‘He’s Toast’: ‘Strong Case’ Against Senator Menendez Just Tip of Corruption Iceberg - Experts
© AP Photo / Julio Cortez
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While US Senator Bob Menendez is far from the only corrupt politician in Washington, DC, the case against him is exceptionally strong, experts told Sputnik, noting it was likely only the tip of the iceberg of a larger network of corruption that might ultimately prove to be anchored on his wife.
After being indicted last week on corruption charges that include bribery, US Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has faced increasing calls to resign, including from within his own party. The senator has already stepped down as chair of the powerful Armed Services Committee.
Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, who was also implicated in the scandal, have denied the charges against them. The senator has claimed that money found in their home was a family practice learned during persecution by the US-backed Batista regime in Cuba in the 1950s.
“This may seem old-fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal account based on the income I have lawfully derived over those 30 years,” the senator told reporters about the more than $400,000 in cash found in their home.
He provided no explanation for the gold bars or other items they are accused of accepting as bribes, which includes a Mercedes c300 convertible and more than $100,000 in gold bars.
Following their arraignment on Wednesday, the two were released on bail and their passports were confiscated.
Menendez is widely known as a foreign policy hawk who has supported US sanctions policies against Cuba and other states, as well as armed US interventions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and other nations.
27 September 2023, 13:19 GMT
Economist, radio show host, and author Jack Rasmus told Sputnik on Tuesday that there was no hope Menendez’s political career would survive the case against him.
“He's toast politically, you know? The question is: how far will the media and the Democrats ramp up the pressure on him? I mean, if he's corrupt - and I mean, he is - the next step is going to be some legal action, and a lot of dirt, further dirt, will come out. So he's got to face that, will he agree to go quietly into the sunset? Or will he be facing a lot of legal action to get him out [of office]? It doesn't matter what he says. He's going to leave, I believe.”
Asked about the situation by the hosts of Radio Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Tuesday, retired US Navy Captain and political strategist Armen Kurdian coyly replied: “Is this really a big deal? I mean, doesn't everybody in public office do this?”
“You just don't see that anymore,” he said of the photos in the indictment. “You don't see bundles of cash in envelopes, you don't see those gold bars - it's absolutely fascinating. Here’s a little bit about the senator: he's basically a middle-of-the-pack Democrat when it comes to his voting record, he's got a daughter on MSNBC and his son is now in Congress in New Jersey, which I guess makes them the second father-son combo where somebody is having some kind of corruption going on.”
“And the total of this, of what I think the prosecutors are saying - $480,000 over several years, something like that - the guy gets $174,000 salary, so can you really blame him for trying to go out and get some outside income?”
“I mean, really, is that worth, you know, putting your career and everything that you worked for in jeopardy? I mean, you know, it sounds like a lot of money to a lot of Americans - and it is - but for somebody in that position, it really isn’t.”
Kurdian clarified, though: “I do have some amount of faith in public officials that I do believe that most of them are not corrupt like this. I'm sure a lot of them push it to the edge and ‘do what's necessary.’ But I think there's also a lot of just ‘I don't want to get caught doing something stupid. I need to be careful, and these rules are throughout government.’”
27 September 2023, 04:15 GMT
This is the second time charges have been brought against Menendez. A 2017 trial on charges of conspiracy, bribery, and honest services fraud resulted in a hung jury, which in the American system of common law means the jury failed to deliver a decision because its members could not unanimously agree on whether he was guilty or not, so the judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors later failed to launch a new trial on the charges.
Kurdian noted that not long after that debacle was when Menendez met his now-wife, Nadine Arslanian, a Lebanese Armenian who Kurdian noted had “all these connections.”
“The big difference here is in 2015 he was single, and then 2018 is when he met his wife. They started dating and very shortly thereafter, all the stuff - because she has all these connections, and you wonder: did he bring her in because he needed help being more corrupt, or did she bring him in because she had all these connections and he was a way to help her get a lot more rich? You know, her connections with the Egyptian government for arms sales, he's trying to grease [the wheels], he's basically acting like a foreign lobbyist. You're not even allowed to do that - you can have discussions - but you're actually doing lobbying on behalf of a foreign government as a sitting US senator and that's not okay, especially when you're getting paid for it.”
“It originated with her,” he noted. “She was in action. She had a lot of intention, she knew a lot of these people, he knew a lot of these people, and she introduced her husband to some of these folks. And you wonder whether he was like, did he fall into a honey trap of his own making?”
21 September 2023, 19:08 GMT
Kurdian said the prosecutors have “a very strong case” this time around.
“I mean, it's cash payments. There's no record of it being like, say, earned income on a W-2 or something that you could earn for performing services. You know, someone else making car payments on your behalf, and then once the investigation starts, ‘oh, stop making these car payments, Egyptian company, I'll start making it on my own.’ I mean, there is a ton of evidence here. There's this gold bar. I mean, really.”
Asked about what happens when Menendez resigns or is removed from office, Kurdian explained that New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy would appoint someone to serve the rest of Menendez’s term, which ends in 2024.
