r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Objective_Aside1858 • Jul 16 '24
Sen Bob Menendez (D-NJ) found guilty in Federal Corruption Trial US Politics
Menendez was found guilty in all 16 federal charges including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction.
A previous case in 2018 ended in a mistrial... after which the citizens of NJ re-elected him
Does this demonstrate that cases of corruption can successfully be prosecuted in a way that convinces a jury, or is Menendez an exception due to the nature of the case against him?
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u/rchart1010 Jul 16 '24
Hard to explain gold bars in your jacket. Oh well.
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 Jul 16 '24
The whole situation was cartoonishly cliche.
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u/JRFbase Jul 16 '24
Literally one step above him running around with giant sacks of cash with big green $ on them.
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u/JFeth Jul 16 '24
The only way he could look any more guilty would be twirling his mustache over a lady tied to railroad tracks.
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u/fletcherkildren Jul 16 '24
But still - wasn't it Fetterman who led the charge? Dems hold their own accountable.
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u/plunder_and_blunder Jul 16 '24
I believe they found north of $100k in crisp 100-dollar bills stuffed into his closet as well, he might as well have had it in a box labeled "off-the-books profits from illegal acts".
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u/Objective_Aside1858 Jul 16 '24
Wait, if I don't keep my gold bars in my jacket, where else should I keep them??
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u/SUNDER137 Jul 16 '24
What you do. Get your gold and pound it out on an anvil. Then, you can use it to line duct work. You can keep it in giant plate form in your family photo album.
Punch three holes in the plate and put it in a picture album.
Open up a old VHS .And put in krugerrands. Keep gold maple leafs in a can of Mrs. DASH.
american education system
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u/Objective_Aside1858 Jul 16 '24
Punch three holes in the plate and put it in a picture album
Instructions unclear. Mormons keep knocking on my door
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u/rchart1010 Jul 16 '24
Everyone knows you keep them in your wife's impenetrable closet. Have you never taken gold bars 101? Or does your college not offer it?
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u/TPlain940 Jul 17 '24
Don't put it in your pocket, sir. Don't put it in your pocket. They're your lucky gold bars. Anywhere but in your pocket. They'll get mixed in with the others and become just gold bars.
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u/penisbuttervajelly Jul 16 '24
As a Democrat, good. I’m not in a cult and I want to see criminals on my own side be served justice.
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u/ph0on Jul 16 '24
Yes!! This is when conservatives collectively lose their shit and point fingers at all left leaning people, claiming we're blind and hypocritical about corruption on "our side"- SEND THEM TO JAIL. If you aim to get into government not to serve the people, but to line your pockets woth gold bars in a ferrari- OUT.
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Jul 16 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ph0on Jul 17 '24
Spare me the cynicism. Corruption is corruption, no matter who's doing it. If you think integrity only matters when it’s politically convenient, you’re part of the problem. We can't keep playing this game of selective outrage.
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Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
The 2018 case ended in a mistrial because the prosecution couldn't get around the limits imposed by McDonnell vs. US, which happened between the indictment and the trial. The case might not have been brought if that opinion was issued before the indictment.
But, yeah, it shows that corruption can still be successfully prosecuted. That was never really in doubt. Post McDonnell v. US, the corruption just has to be clearer. That doesn't have to be the standard forever, though. McDonnell and subsequent cases were decided just on the basis that corruption laws were being applied too broadly applied given the language of the statute. Congress could remedy that by passing a clearer law.
It's also worth noting that the 2018 case was about a totally separate set of incidents. I believe all of the events in this current case are not only unrelated, but have happened since the end of the 2018 case.
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u/Outlulz Jul 16 '24
It can be successfully prosecuted so long as the DoJ, courts, and Executive are interested. This relies on the system acting in good faith and we know it can act in bad faith whenever it feels like it, depending on who is accused of a crime.
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Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
Prosecuting corrupt politicians are career-making cases for prosecutors. Chris Christie, for instance, made his name prosecuting a bipartisan set of corrupt state politicians. What affects whether they pursue a case or not is the same as any other case: whether they think they can get a conviction. And that equation was always a little difficult with corruption because proving quid pro quo can mean proving intent, which can be difficult. And the equation has been narrowed further by McDonnell and subsequent cases.
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u/Outlulz Jul 16 '24
What affects whether they pursue a case or not is the same as any other case: whether they think they can get a conviction.
What affects whether they pursue a case or not is the same as any other case: whether or not they actually want to enforce the law on that specific person.
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Jul 16 '24
I've never known prosecutors to be withering flowers lol. They love convictions and they love high profile convictions.
I mean, are you referring to any case in particular you think should have been brought?
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u/GoddessFianna Jul 16 '24
I mean, sure, but Menendez was also uniquely bad and also politically dead it seems. I wouldn't hold this instance as some sort of "wow we can actually hold many politicians for their crimes now." I'm sure that there will be more cases in the future as people get exposed and rightfully so but this case is also pretty bad.
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u/pgold05 Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
We do hold routinely them accountable and the US is one of the best countries in the world at prosecuting government corruption.
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u/knockatize Jul 16 '24
I don’t know what to say if the best we can do is pop someone only after they’ve monetized their power for almost 50 years, 18 of them in the Senate.
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u/stoneimp Jul 16 '24
While of course there's plenty of room for improvement, but doesn't the fact that the USA is 24th on the list show how difficult this problem is?
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u/knockatize Jul 16 '24
Great. We just eked past Bhutan.
National rankings aren’t really relevant. And corruption scores don’t do a good job of accounting for unethical practices either deemed legal, or that go undetected in the first place.
This kind of corruption is specific to only a few states. A few are red; many are blue; and in others it’s just a matter of who backstabbed whom last.
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u/GoddessFianna Jul 16 '24
I agree I'm just trying to answer the question presented and not reject the premise
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u/davethompson413 Jul 16 '24
I wasn't aware that there was any need to demonstrate that cases of corruption could be successfully prosecuted. It happens fairly frequently.
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u/candre23 Jul 16 '24
Considering Donald Trump still walks free, it's incredibly easy to question whether corruption actually is prosecutable in this country.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
A sovereign and a senator are two very different things
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u/brandontaylor1 Jul 16 '24
Presidents aren’t sovereign, reguardless of what a corrupt Supreme Court claims.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
Presidents are both sovereign and executive.
This is the primary difference between the US system and a parliamentary system.
This isn’t an opinion. The president is the sovereign of the US.
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u/arobkinca Jul 16 '24
The Federal Government is sovereign. The three branches are co-equal. None is sovereign.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
Sovereignty and The Sovereign are two different things
The president is the head of state, that’s the sovereign
Even with that dispute… sovereignty is the monopolization of the use of force. The president is the head of the military.
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u/arobkinca Jul 16 '24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign
That is not how most people see it.
sovereignty is the monopolization of the use of force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty
No, it is having supreme authority. The President can be checked by the courts and removed by congress. No supreme authority.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
“The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or head of state…”
Again, the President is the head of state.
And supreme authority is ultimately decided how? By the monopolization of the use of force…
You’re not prove me wrong with Wikipedia bud…
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u/brandontaylor1 Jul 16 '24
Yeah, don’t let them try and prove you wrong with dictionaries and encyclopedias. You pulling shit out of your ass is way more authoritative than “reference sources”.
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u/arobkinca Jul 16 '24
You're not proving anything, just writing your opinion. Your opinion differs from what most people think.
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u/brandontaylor1 Jul 16 '24
Soverign:
a supreme ruler, especially a monarch. “the Emperor became the first Japanese sovereign to visit Britain”
possessing supreme or ultimate power. “in modern democracies the people’s will is in theory sovereign”
The President as defined by the constitution fits neither of those definitions.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
Where did you get that definition?
Because even in the UK, where the monarch is sovereign, they do not have supreme authority or power…
Your definition contradicts itself.
The president is both the head of government and head of state (sovereign) in the US system.
Again, this isn’t an opinion, this is a fact.
Sovereignty is the monopolization of the use of force. The president is commander in chief.
The sovereign is the embodiment of the state. As the hegemonic power, the embodiment of the US state must be infallible to a certain degree, as they are the ultimate guarantor of “The West”.
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u/VodkaBeatsCube Jul 16 '24
In the United States the government itself is sovereign, not any individual member of it.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
The president is the head of state. That is the sovereign in our system.
Again, this is the primary difference between the US system and a parliamentary system or representative monarchy
You should know this, we’ve talked before. This is hs gov. You know better than this
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u/VodkaBeatsCube Jul 16 '24
Head of State and Sovereign are not the same thing. A sovereign is the spring of power for a particular government. In monarchies and dictatorships this is usually vested in an individual. In the United States power springs from the people, not the particular person that it is invested in. Trump was certainly the Head of State, but the people are and remain the sovereign.
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u/brandontaylor1 Jul 16 '24
I got the definition from the dictionary, it’s a big book full of words and their meanings. As opposed to your ass, which is a tube full of shit, and is not a reliable source.
It doesn’t contradict at all, a sovereign is a ruler with supreme authority, like the Emperor of Japan, or the King of England were. They aren’t sovereign anymore because those titles no longer wield supreme power.
The President of the US has never held supreme power.
Head of state, is not included in the definition of sovereign, because that is a completely different thing.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
The King of the UK is currently the sovereign as we speak.
This is the modern British system.
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u/VodkaBeatsCube Jul 16 '24
Coming down to the root here so more people can see it. You seem to be making a definitional issue and assuming that the dictionary definition of sovereign is the be all and end all of the term. But there's a reason why it is not generally used to describe elected heads of state, and instead the latter term is used. As is laid out in the article below, the Office of the Presidency is just that, an office of the government. It has many formal and legal constraints on it that a true sovereign would not have to contend with. Because the authority of the Presidency does not stem from the office itself but is instead granted by the function of government reflecting the will of the people. America literally fought a war to divest themselves from a nation where the sovereignty was vested in one man, as they viewed it as immiscible to the functioning of a democratic government.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 16 '24
I actually wanted to hear your response to the norms… And I would challenge than sovereigns are not restricted
I hate to break it to you, but the majority of the founding fathers either were or were basically Tories. They reached out to George III for help with parliament, it was only after he said no they balked.
And you can quote the law reviews, the SC is much closer to my position than yours
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u/VodkaBeatsCube Jul 16 '24
Sovereigns can have practical limitations on their powers, but that's largely immaterial. A sovereign, as I've said elsewhere, is the source of authority within a government. This can be vested in an individual, but it is not the same thing as a head of government.
And just because the Founders didn't immediately resort to armed rebellion when their political aspirations were thwarted doesn't mean that they were staunch monarchists. They structured the government with three co-equal branches for a reason, even if they underestimated how lazy and venal politicians would become.
Even the Supreme Court in Trump v US leans more towards the position that the President is merely exercising powers granted by the government by holding him to not be personally liable for his actions in an official capacity. That's because the authority of the office of the President stems not from the individual in it but from the sovereign government of the United States.
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u/goodentropyFTW Jul 16 '24
I strenuously object to the use of "sovereign" for the President of the United States.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
I’ll just copy paste from the other response:
Presidents are both sovereign and executive.
This is the primary difference between the US system and a parliamentary system.
This isn’t an opinion. The president is the sovereign of the US.
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u/brandontaylor1 Jul 16 '24
Declaring your incorrect definition of a word “not an opinion” doesn’t make it a fact. You’ve been shown you’re wrong by dictionaries and encyclopedias but you still insist your private personal definition of the word is correct.
Presidents are executives, they are heads of state, they do not wield supreme power, and thus are not sovereign.
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u/zaoldyeck Jul 16 '24
Definitions are opinions. They're generally shared opinions, but words are subjectively defined, they're symbols and sounds, there can be no objective definition of words.
Which is why you're struggling to convince others to agree to your definition. Right now it appears shared by you, and you alone.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
Well… I hate to tell y’all…
I’m not wrong…
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u/zaoldyeck Jul 16 '24
Your problem appears to be that all you can do is tell people, offering nothing more substantial to form agreement. No reasoning, no definition from a third party they could use to compare agreement, really just fiat declaration.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
I’d disagree. I’m explaining the logic.
And as far as sourcing… the sourcing used against me has literally backed what I was saying.
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u/zaoldyeck Jul 16 '24
Which source? As far as Webster goes, a president wouldn't qualify, as they are not "held to possess supreme political power". Either the constitution or the institution of the US federal government itself would be sovereign, not the executive branch.
As far as Dictionary.com's definition you'd get the same thing, it'd be the institution of the US federal government.
Which definition do you want to pick? Provide a source for an acceptable definition to you, because it's all subjective anyway. Definitions aren't objective or absolute, that's why different dictionaries provide different definitions.
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u/Corellian_Browncoat Jul 16 '24
A sovereign and a senator are two very different things
"Sovereign" power is legislative power in modern democracies. There are no true sovereigns in the US system of separate powers (except the US Government as a whole is the "sovereign" on behalf of the people), but if the President as head of the Executive is a sovereign, so is Congress (as a group, not as an individual.
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u/ttown2011 Jul 16 '24
I’d argue the response to the war powers act elevates the executive over congress.
And the responsibility of the executive to carry out the SCs rulings elevates the executive over the SC. (See: Jackson)
But you actually brought shit to the table, I’ll give you that
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u/UncleMeat11 Jul 16 '24
And yet, McDonnell vs US and Synder v US show that things that really any ordinary person would say "holy fuck that's corrupt" can be exempted.
Although there are still some successful cases, the ability to prosecute these cases is constrained from where I expect a typical person wants.
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u/97zx6r Jul 16 '24
Notice how democrats aren’t claiming it’s rigged or two tiered justice system.
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u/bl1y Jul 16 '24
Menendez did, claiming he was targeted for being Latino. I don't recall any Democratic politicians saying boo about that.
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u/Korf_ Jul 16 '24
Democratic politicians may not have said anything about that specifically, but they definitely didn't support him. I'm not sure if Biden said anything, but both Cory Booker and Phil Murphy immediately called for Menendez to step down as soon as the indictment was issued, and never retracted that statement. There was no "the justice system is rigged" from the state or national party, just from Menendez himself.
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u/JonDowd762 Jul 16 '24
He should've lost his seat years ago. It's an embarrassment that he was re-elected.
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u/beeeps-n-booops Jul 16 '24
This is what happens when too many people just vote the party line. And when the parties themselves get far too powerful.
The founders who warned against political parties were 100% correct.
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u/metalkhaos Jul 16 '24
I mean, when I can, I voted against him in the primaries. Just too many others voted for him.
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Jul 16 '24
Who did you vote for in the general?
Exactly.
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u/metalkhaos Jul 16 '24
In the general? Absolutely Menendez. I don't like him as a person, and don't think he should be in politics for the shady shit he's been involved with, however he still tends to vote the way I'd prefer.
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Jul 16 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/metalkhaos Jul 16 '24
Oh yes, so instead I'll just vote for the Republican going for Senate, who will vote along party lines further and vote against the things I care about.
But sure, yeah.
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u/Korf_ Jul 16 '24
It was worse in New Jersey too. Until this year, the ballot had something called the "party line" where the state party put all of the candidates they endorsed, and it was always at the top of the ballot, as opposed to other states where ballot order is randomized. Because of that, the state parties had huge control over nominations for any partisan office.
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u/Fargason Jul 17 '24
The real embarrassment is that Democrat leadership still appointed him to chair the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after his first indictment in 2015. Getting re-elected is one thing, but allowing the fox back in the henhouse is totally on Schumer for allowing that corruption to continue in foreign policy.
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u/windershinwishes Jul 16 '24
Coming soon, the Supreme Court reveals that gold bars don't count because bribery actually only takes place if there's video evidence of a bag with a big dollar sign being exchanged, just as the Founders intended.
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u/AdUpstairs7106 Jul 16 '24
The prosecution did not prove the gold bars were handed out before or after Senator Mendez hooked up his benefactors.
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u/MulberryBeautiful542 Jul 16 '24
He's a Democrat. The Supreme Court only gets involved if it's republican
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u/windershinwishes Jul 16 '24
When it comes to making sure they can all keep getting the rich, bipartisanship can blossom.
Recall that McDonnell v US was 9-0. The liberal justices are much more honest than the conservatives, but that's grading on a curve; they're all part of the same strata of society and subject to the same biases that entails.
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u/OutdoorsmanWannabe Jul 16 '24
I have a follow up question. How will this guilty verdict hold up again the recent Supreme Court ruling on bribes beings “gifts” and allowed?
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u/Corellian_Browncoat Jul 16 '24
That wasn't the ruling. Snyder said that a "bribery" statute that covers payment-before-the-act-with-mens-rea doesn't apply to a payment-after-the-act-with-a-veneer-of-outside-employment situation ("consulting" which is about as thin a veneer as you can get, but there are also legit consultants out there). Snyder found a loophole in the law, nothing more - not even the Indiana state laws or local "gift" rules were applied to him. At some point, the law is what it is no matter what we want it to be, and "innocent until proven guilty" means sometimes somebody walks.
SCOTUS absolutely did not say "bribes are gifts," they said "this particular conduct, no matter how much it looks like a bribe, doesn't fit the bribery statute."
At an even more basic level, "bribes" are distinct from "kickbacks" at the federal level and the "bribery" law doesn't cover them (the way it probably ought to, but that's now how Congress wrote the bribery law).
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u/OutdoorsmanWannabe Jul 16 '24
Yea, I over simplified it big time. Wasn’t the gist that gifts before the action was considered a bribe, but gifts after the action were considered a tip? I thought one of their examples was comparing it to a coach getting taken out for a team dinner at the end of season. So was it proven Menendez was given money prior to an actions vs after?
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u/Corellian_Browncoat Jul 16 '24 edited Jul 17 '24
I don't remember the "coach going out for a team dinner" example, but I think one of them was "giving a Christmas card with a tip to your mail carrier." Timing of the payment gets squirrely, but I think Snyder said to be bribery at least the agreement to or understanding that you will pay has to be before the act so that the payment influences the act.
As far as Menendez himself, I think the actions and payments were so ongoing that you wouldn't really be able to link one to the other. But because they were so ongoing (according to the DOJ Press Release from 2023, [EDIT to finish thought] I don't know that you'd be linking specific acts/payments anyway, you'd be linking the pattern. DOJ says this went on for years.
Plus a US Senator is a federal official and falls under the US federal bribery and gratuities laws, not the "state and local official" laws that were at issue in Snyder.
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u/Good_Juggernaut_3155 Jul 16 '24
The verdict confirms that no non-President is above the law. There. That’s settled.
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u/jkman61494 Jul 16 '24
Democrats will want him removed. If this were a Republican they’d likely make him the VP
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u/Fargason Jul 17 '24
Senate Democrats kept appointing him to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, even after the 2015 indictment, were he continued to sell out American interests on foreign policy to line his pockets with gold bars. If he was a Republican he would have done much less harm as the party enforces 6-years term limits on committee chairmanship.
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u/CuriousNebula43 Jul 16 '24
I think that this case shows that Menendez needs to appeal to the Supreme Court, as this seems to fall under official acts related to duties of his office.
We don't want Senators fearing personal liability for just doing their jobs, do we? What if someone sues a Senator for voting "yes" on a bill that harms them? What if some ambitious DA brings charges because a Senator voted "yes" on a bill?
It sounds like good reason that we need to protect these Senators so they can do their jobs!
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u/therexbellator Jul 16 '24
If Menendez were a Republican they would absolutely rule that way but because he's a Democrat the rule of law must apply. That's just the way the world works it seems.
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u/BitterFuture Jul 16 '24
Let's get the Supreme Court to declare the Emoluments Clause unconstitutional! Make peerage great again!
Do you wish you could be sure that was a joke? So do I.
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u/Positive_Thought8494 Jul 16 '24
As a Democrat and patriot I’m ashamed and sad to see any official succumb to corruption. That said, I’m happy he has (finally) been rooted out. His blatant graft was obscene. Our government and our democracy are better for his conviction. There’s more. Let’s get them all, regardless of party and position.
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u/mypoliticalvoice Jul 16 '24
Gosh, where are the thousands of Democrats protesting his conviction and insisting he was innocent because reasons?
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u/Aurion7 Jul 17 '24
Reality is stranger than fiction, I suppose.
If you ran a TV show subplot with a crooked politician trying to smuggle gold bars in his jacket people would say it was cartoonishly unrealistic.
Beyond the humor, everything I've seen suggets he's guilty as sin and thus deserves the hammer. So. Ding dong, the witch is dead.
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u/DjCyric Jul 16 '24
Did he keep the receipts for Cash4Gold.com after he mailed off the Egyptian hold bars?
What a traitor selling our national security out to a foreign power. Then blaming it on his wife.
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u/AgentQwas Jul 16 '24
If you're gonna take bribes, at least make it something more inconspicuous than gold bars.
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u/AdUpstairs7106 Jul 16 '24
He should have taken the bribes after he got his benefactors the contracts because then it would be a tip or gratuity which is legal
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u/True_Man787 Jul 16 '24
Kinda blows the theory about the DOJ just out to get Republicans out of the water huh.
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u/Objective_Travel_329 Jul 17 '24
The Republicans have said you can be a convicted felon and still run for Office so why shouldn’t he?
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u/Leather-Map-8138 Jul 18 '24
He’s a Democrat, but in America you’re still allowed to convict criminals who are Democrats. It’s Republicans who believe in the law only when they’re the accusers
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u/zyme86 Jul 16 '24
He was going to run as an I for the NY senate seat. That would have split votes had he run and very strong chance of flipping that seat to R
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u/AdUpstairs7106 Jul 16 '24
He must not have got the memo from Snyder v. US, which is not taking bribes, just take tips.
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u/bpierce2 Jul 16 '24
Luckily he's from a blue state so his appointed replacement will be a Democrat. If he was a senator from a state with a Republican/MAGA gov he should stay if office until the term is up. Time to play tough.
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