The Menendez Indictment (Updated)
Also: calls for his resignation.
Via NBC News: Bob Menendez’s indictment highlights: Gold bars and wads of cash.
Here are the lowlights.
Nearly half a million dollars in cash was found stuffed inside envelopes and stashed inside the pockets of clothing hanging in the closets of the Menendez’s home in Englewood Cliffs, including a big roll of bills in a jacket from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with Menendez’s name on it.
Fingerprints belonging to the driver of co-defendant Fred Daibes were found on at least one of the envelopes, as well as his DNA and his return address, prosecutors said. “Thank you,” Nadine Menendez texted Daibes around Jan. 24, 2022, according to the indictment. “Christmas in January.”
[…]
Two other co-defendants in the case — Jose Uribe and Wael Hana — bought the Mercedes-Benz for Menendez’s wife in return for the senator interfering in a state criminal prosecution of a Uribe associate charged with insurance fraud and an investigation of a family member who worked for him, according to the indictment.
“You are a miracle worker who makes dreams come true,” Nadine Menendez texted Uribe, according to the indictment. “I will always remember that.”
Menendez also helped Hana secure military funding for Egypt in exchange for the promise of a no-show job for his wife, prosecutors said.
[…]
Two days after Menendez had a private meeting with an Egyptian official, Hana bought 22 one-ounce gold bars.
Each one has a unique serial number. And two of them were later found in the Menendez home by federal investigators, prosecutors said.
They also discovered that on Jan. 29, 2022, Menendez did a Google search for “kilo of gold price.”
Granted, I am not a lawyer and, moreover, a defendant is innocent until proven guilty, but this looks pretty bad to me.
Therefore, not surprisingly, via Politico, ‘This is horrifying’: Top New Jersey Democrats call on Bob Menendez to resign after his second indictment.
Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, Democrat of Middlesex County, said the allegations against Menendez go “against everything we should believe as public servants.” He called on Menendez to step down immediately.
“We are given the public’s trust, and once that trust is broken, we cannot continue,” he said.
Menendez stepped down from his powerful role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier Friday.
As the piece notes, the fallout for New Jersey Democrats next November could be quote real if they are tarred with Menendez’s alleged behavior.
“This is horrifying. And anyone who doesn’t think it’s disqualifying, that’s a problem,” one influential Democratic operative told POLITICO after federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York unsealed the indictment.
Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) was the first public official to call for Menedez’s resignation, saying he lost confidence in the senator and that “no one is above the law.” Murphy and others soon followed.
I recognize that Menendez will almost certainly not step down, as he fears such a move would be seen as an admission of guilt. Further, it is clearly more advantageous to go into this legal battle as a US Senator, rather than a former US Senator. Still, the party has every reason to want him out, and as soon as possible.
Menendez is up for re-election next year.
So far, only one Democratic candidate is challenging Menendez in the primary: Real estate lender Kyle Jasey, the son of a New Jersey state lawmaker. But there’s a deep bench of high-profile New Jersey Democrats who are running or positioning themselves to run for governor in 2025, including U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11th Dist.), U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer(D-5th Dist.), Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. State Democratic bosses, notorious for backroom deals, could look to one of them to replace Menendez on the ballot.
One would expect that unless there is some massive reversal of these allegations Menendez will be challenged by quality candidates and would not be able to be re-nominated. But, as I constantly note, that decision is almost certainly in the hands of primary voters, not of the Democratic Party apparatus. I am not sure if there is any provision of New Jersey law that would allow the party to strip his affiliation/block him from the ballot.
To be honest, the nature of these allegations is such, that I have to think that the pressure on Menendez will be such that it will be very difficult to actually run for the nomination. We shall see.
In terms of the broader American political landscape, these allegations (which are very easy for observers to understand) will just allow Trump, his political allies, and even his voters to rationalize away his indictments because see! they all do it.
Update: Politico reports, N.J. Dem leaders are meeting about yanking Menendez from the party line, which appears to semi-answer a question from above. The piece is brief and does not explain what the exact legal mechanism might be.
I am put in mind of LA Rep. Jefferson and his freezer full of cash.
I read about these stupidities and I wonder if any of them have ever heard of safety deposit boxes? I’m not thinking about hiding these ill gotten gains from cops so much as any of the many thieves and burglars wandering our streets. But maybe I have just spent way too much time in the wrong neighborhoods.
Other than Menendez, I can’t find another Dem claiming that this is a political prosecution, or weaponization of the DOJ.
Interesting….
Maybe both sides don’t do it?
The Democratic party as a whole demands this crook resign. The Democratic Party is also quite willing to let the Hunter Biden prosecution play out. We still believe in law. We still believe in due process. And we believe it’s not a good look for us electorally to have this guy on our roster.
By contrast we have a cult of personality led by a rapist, a cult which blindly defends any member of the cult: men like Rudy Giuliani, women like Lauren Boebert, corrupt justices like Clarence Thomas, the carefully deaf, dumb and blind, Gym Jordan.
Democrats are a political party. The GOP is basically Scientology. The Democratic Party cares about law, policy and governance. The Trump Cult cares about nothing but returning its discredited leader to power. Literally nothing else matters to the cult, but their cult leader. To protect their criminal leader they will quite happily destroy democracy and the rule of law and the constitution they used to hold sacred. To protect their rapist-in-chief they will ignore their previous religion, abandon Jesus Christ in favor of Donald Trump.
We are a political party. They are a cult of personality.
I don’t know what the big deal is. Uribe and Hana are clearly just Menendez’s dear dear friends and have just been giving him gold bars and piles of cash as gifts to express their affection for him. Besides, it would violate the separation of powers for the executive branch DOJ to try and dictate the legislative branch’s ethical standards. /sarc
@Stormy Dragon: New political option of expanding SCOTUS so you can appoint a party loyalist to a lifetime of unfettered corruption and bribery. Way better than one of those temporary pardons!
Menendez was previously previously charged with corruption in 2015 and yet the voters of NJ chose to reelect him in 2018.
Our current system rewards shamelessness. Menendez, having neither conscience nor shame, has no incentives to resign, or not to run again.
My favorite part of this is his repeated assertions that he hasn’t done anything unusual, this is just how politics work. I’m afraid he might actually believe that.
@Sleeping Dog: Yeah and you know why Menendez was able to skate away from those charges in 2015? Because of a supreme court ruling in the 2016 case involving Bob McDonnell. Go read that ruling and think about all those “gifts” Clarence Thomas keeps receiving…
Now replace “Democrats” with “Republicans” and “Menendez” with “Trump.”
Doesn’t really work that way anymore.
Not to beat a dead horse, but (OK, I lied) this appears to illustrate a clear asymmetry in, as well as limitation to the sports team metaphor.
@Michael Reynolds:
It’s also easy for us to do so, as he would be replaced with a Democrat.
If the governor was a Republican, and could appoint a Republican to replace Menendez, I would be firmly in the “hold our noses” camp, urging that he merely not run again.
One corrupt shithead is not worth losing control of the Senate. It would be a matter of picking the least worst option. I am a utilitarian at heart.
The Republicans are not even able to rise to that level of moral mediocrity with Trump, however.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Same reason we seldom hear of big time drug dealers stash being kept in safe deposit boxes, probably. They have cameras in there. A record of the cash in one’s own paws, being stored under one’s own name, and a heavy bet none of the god knows how many bank personnel won’t tip LE there is someone they need to look at.