Pro-Israel group helps raise $500,000 for embattled anti-Trump Senator Robert Menendez

JTA

A leading pro-Israel political action committee says it has helped raise over $500,000 for U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, a pro-Israel leader in the Senate who is in an unexpectedly tight race.

NORPAC’s all-out push for Menendez, D-N.J., this election cycle is notable because Republicans currently lead in the Senate by just a 50-49 margin and Democrats hope to wrest control in November, as well as in the U.S. House of Representatives. President Donald Trump is warning supporters that a Democratic victory in either chamber could scuttle his agenda.

The most recent NORPAC fundraiser for Menendez was on Monday at $1,000 a plate.

Ben Chouake, NORPAC’s president, told JTA in a recent interview that the group’s backing for Menendez was typical of its support for incumbent lawmakers who are leaders in the pro-Israel cause. That discipline is traditional for pro-Israel fundraising, and the polarized times have not changed the approach, he said.

“We follow the rules,” no matter the party, he said. “It simplifies everything because it’s simple and straightforward. A guy like Bob Menendez gets huge support because he was a huge champion on our issues.”

As a political action committee, NORPAC may not give more than $10,000 to a candidate in an election season, but it may organize fundraisers where donors cut individual checks and hand them straight to the campaign. The maximum individual donation is $2,700.

Menendez bucked President Barack Obama as one of only four Senate Democrats to oppose the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Corporate executive Bob Hugin, the Republican challenger, is within single digits of Menendez in the polls in a typically Democrat state.

Menendez was tarred by a corruption charge, although he was acquitted earlier this year. NORPAC donors helped fund Menendez’s defense, Chouake said.

NORPAC has also in recent years held fundraisers for Republicans in tight House races: Dan Donovan in New York’s 11th District, comprising Staten Island, and Leonard Lance in Northern New Jersey’s 7th District.

NORPAC also held a fundraiser last week for Heidi Heitkamp, the Democratic senator from North Dakota who is facing a tight race in a state where Trump won handily in 2016. That meeting netted $25,000 for her, Chouake said.

“She’s an incumbent, she qualifies, it’s close, she needs it,” he said.

Chouake said the minority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — who is Jewish and also opposed the Iran deal — asked NORPAC to hold the fundraiser and was present.

Menendez: Putin Made A Great Investment In Trump And Today It’s Paying Off

realclearpolitics.com

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday that President Trump is doing the work Putin couldn’t achieve through Twitter troll campaigns. Menendez said on Morning Joe Putin “made a great investment” in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and it is “paying off for him” today at the NATO summit.

“It’s so upsetting to see that Putin, whose number one goal is to divide the West, and particularly in NATO, has an American president doing his work for him in a way that all of his cyber attacks and Twitter disinformation and trolls have been unable to achieve. Putin made a great investment in the 2016 presidential elections and it’s paying off for him in Brussels today,” Menendez told MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST: Bob, we were just talking about what our Secretary of Defense had said about NATO a year or so ago that it’s so important that if NATO didn’t exist we would have to create it. I take it from the vote yesterday in the United States Senate that is the unanimous agreement of at least all of the Democrats and every Republican except for two.

SEN. MENENDEZ: It’s the near-unanimous agreement except for two Republicans. And today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will mark up an even more significant legislation that speaks to the importance of the NATO alliance, an alliance that has brought us peace and prosperity for 73 years. It was there in the aftermath of World War II. It was there to win the Cold War. It was there on September 11th when the only time that NATO has invoked the mutual self-defense provision was on behalf of the United States after it was struck on that tragic day on September 11th. And for 17 years NATO allies have fought with us in Afghanistan, and other engagements across the globe. So this is a critical part of our security infrastructure and at the same time it has created prosperity that we have been part of enjoying in a significant market for United States products and services. So this is critical.

And it’s so upsetting to see that Putin, whose number one goal is to divide the West, and particularly in NATO, has an American president doing his work for him in a way that all of his cyber attacks and Twitter disinformation and trolls have been unable to achieve. Putin made a great investment in the 2016 presidential elections and it’s paying off for him in Brussels today.