called for his expulsion.
While they certainly could expell the Senator based on evidence against him, that evidence isn’t being presented yet. At the moment, we just have indictments, and given the nature of the evidence (intelligence sources) it probably won’t be revealed until it’s in court - if it’s revealed at all. As such, the Senate can only really go by the outcome of the court case, not the evidence directly. They couldn’t expell a Senator without telling the public why.
The issue with the Republicans doing this kind of thing is that their base will easily lap up any fictional reason they give as “evidence”. So while many people will see it as stupid, a significant and very vocal group might not.
While they certainly could expell the Senator based on evidence against him, that evidence isn’t being presented yet. At the moment, we just have indictments, and given the nature of the evidence (intelligence sources) it probably won’t be revealed until it’s in court - if it’s revealed at all. As such, the Senate can only really go by the outcome of the court case, not the evidence directly. They couldn’t expell a Senator without telling the public why.
The issue with the Republicans doing this kind of thing is that their base will easily lap up any fictional reason they give as “evidence”. So while many people will see it as stupid, a significant and very vocal group might not.