Just a few years after dodging prison thanks to legal loopholes, Jersey’s Sen. Bob Menendez again faces federal corruption charges: Did he just decide he had an unlimited license to loot?
This time he stands indicted along with his wife Nadine and several others over a years-long scheme in which he allegedly accepted bribes — in cash, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, $100,000 in gold bars and more — in exchange for helping three New Jersey businessmen and Egypt’s government.
Prosecutors say $566,000 in cash was found hidden in the Menendez home, including bundles of cash tucked inside a jacket emblazoned with his name.
The earlier case ended in a mistrial with the feds eventually dropping all charges but still brought Menendez a Senate Ethics Committee rebuke, finding he’d violated federal law, that forced Menendez to repay more than $100,000 to his alleged briber, health-care fraudster Dr. Salomon Melgen.
Yet it seems the senator learned nothing — except to remind his wife this time ’round that she “should not text or email” about their schemes.
And it’s not just favors-for-cash this time: Prosecutors allege that Menendez abused his “power and influence,” providing “sensitive” secret US information to Egyptian officials, who then gave valuable privileges to a businessman who proceeded to do favors for the senator and his missus.
He’s also charged with trying to thwart a federal criminal probe into one of his co-defendants as well as recommending a nominee for US attorney in New Jersey he thought he could persuade on a different businessman’s prosecution.
His defense?
That the prosecution is a racist persecution. Ridiculous on it’s face, compounded by the fact that the US attorney bringing the charges is African American.
If the courts don’t oust him first, Garden State voters should choose someone else in next year’s elections.
It’s pretty simple: Don’t vote for a “public servant” who stores a half-million in cash and 13 gold bars in his home.
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