Politics

Menendez Denies Coordinating Benghazi Questions With Clinton Staff: ‘No One Wires My Questions’ [AUDIO]

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Kerry Picket Political Reporter
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WASHINGTON — New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez denied that he coordinated with Hillary Clinton and her team on which questions he would ask during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Benghazi, calling the claims “absurd.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Menendez told The Daily Caller Wednesday. “I don’t know what [Clinton’s team] said. No one wires my questions. Nobody has questioned my independence from this administration. I probably, as a Democrat, have been the toughest I’ve ever been on any administration — on this administration. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the critical questions that a chairman would ask at an opening of a hearing.”

Emails obtained by Fox News appear to show a top Clinton aide arranging which questions Menendez would ask during a Senate hearing on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

“We wired it that Menendez would provide an opportunity to address two topics we needed to debunk (her actions/whereabouts on 9/11, and these email from Chris Stevens about moving locations,)” Clinton senior media advisor Philippe Reines wrote to Chelsea Clinton the morning of the Jan. 23, 2013 hearing.

Menendez has been a vocal opponent of the Obama administration’s Iran deal, and has since stepped down as ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

He is currently facing a corruption indictment for allegedly using his position in Washington for a top donor of his, Dr. Salmon Melgen. Menendez’s attorneys want an appeals court to review the indictment.

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