Accused of intervening into a DOJ case against a corrupt banker in exchange for gold bars (no paper trail). I wish the feds success with this. I’m going to guess a NY banker used to the good life will be easy to flip once he looks at long years in a Fed prison. Gold Bar Bob has been here before and now he needs to be gone. Did Sen. Bob Menendez and wife improperly take gold bars from corrupt bank exec? Federal prosecutors are looking into whether an admitted felon helped arrange to give gold bars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez or his wife in exchange for help, sources familiar with the matter tell News 4. Menendez disclosed his family received the gold bars back in 2020 -- but he disclosed that asset only after the federal criminal investigation was underway. Daibes faced more than a dozen counts of bank fraud for lying about a $1.8 million loan from Mariner's Bank where he served as chairman.
LOL, why do they keep bothering with this man, corruption is legal in this country ... taking gold bars is political speech or something
We need to purge all corrupt politicians. I don’t care if they have a d or an r after their name. They should be expelled and locked up.
Yep, he is totally corrupt, but likely is not legally corrupt under USSC precedent effectively legalizing bribery
Was taking gold bars in exchange for help in a criminal matter a part of Citizens United I haven’t read? Bald-faced public corruption really pisses me off. Lock him up
I'm gonna go ahead and say yes, and if it isnt Bob should use the case to sue the government to make sure it is included Ted Cruz style
Not Citizens United. You now have to prove an explicit stated quid pro quo. They may have that here. I don't know. But they need to have some explicit agreement by Menendez to use official power in exchange for the gold bars. Not simply, I did stuff for you, I got gold, but we never formally agreed the two were linked. Crazy, I know. And I have no love for Menendez. Lock him up. Just hate these cases Anatabloc is a tobacco extract which the company Star Scientific was producing in Virginia. Virginia has been a tobacco-producing state. The governor held events promoting the company's product at his governor's mansion after receiving gifts from the CEO of the company. The ruling narrowed the legal definition of public corruption and made it harder for prosecutors to prove that a political official engaged in bribery.[4][5] The term "official act" does not occur in the statutes charged in the case; rather, the parties to the trial had agreed that they would use the definition of that term given in the federal bribery statute 18 U.S.C. § 201(a)(3) in interpreting those statutes. Thus, by construing the term narrowly the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of bribery.[6] According to Bloomberg News, the ruling "appears to have opened the floodgates for reversals of high-profile public corruption cases, including William Jefferson, a former Louisiana congressman. Former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver; Dean Skelos, a former majority leader of the New York state senate; and Skelos’s son, Adam Skelos, have since had corruption convictions overturned on similar grounds."[5] McDonnell v. United States - Wikipedia. The most recent round may not be as applicable, but the USSC has made clear that they are looking to ever narrow federal prosecutions of officials for dishonesty and bribery like conduct. The court also cautioned against future prosecutions by stating that without explicit instruction from Congress the mail and wire fraud statutes do not “place under federal superintendence a vast array of conduct traditionally policed by the States” including deceptive actions normally handled under state contract and tort law. Second, in Percoco v. United States, the court unanimously reversed an honest services wire fraud conviction because the “intangible right of honest services” codified in 18 U.S.C. § 1346, “plainly does not extend a duty to the public to all private persons.” While the court rejected that a person “nominally outside public employment can never have the necessary fiduciary duty to the public” to sustain an honest services fraud conviction, the district court’s jury instruction that defendant owed a duty if he “dominated and controlled any governmental business” and “people working in the government actually relied on him,” was too vague. The court emphasized that such a charge could turn “particularly well-connected and effective lobbyists” into federal criminals but “the public has no right to disinterested service” from such persons. Lane Narrows for Wire and Honest Services Fraud Prosecutions This case is also likely inapplicable, but shows where the Court is focusing on prosecutions of abuse of power Kelly v. United States, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the 2013 Fort Lee lane closure scandal, also known as "Bridgegate". The case centered on whether Bridget Anne Kelly, the chief of staff to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who was running for reelection at the time, and Bill Baroni, the Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, improperly used lane closures on the George Washington Bridge to create traffic jams as a means of retaliation against Mark Sokolich, the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, when he refused to support Christie's reelection campaign. While lower courts had convicted Kelly and Baroni on federal fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the convictions in its May 2020 ruling, stating that such charges could not apply as "the scheme here did not aim to obtain money or property", and remanded their cases back to the lower courts.[1] Justice Elena Kagan delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court on May 7, 2020, which overturned the immediate convictions against Kelly and Baroni. Kagan wrote that "[t]he question presented is whether the defendants committed property fraud."[13] Kagan elaborated that the lane closures could be taken as "an exercise of regulatory power – a reallocation of the lanes between different groups of drivers", and that the prosecution in the case has failed to show that the actions taken by the government were an "object of fraud", as previously held in Pasquantino v. United States.[14][13] Kagan concluded that "ecause the scheme here did not aim to obtain money or property, [William] Baroni and Kelly could not have violated the federal-program fraud or wire fraud laws."[13] The decision reversed the convictions and remanded the case to the lower courts for additional review based on the decision. Kelly v. United States - Wikipedia
Menendez is the same dirtbag who traveled to the Dominican Republic to prey on underage teenage girls.
Thank you. I remember most of those cases. And given these rulings, you have to wonder why the Fed prosecutor (or any prosecutor ever again) is even trying to convict a politician for corruption.
Absolutely. And the opinions have been really critical of prosecutors in their language. I know I would be hesitant. Maybe they have direct evidence of agreement. But otherwise, he may well skate. Frustrating.
You beat me to it. I was going to mention that more than one Republican on Jim Jordan's so called Oversight Committee in attacking Jack Smith noted that the Supreme Count reversed the conviction of Bob McDonnell the former governor of Virginia who was prosecuted by Smith and found guilty for a stunt although not identical very similar to that of Menendez i.e. accepting gifts from a constituent in turn for helping that constituent. Although its been years since I read the opinion if my recollection is accurate the Court held that it was necessary to establish a direct causal relationship between the "gift" and the act(s) of the public official. Apparently even a strong inference of a link wasn't sufficient to sustain the conviction especially if the act(s) were legal in and of themselves.
If that were the case, I don't think many would be left at the fed, state or local level. The entire US government is a dog and pony show.
They were just gifts from a friend. The gold bars were just sitting there anyway, all lonely like, Menendez just kindly offered them a home.
