Bob Menendez corruption trial, round 2: Prosecutors have ‘compelling’ narrative

When Sen. Bob Menendez walked into a Newark federal courthouse for the first day of his 2017 corruption trial, so many reporters were watching him that the courthouse assigned them a spillover room. The spectacle didn’t last long.

Interest from the public and news media quickly waned after salacious allegations of Dominican sex workers, flights on private jets and scenes of luxurious villas gave way in the courtroom to technical details about Medicare reimbursements and credit card points to purchase a high-end grill. Jurors weren’t convinced he broke the law.

Now the government has another shot at the senior senator from New Jersey. This next trial, set to play out beginning Monday, promises to be consistently dramatic — and gives prosecutors who’ve eyed Menendez for at least two decades perhaps their best chance to convince a jury of his alleged corruption.

Federal prosecutors’ case against Menendez includes accusations of paving the way for arms sales to a foreign government; shadowy foreign military and intelligence agents; pressuring state and federal prosecutors to go easy on friends; and bribe after bribe, from stacks of cash to gold bars to a brand new Mercedes for the senator’s wife after she struck and killed a man.

The actions outlined in their indictment against Menendez, his wife and three New Jersey businesspeople began in March 2018, weeks after the Justice Department dropped the previous charges against Menendez following the mistrial.

This time, lawyers and political observers say, the case seems even more serious. Prosecutors have years of text messages and emails, not to mention cooperating witnesses, including one of the businesspeople who has already pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government.

“It presents a very cogent and compelling narrative of corruption allegations,” said Luke Cass, a former federal prosecutor who is now a defense attorney and partner at Womble Bond Dickinson.

Menendez’s former political allies seem to agree.

The allegations against the senator in 2017 — that he had sought to intervene with federal officials to aid friend and donor Salomon Melgen’s business interests and a multi-million Medicare dispute of his in exchange for millions in political donations and private jet flights to his Dominican villa — didn’t carry with them enough stink to keep fellow politicians away from Menendez.

Day after day through the trial, elected officials showed up to put their support of the senator on record. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) even testified as character witnesses. In September, four days after the new indictment against Menendez came down, Booker called on him to resign.

Booker did not say whether he’d testify again, but told POLITICO in an interview that “the Senator Menendez that I know was somebody that I was very grateful and honored to be serving with, and I did not know anything of the corruption.” Graham, meanwhile, said: “I don’t think I’ll be a witness now.”

One prominent New Jersey politician who didn’t show up last time was Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop. He said he felt “insincere” pretending that he cared about the trial, but that others showed up out of fear.

“I think a lot of people in New Jersey still operate under that PTSD of living with him for decades,” said Fulop, a Democrat who is running for governor.

Fulop, like many, believes the senator is going to have a much harder time walking out of court a free man. One of the key arguments Menedez made last time is that Melgen was a friend — not someone trying to bribe him. Menendez’s son, Rob Menendez, who has since won a seat in Congress and is up for reelection this year, testified that he considered Melgen an uncle.

“I think when you get to gold bars, cash and Googling ‘how much is a gold bar worth,’ and a Mercedes, it’s hard to argue that’s the normal course of friendship,” Fulop said.

But federal prosecutors have to try their case in the shadow of rulings that makes public corruption cases harder to win, something that Menendez’s star-studded legal team knows about. One of them, Avi Weitzman, represented Gov. Chris Christie’s office during the Bridgegate scandal. Another, Yaakov Roth, represented former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in his bribery case and argued on behalf of Bridgegate defendant Bridget Kelly and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo aide Joseph Percoco at the Supreme Court — which overturned all three convictions.

In a preview of their strategy, Menendez’s attorneys accused the Department of Justice of “swiftboating” Menendez, a reference to the campaign ads attacking John Kerry that helped George Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign.

“Time and again, the Justice Department has brought overly aggressive, baseless political corruption charges that have ruined lives,” his attorneys said in an April court filing.

They went on to recount federal prosecutors’ failures to make charges stick in Bridgegate or against McDonnell, the late Sen. Ted Stevens, former New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin and, of course, Menendez himself in 2017.

Cass, the former federal prosecutor, said in the Menendez case the government seems to have the kind of evidence that could avoid outcomes like the McDonnell case.

“We all think about this in the framework of quid pro quo — quid is the things of value, the pro is the exchange, and the quo are the official acts,” he said. “And the quid is incredibly powerful, as alleged: the 480 grand cash, and the envelopes with the fingerprints, and the gold bars, and all that stuff.”

So the real battle will be on whether Menendez’s actions were “official acts” as outlined in a Supreme Court ruling in the McDonnell case.

But the superseding indictment that prosecutors filed in March also alleges Menendez attempted to obstruct the investigation. Such obstruction of justice charges are “potent tools” that can fill gaps or weaknesses in a case, Cass said.

Jonathan Kravis, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, said evidence that defendants were trying to hide can help reinforce the underlying corruption charges.

“Obstruction evidence is often good evidence of corrupt intent,” he said.

Menendez’s legal strategy also may include blaming his wife for many of the actions that led to the bribery case and claiming he has a mental disorder.

The most dramatic moment of the last case came immediately after it ended, when Menendez walked out of the courthouse and vowed “to those who were digging my political grave so they could jump into my seat, I know who you are, and I won't forget you.”

It’s clear federal prosecutors also didn’t forget him.

While there’s no telling how the jury will rule ahead of the trial, polling indicates that the more salacious allegations against Menendez — and the fact that it’s his second indictment — have tried the public’s patience. According to a Monmouth University poll from 2015, shortly after Menendez’s first indictment, just 28 percent of New Jerseyans said the senator should resign, and 47 percent felt he was probably guilty. In a March 2024 Monmouth poll, conducted about six months after Menendez’s second indictment, those numbers, respectively, were 63 percent and 75 percent.

“As stark as some of the imagery already is, like the gold bars and the luxury car, there’s also a part I’m sensing where the public is tired of dealing with Menendez and having to hear about him,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.