Former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was the goal of an ethics criticism in 2006 by Republican Occasion opponents which opened the door to vital prices of corruption that ended the senator’s political profession. This week, Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years behind bars floated an thought of looking for a possible pardon from President Donald Trump regardless of being a member of the Democratic Occasion.
As seen on CNN, Bob Menendez was sentenced by U.S. District Choose Sidney Stein in a Manhattan federal court docket on Wednesday (Jan. 29).
At root, Menendez was convicted in 2024 on bribery and corruption prices, which included taking up six figures in gold bars, money, and a Mercedes-Benz convertible from Egyptian authorities officers and three businessmen in alternate for political favors.
Menendez was as soon as a darling of the Democratic Occasion and was chair of the Senate International Relations Committee on the peak of his political profession. Nonetheless, the conviction on 16 felony counts has given the previous senator the unwelcomed distinction of being the primary United States senator to be charged and convicted of appearing as an agent to help a overseas authorities.
In court docket, Menendez made an emotional assertion towards Choose Stein.
“You have got earlier than you a chastened man,” Menendez stated. “Aside from household, I’ve misplaced every little thing I ever cared about. For somebody who spent his total life in public service, on daily basis I’m awake is a punishment.”
Menendez’s tune modified outdoors the courtroom when he spoke to a gathering of media.
“Solely within the Southern District of New York would prosecutors enable a witness to stroll away from over 10 felony prices, together with defrauding the US authorities in order that they’ll get him to lie on the stand. Welcome to the Southern District of New York, the wild west of political prosecutions,” Menendez stated.
He added, “This course of is political and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores the integrity to the system.”
As famous on the high of the story, Menendez’s historical past of questionable political operations dates again to the late Nineteen Nineties, and he was later indicted in 2015 on bribery, fraud, and false assertion prices in connection to boosting the enterprise pursuits of a Florida physician with ties to the Dominican Republic in what would’ve benefited the physician’s follow.
President Trump has not responded to Bob Menendez’s assertion outdoors the court docket.
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Picture: Getty
