Maryland Is Suffering from a Corruption Gap with New Jersey

Wowzers. This Bob Menendez indictment includes gold bars, text messages, cash hanging in closets. It's kind of nostalgic, actually, harkens back to a more innocent time when politicians took bribes instead of getting bullshit children's book contracts. https://t.co/XFSSptC1OI

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 22, 2023

Well, That's Special


Yes, gold bars

As a resident of Maryland, I have to say that our politicians have been completely shown up by New Jersey.

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been indicted for corruption.

It is alleged that he took bribes from a New Jersey businessman and possibly from agents of foriegn powers:

Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was charged on Friday with taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, including bars of gold bullion, to wield his power abroad and at home.

The three-count federal indictment depicted a brazen plan hatched during furtive dinners, in text messages and on encrypted calls — much of it aimed at increasing U.S. assistance to Egypt and aiding businessmen in New Jersey.

Mr. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, is accused of acting as a go-between, passing messages to an American-Egyptian businessman, Wael Hana, who maintained close connections with Egyptian military and intelligence officials, the indictment said. In one text, to an Egyptian general, Mr. Hana referred to the senator, who held sway over military sales, financing and other aid, as “our man.”

………

Friday’s charges described an intermingling of the bare-knuckle, back-room dealings of Mr. Menendez’s home state of New Jersey and delicate matters of security in the Middle East. They represent the latest episode in a decades-long political career that took Mr. Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, from the Union City, N.J., school board to the halls of the Senate, a career marked by accusations of corruption and an earlier federal indictment that ended in a hung jury.

Given the recent Supreme Court rulings, this might not qualify as corruption.

What is interesting is that they found $550,000.00 in cash and over 100 gold bars when they raided his home.  This is actually pretty f%$#ing impressive in its brazenness. 

Clearly the folks in the Maryland state lege need to step up their game.  This is way more dramatic than bundles of cash in the freezer.:

Of all the details in the federal indictment of Senator Robert Menendez, one of the most eye-popping may be the assertion that a sizable chunk of the graft he is charged with collecting came in the form of gold bars.

The indictment does not say why Mr. Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his wife would accept such bribes along with the roughly $550,000 in cash and luxury car that prosecutors say were found in searches of the couple’s home and a safe deposit box.

On a slightly more prosaic note, a rapidly growing numbwer of Democrats are calling on Menendez to resign, including New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.

While I do not think that there is much political gain to be made from the growing chorus to defenestrate the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, voters do not really care about the establishment of anti-corruption bona fides, I do think that there will be a positive policy outcome from this.

Menendez has been a vociferous of any engagement with Cuba, likely a product of his status as the child of Cuban emigres, and as such he has been a prominent of reversing the 60 year old diplomat failure that is US Cuba policy.