The Journal. - Gold Bars, Cash and a Mercedes: A U.S. Senator's Corruption Trial

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

After his first corruption case ended in a mistrial in 2017, Sen. Bob Menendez had a message for his supporters: “Today is resurrection day.” Now, Menendez is back in a courthouse facing new corruption charges. WSJ’s Corinne Ramey unpacks the case. Further Reading: - Menendez Declared His ‘Resurrection.’ Then He Fell in Love.  Further Listening: - The 'Mystery Man' Tells Us How He Helped Free Rod Blagojevich  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seven years ago, New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez walked out of a federal courthouse. His 11-week trial on corruption charges had ended in a hung jury, and the senator was triumphant. First and above all, I want to thank God because it is by his grace that I was delivered from an unjust prosecution.

Menendez also had a message. To those who were digging my political grave so that they could jump into my seat, I know who you are and I won't forget you. For the last eight weeks, Menendez has been sitting in a New York courtroom facing corruption charges again. He's pleaded not guilty, and the jury is about to decide his fate. Our colleague Corinne Ramey has been following the trial. What's most interesting to you about this case? I mean, I think I've always been interested in public corruption cases. This is a particularly colorful one, I think.

You know, we have the gold bars. We have cash stuffed in boots. We have all kinds of, you know, a reclining chair as an alleged bribe. Just very sort of colorful details. But particularly because these cases are so tricky for prosecutors. You know, prosecutors will say things like the public corruption is common, it's rampant, but yet charging these cases and then convincing a jury of these kind of offenses is really hard. Prosecutors have to prove a quid pro quo,

that a politician, say, used the official power of his or her office in exchange for gifts or benefits or campaign contributions. And Menendez's lawyers have been saying, you know, prosecutors are asking the jury to make inferences about sort of his knowledge and whether one thing was exchanged for another. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Wednesday, July 10th. Coming up on the show, gold bars, thousands of dollars stuffed in shoes, and the corruption trial of Senator Robert Menendez grew up in New Jersey and is the son of Cuban immigrants.

He's been a public servant for decades and a senator since 2006. Menendez is a real institution in New Jersey. He's been there forever. He has close ties to a lot of communities. And in terms of what he's known for in the Senate, he has been particularly interested in foreign affairs and immigration and was previously chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I want to go back to his first trial. Can you tell us what was the case that time? So I want to pause a minute and say this,

it's really crazy to have a sitting senator who goes to trial twice. We've looked around for other examples of this particular thing, and I'm not aware of any. So that first time, Menendez was indicted in 2015 on fraud and bribery offenses, and prosecutors accused him of using the power of his office in exchange for helping a Florida ophthalmologist who gave him campaign contributions and gifts like flights on his private jet and hotel rooms. But the jury couldn't reach a verdict, and the judge declared it a mistrial. The Justice Department decided not to retry the case. For Menendez, who maintained his innocence, this was a major victory.

After he was cleared of the charges, Menendez reclaimed his post as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. So he's like back in the saddle. Absolutely. And his career is back on track. There were no scars from that? No, he was moving forward and he still had sort of the backing and support he needed and was sort of like a power broker type. He had a lot of power in Washington. In 2018, Menendez ran for re-election, promising higher wages, protections for the Jersey Shore,

and immigration reform. I'm Bob Menendez, and I'm running for the United States Senate. Menendez handily beat his opponent and was elected to a third term. Today is a victory of hope over hate, for facts over fiction, for inclusion over division, for hard work over ripping people off. for hard work over ripping people off. His career was back on track. So was his love life in early 2018.

You know, just as his career is kind of back on track, he also meets Nadine Arslanian. And his lawyers say that she was dazzling to Menendez and he fell hard for her. She was beautiful and tall and worldly and born in Lebanon and spoke four languages. There are many of their text messages and exchanges because they're really lovey-dovey. I mean, they call each other my love and mon am. And just, it seemed like things were pretty serious and they were pretty happy. And here's one text message that says, they're talking about sort of going to an event. And he says, you will be by far the most gorgeous woman there. And then she says, I love you so much. And later she says to him, you and only you are who I care

about. That's why I want to make you proud of me. I love showing you off because I know 100% factually and would bet on this every single time that I'm the handsomest, sexiest man on the planet for a boyfriend. In 2019, Menendez decided to take the relationship to the next level with a marriage proposal, a moment that was shared on YouTube. So in the video, they're on this bench that's sort of in front of the Taj Mahal,

and he starts singing this song, Never Enough, from the film The Greatest Showman. All the stars we steal from the night sky would never be. And she's sitting on the bench and he's singing to her. And then he sits down and shows her a ring and they kiss. Oh, my God. Whoa. Menendez was riding high. But in June 2022, things changed.

Yes, so FBI agents show up in their house in unmarked cars. And the way these searches work, it's not like the FBI tells you, hey, I'm coming over. They just show up. Usually early. Usually early. And in this case, someone from the FBI testified in court that they took sort of extra steps to remain discreet. Like they don't want to advertise to neighbors like, hey, we're here and we're searching this sitting senator's house. So they were careful. They got into the house and went through all the rooms,

kind of searching for various things. And they found closets that were locked. They found tons of cash, envelopes of cash, stuffed in all kinds of places. They found gold bars in the closets. Gold bars? Yeah. They found envelopes that had cash in them that had the fingerprints and DNA of one of the businessmen who prosecutors alleged bribed Menendez.

striking to me in seeing the pictures of their home and this search is just how kind of cluttered it was and how that the cash was just amongst the clutter. Like, it's not like they, they did have a safe, but it wasn't all there. It was also in a pair of boots. It was in an office. It was just these, the gold and the cash was everywhere. Where prosecutors say the gold bars and cash came from, that's next. Don't you wish your life came with a warning app? That dog does not want to be petted. Well, life doesn't always give you time

to change the outcome, but prediabetes does. Take the one-minute test today at doihaveprediabetes.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and its prediabetes awareness partners. Last September, Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, were both indicted on corruption charges. And both pleaded not guilty. The charges had political consequences for the senator. He stepped down as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In May, his trial began.

What is the story that prosecutors are telling? Prosecutors argued that there were three different bribery schemes and that Arslanian was the go-between and sort of at the center of all three. In one of these, prosecutors said that Menendez was assisting a New Jersey businessman and the government of Egypt in exchange for cash and gold bars. They said Menendez gave sensitive info to Egypt, that he helped secretly draft a letter to Egypt that was sent to senators and that he promised to green light military aid. Okay, so what else? Like, what other kinds of corruption are prosecutors alleging? Prosecutors say that in one alleged bribery scheme, Menendez agreed to try to influence the outcome of a criminal case,

an investigation before the New Jersey Attorney General's office in exchange for a new Mercedes-Benz convertible. Nadine had been in a car crash and she really needed a car. She was very vocal about it in some of the messages and communications we saw that she wanted a new Mercedes. And we could see that he did too, that the couple talked about cars. They liked this model. They talked about the color of the interior in the car. Prosecutors say that Menendez and his wife decided that they could get money for the car from a New Jersey businessman who was seeking a favor from Menendez related to a criminal case.

At the trial, the businessman, who's a cooperating witness, said, quote, I remember saying to her, if your problem is a car, my problem is saving my family. He also testified that he handed her $15,000 in a restaurant parking lot and then funded car payments for several years. How does Senator Menendez respond to that allegation? So Menendez says that he helps constituents all the time, that all his actions were appropriate. And if he thought a constituent was being treated unfairly by a law enforcement office, of course he would try to help that constituent. It's part of his job.

And what about the case overall? What are his lawyers saying? His lawyers have argued that Arslanian kept Menendez in the dark. I mean, in a lot of ways, they've blamed her. They've said he didn't have any knowledge of exchanges, of quid pro quos, that she was the one who was accepting the bribes. And he didn't know that, say, a gold bar or a new convertible was in exchange for actions that he took. What does she say? So we don't know what she says because she hasn't gone to trial. She was supposed to go to trial with him and then got diagnosed with breast cancer. So she is undergoing treatment at this point.

We do know she's pleaded not guilty and has denied wrongdoing. Were the gold bars at the trial? The gold bars were at the trial. The jury actually got to see the gold bars and hold the gold bars. And I suppose another thing to mention about the gold bars is prosecutors highlighted that Menendez had various Google searches for the value of the gold bars. showing that he had recently acquired the gold bars or showing that they were helping to show that they were bribes for various actions. Menendez claimed that they were kind of cherry-picking things

and he Googles different things all the time. And at the start, you said it's difficult to prove public corruption. There needs to be quid pro quo. What are some examples that the prosecution has given in this case? So the prosecution has said that Menendez sort of oversaw all these, that he was keeping track of Arslanian every step of the way, that he tracked her on

the Find My Friends app on their iPhones, that he checked in with each little detail, like, did you schedule this meeting? Or what's happening with the car payments? Or these little details of every exchange. exchange. After two months and more than 30 witnesses, the case is coming to an end. This week, there were closing arguments, and this closing arguments gives both prosecutors and the defense a chance to make their final pitch to the jury to sort of tie up all the evidence in a bow and try to convince the jury why that evidence either supports the charges or makes it impossible to convict Menendez. I think one thing that stuck out to me about his lawyer's argument was just the highlighting of the word inferences. Like Menendez's lawyer said,

prosecutors were trying to use these various different things to convince the jury to arrive at a conclusion, but it was all inferences. There wasn't enough to tie it all together. What did the prosecutors say in their closing arguments to sort of address that point? Prosecutors said there was overwhelming evidence of a bribery scheme,

that even though Menendez didn't say, hey, I'll do this if you give me that, that the communications with Nadine, the timing of messages, what prosecutors view as attempts to sort of hide some conduct, shows that there was wrongdoing. When can we expect a verdict? I mean, that's the question. We don't know because once it's in the jury's hands,

they could deliberate for a couple hours. They could deliberate for a couple days. And if they really got stuck, it might take longer than that. If Menendez walks out without a conviction, will his political career get back on track? I think in some ways his political career has really dwindled due to the indictment. He has filed to run as an independent, so I guess we'd have to see how that plays out. This seems like a very high-stakes trial,

both for the prosecution and for Menendez. Absolutely. I think for Menendez, his political career is on the line. And for prosecutors, sort of the public corruption cases at large are on the line. I think some people view this case, some legal experts view this case as having overwhelming evidence,

especially with kind of the colorful bits like gold bars and cash. And if they lost, I think there'd be the sense of if you can't get a conviction here, then where can you? That's all for today, Wednesday, July 10th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Christina Peterson. Thanks for listening.

See you tomorrow.