Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg said today that the burgeoning scandal surrounding U.S. Sen Bob Menendez is a "distraction" from what's important to Garden State residents right now.

"It's very distracting," Weinberg said while aboard the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce train to Washington, D.C.  "Certainly I haven't seen anything that makes anything true. When there are side issues like this they are distracting."

Weinberg stopped short of condemning Menendez but acknowledged that much of the "buzz" on the train surrounded the scandal and Menendez in which an anonymous tipster accused the senator of having sex with prostitutes, some of them underage, while traveling in the Dominican Republic.

The story picked up steam this week when FBI agents raided the office of the campaign contributor who allegedly flew Menendez to the Dominican Republic and provided the prostitutes.