By Allan Lengel
WASHINGTON — In 2017, Democratic Sen Bob Menendez of New Jersey dodged a bullet, barely. A federal jury deadlocked in a public corruption trial accusing him of bribery, fraud and making false statements. A mistrial was declared and early 2018, the Justice Department dropped the charges.
A conviction could have sent him off to prison for quite a while. He was lucky. He returned to the good graces of his colleagues in the Senate and eventually became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He also returned to a life of crime, and on Tuesday the 70-year-old was found guilty in a Manhattan federal court on all 16 counts in what authorities described as an international bribery scheme in which he accepted gold, cash and other things of value — totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars — in exchange for political favors. His wife, who was allegedly part of the scheme, still faces trial in the case.
Any reasonable person would have counted their blessings after the first trial in 2017, and never ever have done anything illegal again, not even steal a candy bar.
But that’s where the true nature of Sen. Bob Menendez comes in. Like all true criminals, no matter how many times they get caught, they return to a life of crime. It’s their nature. It’s in their DNA. They just try to figure out better ways of being a criminal without getting caught.
Menendez, like all true criminals, thought he had it all figured it out.
A federal grand jury indictment alleged in 2018 that Menendez began a new round of criminality with a woman, Nadine, who he was dating. In 2020, they got married.
Specifically, a grand jury charged that between 2018 and 2022, Sen. Menendez and his wife engaged in a corrupt relationship with New Jersey businessmen, Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes, who collectively paid hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes, including cash, gold, a Mercedes Benz, and other things of value. At the time, he was serving as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In exchange, the criminal senator used his powerful position to secretly benefit businessmen and the Egyptian government by providing sensitive information and helping in other matters. One charge alleged he was acting as a foreign agent for Egypt from 2018 to 2022.
Wael Hana, 40, and Fred Daibes, 66, who were also on trial with the senator, were found guilty as well.
The nice thing about true criminals is that they often end up behind bars, living a far worse life than they would have had they tried to make an honest living. A U.S. senator earns $174,000 a year. That didn’t make Menendez a rich man, but it didn’t make him a poor one, up until now.
Besides ending up in prison, he disgraced his high-profile children, daughter Alicia Menendez, a weekend anchor at MSNBC, and son Rob Menendez, a Democratic Congressman from New Jersey.
Sad for them.
Good for the voters who deserve so much better than a criminal like Menendez, who sold his office to the highest bidders.
Now, if he has any shred of decency, which is in question, he’ll resign from the Senate before his term ends this year.
It’s particularly questionable, because after the verdict, he was quoted in the New York Times as saying he was “deeply, deeply disappointed by the jury’s decision.”
Not a surprising response from a true criminal.
