Lieberman backing Menendez re-election

Joe Lieberman says he supports Bob Menendez for re-election to the United States Senate.

“It’s hard to answer on one foot as they say, but I know Bob — he’s a friend of mine — so maybe I’m biased,” said Lieberman, who served with Menendez in the Senate for seven years. “He’s an excellent senator, I guess I’ll say that. And I know people have concerns about the legal case, but the courts decided, and I just think based on his record in the Senate, he deserves re-election.”

The jury in Menendez’s corruption trial deadlocked, with 11 of 13 jurors voting to acquit him, and the judge presiding over the case declared a mistrial.

Menendez’s ethics issues are at the heart of his reelection campaign, and Republican candidate Bob Hugin has been airing ads on the issue since before winning the primary.

The 2000 Democratic nominee for vice president, Lieberman has a reputation for putting integrity ahead of politics.  In 1998, he denounced then-President Bill Clinton’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky matter on the floor of the Senate.

Menendez’s ethics issues are at the heart of his reelection campaign, and Republican candidate Bob Hugin has been airing ads on the issue since before winning the primary.

Lieberman may have more of a following among Republicans these days than Democrats.  He lost a 2006 Democratic primary for his Connecticut U.S. Senate seat and then won re-election as an independent.  In 2008, Republican John McCain mulled putting him on his ticket, and after the 2016 election, Donald Trump considered appointed Lieberman to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.