There has to be a lot on offer to compete with the New York trial of Donald Trump, right next door at that. Half the world is watching the former US president and current Republican presidential candidate, who is said to have concealed hush money for a porn star. Every Wednesday is a day off in his case, but just a few hundred meters away in Manhattan a Democratic senator is on trial. In his case, for example, it’s about gold bars.
These gold bars could even be used as evidence. Investigators found 13 of them when they looked at the Menendez family in New Jersey two years ago. Two of them weigh a kilo and are therefore worth well over $100,000. Officers also discovered $480,000 in cash, including a blue jacket with the words Robert Menendez and the emblem of the Hispanic Caucus, the Latino group in Congress. Another $70,000 was stored in a safe belonging to his wife, Nadine Menendez, and there was a Mercedes convertible outside the door.
Prosecutors accuse him of 16 crimes
Where did all the gold and money come from that was pouring out of this top American politician’s pockets at home? At that time, the House leader was still heading the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, which was not only concerned with further military aid for Ukraine. Robert alias Bob Menendez was one of the most powerful foreign policymakers in the USA. Now the 70-year-old has to answer for accusations that he was bribed for years by businessmen and donors from Egypt and Qatar.
His excellent connections are said to have contributed significantly to enriching fellow entrepreneurs and serving distant countries. In addition to the senator from New Jersey, three of his former partners are also accused – and his wife, who will be tried later because of an illness. But the main focus is on him, the man who has been working for the Democrats on Capitol Hill for decades.
The son of Cuban exiles has been accused of corruption for the second time, the first time in 2017 involving large payments from an ophthalmologist worth millions. At the time, unlike the ophthalmologist, he got off unpunished because the jury couldn’t come to an agreement. Things are likely to be tight this time, as Menendez is accused of 16 criminal offenses, including participation in bribery, extortion and fraud, as well as obstruction of justice and acting as a type of foreign agent.
Like a business crime thriller full of clichés
The indictment reads like a business crime story that hardly leaves out a single cliché. Accordingly, this mastermind from Englewood Cliffs on the northwest bank of the Hudson River arranged lavish deals. He allegedly helped a co-defendant become a monopolist for exports of American meat to Egypt according to Islamic regulations. According to the investigations, he acted as a ghostwriter for the leadership in Cairo in order to release a US aid package worth $300 million in a letter to his own Senate colleagues.
Prosecutors also accuse him of being close to the Egyptian military and intelligence services. According to their findings, the American representative also proved to be useful for the investor in a fund associated with the Qatari government. The partner showed his appreciation with gold bars. When Bob and Nadine Menendez returned from a trip to Qatar and Egypt in October 2021, he apparently googled this sentence the next day: “What is a kilo of gold worth?” Currently it would be around $75,000.
Bob Menendez apparently claims that hoarding bundles of dollars and valuables has to do with his Cuban family trauma. It also looks as if he wants to shift the blame onto his wife, although this is considered moderately credible. On top of that, he is said to have tried to avert investigations against one of his cronies at the New Jersey District Attorney’s Office. In return, he and his wife Nadine received a convertible C-300 from Mercedes-Benz.
The sources of income also included Covid laboratories
The two called a shared telephone the “007 phone,” as the public prosecutor wrote, “an obvious reference to the fictional character James Bond.” Nadine Menendez is said to have received a beautiful diamond ring because of the averted case in New Jersey. The family’s other sources of income included Covid laboratories in this state across from New York. All of these connections are now the reason why negotiations are taking place on the other side in Manhattan.
It was difficult to find enough New Yorkers to serve as impartial jurors. Before the two-day search began on Wednesday, the half-serious gag made the rounds that, broadly speaking, New Jersey had a rather relaxed relationship with offenses. For satirists like Jon Stewart with his Daily Show, the parallel cases of Trump and Menendez are of course first-class material, especially since neither one nor the other is thinking of withdrawing from politics in the near future.
Robert Menendez will no longer run for the Democrats in the fall, but perhaps as an independent if he doesn’t end up in prison beforehand. In any case, it’s not just the entertainer Stewart who makes fun of his eye-catching private collection. It also reminds us that other cases of greed are known from Congress and the Supreme Court between all the lobbyists and stock market traders. Only gold bars are relatively rare as loot. “Senator Robert Menendez,” asks the joker from US television. “How stupid are you?” The court in New York is trying to find an answer in these weeks.