Senator. Bob Menendez found guilty of all charges, including acting as a foreign agent in a corruption trial before the federal government.

Menendez has been the only senator found guilty of executing the role of an agent of foreign origin.

by Aaron Katersky, Meredith Deliso

16 Jul 2024 at 08:06 10:06 PM

Sen. Bob Menendez was found guilty on all counts Tuesday in his federal corruption trial .

Federal Prosecutors from New York alleged the New Jersey Democrat took several hundred thousand dollars worth of corrupt payments in the form cash, gold bars mortgage payments and much more in exchange for senator’s influence on the political scene. The three New Jersey businessmen who were as well as authorities from Egypt as well as Qatar as the suspected recipients. Two defendants, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes were also found guilty of the charges they were facing.

A jury deliberated for around 13 hours in three days.

“I’ve never been a foreign agent.’ Menendez says

Menendez admitted not guilty to federal charges that include bribery, fraud in the capacity of an agent for foreign agents and obstruction. He stated that he intends to contest his conviction and was “deeply disappointed” by the jury’s verdict.

“I have never violated my oath,” he declared in front of the courthouse on Tuesday. “I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country. I have never, ever been a foreign agent.”

The verdict of the jury would “put at risk every member of the United States Senate in terms of what they think a foreign agent would be.”

Menendez has not responded to the question of whether he would be stepping down.

The judge will sentence him on October. 29 and could face decades in prison.

Demands for resignation

Menendez isn’t required to resign, despite the conviction, but he could be removed from the organization.

Senate Majority Senate Leader. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. demanded his resignation right away following the decision.

“In light of this guilty verdict, Senator Menendez must now do what is right for his constituents, the Senate, and our country, and resign,” Menendez stated.

Senator. Cory Booker, Menendez’s New Jersey counterpart, and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy joined in the calls for his resignation to be immediate. If Murphy refuses to quit his post, Murphy said he will appeal to his fellow members of the U.S. Senate to expel the senator.

The Senate Ethics Committee said it will “promptly” complete the investigation into Menendez’s behavior which it initiated when allegations first came out against him.

The committee stated that it would be looking at its “full range of disciplinary actions available under the Rules of Procedure,” that include the possibility of censure or expulsion.

He’s not required to resign, despite the fact that he was found guilty but he may be banned.

“Shocking levels of corruption”

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams The office that prosecuted the case, stated after the decision that this “has always been about shocking levels of corruption.”

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes, including gold, cash, and a Mercedes-Benz. This wasn’t politics as usual; this was politics for profit,” Williams declared in an announcement. “Because Senator Menendez has now been found guilty, his years of selling his office to the highest bidder have finally come to an end. Corruption isn’t costless: it erodes public trust, and it undermines the rule of law. That’s why we’re so committed to fighting it, regardless of political party.”

Prosecutors said Menendez 70 “put his power up for sale” in exchange for gold, the envelopes that were filled with cash, check to his wife in exchange for the job that he did not show up for and a convertible Mercedes-Benz. The FBI discovered gold bars as well as more than $400,000 of cash stuffed into places like jackets and shoes in his house, the prosecutors claimed.

“It wasn’t enough for him to be one of the most powerful people in Washington,” federal prosecutor Paul Monteleoni said during his closing argument on July 8. “Robert Menendez wanted all that power and he also wanted to use it to pile up riches for himself and his wife.”

Defense dissented from DOJ’s decision as ‘fantastic ridiculous’

The defense said that all actions in the indictment were within the purview of Menendez’s job and that the prosecution was unable to prove that he accepted any payments in bribes.

In the course of his defense argument in the closing argument, defense attorney Adam Fee mocked the government’s case as “cherry-picked nonsense” and accused the prosecution that they were “fudging” the facts.

“The only honest verdict I submit here is to acquit him on each count,” Fee informed the jury on the 9th of July. “His actions were lawful, normal and good for the country.”

Menendez did not give evidence in his defense. After the defense had rested its case on the 3rd of July Menendez told reporters “From my perspective, the government has failed to prove every aspect of its case.”

He said he hoped for his lawyers to provide the jury with a “convincing and powerful summation” and that a jury would not find him guilty.

New Jersey businessmen, Menendez’s wife is charged in the this case

Prosecutors have told the jury that Menendez said he would make use of his power to aid Egypt. In the case of indictment the deal was arranged by Hana, an New Jersey businessman and friend of the wife of Menendez, Nadine, who according to the prosecution got the senator’s support in to preserve a halal meat monopoly.

Menendez has also been accused of receiving the sum of $60,000 in a Mercedes-Benz convertible as a reward for helping to disrupt a criminal case brought that was brought by The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.

Prosecutors claimed that in spring 2019 the other New Jersey businessman, Jose Uribe who has pleaded guilty to the charges and handed Nadine $15,000 in cash, which she used to make to pay for the vehicle. Nadine sent a text message to Menendez, “Congratulations. We are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes,” according to the prosecutors. Uribe continued to make monthly installments, the prosecutors claimed.

Prosecutors alleged that the senator made promises to another man in business, Daibes, that he would not interfere with Daibes federal prosecutorial efforts and assist Qatar’s government Qatar by approving an Senate resolution praising Qatar.

Daibes fingerprints were discovered on cash-related envelopes discovered at the home of Menendez and serial numbers on gold bars linked them back to Daibes and Hana as per investigators.

In those two years of evidence the jury were able to hear his sister explain why Menendez was found with a plethora of cash in his embroidered congressional jacket “It’s a Cuban thing,” Caridad Gonzalez said.

The defense also informed the jurors Menendez along with his wife who is also accused in the trial had separate lives, and had financial issues which she concealed from her husband.

Daibes and Hana Daibes and Hana pleaded not in their defense to the accusations. Uribe confessed to guilt and testified in the trial of the three defendants in the trial.

The wife of Senator Menendez has pleaded to be guilty of her charges. She will be heard separately in August because of an illness. She is fighting Breast cancer of grade 3 senators disclosed in the middle of May at the start of trial.

2nd corruption case brought against Menendez

Menendez is a senator from New Jersey. He has served as a senator for New Jersey since 2006, is the first senator in Congress to be indicted for conspiring with public officials to operate as an agent of foreign origin.

In June the month of June, in June, he registered an application to be onto his U.S. Senate ballot in New Jersey as an independent candidate.

He was not willing to step down however his resignation was announced as chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee following the indictment that was issued at the end of September 2023.

It was the second time that the senator was accused of corruption. An indictment from 2015 was dismissed with an unconclusive trial in the year 2018 when the jury was unable to find a verdict on every count.