Gold Bar Bob's next move? Seeking Trump pardon
By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA today Network
NEW YORK - Inside the Danial Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse a "chastened" former Senator Robert Menendez - Bob, as his attorney called him before the presiding judge - made a sob-soaked plea for mercy.
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Outside on the courtroom steps, a defiant Menendez made a pitch to President Donald Trump.
..... President Trump is right. this process is political and corrupted to the core," Menedez railed in front of a bank of microphones and cameras after being handed an 11-eyar prison sentence for his gaudy portfolio of corruption: taking bribes routed form Egypt, taking bribes to quash a New Jersey criminal investigation and taking bribes to influence the installation of a lenient U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
..... The fiery street-corner remarks had the feel of a final fail-safe mover for a man whose once-promising career are - one that saw him begin as a young Union City reformer who proudly wore a enemies by weaponizing the U.S. department of Justice.
..... Notwithstanding a planned appeal, seeking a get-out-of-jail card from Trump may be Menendez's most viable option.
..... His lawyers played the Trumpian card early in the trial when they argued to the jury that he was the victim of a political prosecution. And, in an interview last year, [2024] Trump suggested that Menendez was the victim of a vindictive Biden Justice Department.
..... So Menendez went for it - on the same day the New York times reported that senior officials under Trump have talked with prosecutors in Manhattan about the possibility of abandoning the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
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"I hope President Trump cleans up this cesspool and restores integrity to the system," Menendez barked before walking away without taking questions.
Pleading for mercy
..... But inside the courtroom, Menendez was facing a rite of traditional justice, after a jury found him guilty last July [2024] on 16 counts of bribery, fraud and serving as an agent of a foreign country - a stunning charge for the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a powerful post that had virtual veto power over the State Department.
..... As U.S. district Judge Sidney Stein noted, Menendez took $500,000 in bribes in the from of gold bars, cash stashed in his closet and shoes and, of course the bars, of gold bullion that earned him the forever name "Gold Bar Bob."
..... "I am far from a perfect man," said Menendez, who struggled to muffle sobs as he made his case for leniency. he argued that his good works as a senator - intervening for people desperate to enter the U.S. for health care emergencies championing flood victims of Superstorm Sandy, securing pandemic supplies - should be taken into this context."
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The merciless power broker of Hudson county pleaded for mercy.
..... "Every day I'm awake is a punishment," Menendez said. "I ask you to temper your sword of justice with the mercy of a lifetime of duty."
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But the enormity of Menendez's crimes - the range and depth - left a solemn Stein grasping for answers about the ex-senator's motives. he noted Menendz's rise from union city and a step-by-step climb up the politician ladder that took him through the New Jersey Legislature and onward to become the Gardner state's first statewide elected official of Hispanic descent when he joined the U.S. senate in 2005.
..... "You were successful, powerful," Stein said before declaring his sentence. "You stood at the apex of our political system. Somewhere along the way, I'm sorry to say, you became a corrupt politician. working for the public good became working for your good. "
..... Stein mused about what made Menendez fall off track.
..... "I don't know what led you to this Greed was certainly part of it," stein said, adding, "hubris was part of it. I don't know. You'll have to figure it out."
..... Paul Monteleoni, a federal prosecutor sought to puncture Menendez's sympathy plea, arguing that his offenses overshadowed the "the good that he did."
..... He also argued that the good deeds Menedez was using to build his case for leniency were simply part of the job and "privilege" of being a senator.
..... "The power of a Senate office is not something he owns and has the power to liquidate," Monteleoni said.
Tragic code to a career
..... Wednesday's [01/30/2025] sentencing was the tragic coda to a career that began with working-class immigrates' ambition. He was the eldest son of parents who flied the Kleptocratic regime of Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s, only to scratch out a living in New York, his father an itinerant carpenter (and gambler), his mother a seamstress.
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He was the first U,S.-born member of his family, earning him instant citizenship -a status that Trump is fighting to den future immigrates. His attorneys said Menendez was born not long after his family landed in New York "with money stashed away in a grandfather clock."
..... It was the origin story of the young immigrant determined to prevail in America. But 70 years later, prosecutors argued that the immigrate Horatioo Alger story was perverted by greed. After all Menendez, and his wife, Nadine, stashed bars of gold in the closet of their Englewood Cliffs home.
..... Menendez was always the Hudson county homeboy, presiding over the minutiae of his local machine while sitting in the Senate. he was a man "more likely to be found at an IHOP than a Michelin star restaurant," his lawyers attested in a filing.
..... In fact, it was at a Union City IHOP where Menendez was first dazzled by Nadine Arslanian, "the beautiful and tall international woman,: as his attorneys described her. She would become Menendez's second wife - and a co-defendant who is waiting to be tried separately later this year. [2025] (Aslanian Menendez will go on trial in March; [2025] Menendez was given time to support his wife during her trial before surrendering to prison authorities.)
..... Menendez began his long climb when he was elected mayor of Union City in 1986/ From there, he was elected to the Assembly in 1988 and then to the state Senate in 1991. The next year, [1992] he won a House seat, and he served in that body until January 2006, when was appointed to fill Jon S. Cozine's seat in the U.S. Senate. Later that year, [2006] he would be elected to his first full term.
..... His climb form Hudson County to the U.S. Senate also brought him scrutiny. It didn't take long before federal prosecution began their long pursuit of Menendez. During his first U.S. Senate campaign, subpoenas issued by Christ Christie, then United States attorney for New Jersey, raised questions about whether he had personally profited by steering federal funds to a social agency housed in a building he owned. No charges were ever filed.
..... In 2015, federal prosecutors accused Menendez of selling his political influence to Dr. Salomon Melgen, a wealthy south florid eye doctor, for vacations in the Caribbean and Paris, flights on Melgen's jet and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. The 2017 trailed ended with a hung jury, although Melgen was convicted on separate charges - and pardoned by Trump before the end of his first term in 2020.
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Despite the scandal, the Democrats in New Jersey circled the wagons around the embattled Menendez, and his ally, Senator Cory Booker, testified in court to his character. So did Senator Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, now a Trumpian steward in the U.S. Senate.
..... Menendez seemed impervious to scandal, even after the Senate Ethics Committee "severely admonished" him for taking gifts without first getting clearance and for brining discredit. he cursed to reelection late that year.
..... But last year, [2024] the Democratic Party exhausted by another Menendez corruption scandal, abandoned him. Governor Phil Murphy, who stuck with Menendez through the first trial, led the campaign to pressure him to step down. Definite to the end, Menendz dug in, resigning only after his conviction.
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Faced with only one viable political choice - to run as an independent for Senate last year [2024] - Menendez watched his fortunes fizzle. First, his fellow Garden state Democrats anointed Representative Andy Kim, a young Burlington County, progressive, as their nominee. As the trial wound on, Menedez's hopes of running as an independent collapsed.
..... Joined only by close and friends and family Wednesday, [01/29/2025] he had no New Jersey Democrats by his side during his sentencing save for his son, Representative Rob Menendez Jr., the 8th congressional District congressman, and his daughter, Alicia Menendez, the MSNBC commentator.
..... On the street, Menendez sought support form someone he hopes will sympathize with his plight -a president who refuses to accept the verdict of the voters in 2020. and now, Menendez is clearly refusing to accept the verdict of the court and is vowing to fight on.
..... The former senator is required to surrender to prison authorities on June 6. [2025] But I don;t think this is the last we'll be hearing from Bob Menendez. don't be shocked to see him milling around the grounds at Mar-a-Lago sometime soon.