Wonder if the government would agree not to retry him if he should decide he wants to spend more time with his wife and family.
It wouldn’t matter, he is from New Jersey. New Jersey is a blue state and Governor Philip Murphy is a Democrat.
Personally I would love to see Menendez resign. He has always seemed corrupt to me, but given the current bribery standard I don’t think the Government is going to have much luck on the remaining counts.
Menendez may be guilty, and he may be corrupt—two hoary New Jersey political traditions.
But the re-trial is pure politics and revenge from the obviously corrupt Sessions DoJ.
He can count his lucky stars he didn’t try to kiss a woman or touch her waist. Zero tolerance for that…
Depends on how hard his lawyers fight, but yes, I agree.
[Ahem.]
Actually, it may matter because Menendez is up for reelection this year. If Menendez wins the Dem primary and then is convicted, what chance do you think either Menendez or a replacement candidate will have against a GOP candidate who has been running since before the primary election?
I realize that NJ is a blue state, but the fact that Christie was elected twice in NJ seems to indicate that there are enough GOP voters there to cause major problems either for Menedez or a replacement candidate. This wouldn’t be a problem is Menendez were to announce that he won’t run for reelection, but so far that doesn’t seem likely.
If the only way to gain access in order to attempt to influence or inform a politician is to put money into his/her re-election funds, then all lobbying becomes a form of bribery. If an average voter can’t get into the inner sanctum to speak with his political representative without being on the donor list, then it is all a form of bribery. We are only arguing about the method and the degree of bribery.
This is true for either the blue or the red team. Menendez was particularly stupid about his example, and deserves to lose his seat. The ideal of public elected service is a long, long way from the reality of it. I would love to see the proven examples of a politician that leaves public office without having enriched himself far beyond the stated official benefits of his office.
I would love to see Rush Holt replace Menendez.
This is a relatively common occurrence when a case has resulted in a hung jury and the prosecution decides to try for a conviction a second time. The strategy is to remove the weakest counts (i.e., the ones where there is less evidence, the law is unfavorable, or where there is a significant opportunity for the defense to confuse the jury) and then concentrate on just those counts were a conviction is most likely.
If the prosecutors are reasonable competent, they spoke with members of the first jury and used the results of those discussions, along with perhaps some additional legal research, to decide which counts to drop.
Is Holt considering it? I’d love to have him in the Senate!
Really hoping Menendez decides not to run; first jury apparently had all but two for acquittal, so this political retrial probably will fail again (though maybe not, if they’re dropping weak counts because juror interviews suggested the remaining ones would be stronger standing alone); but he still carries the stench of corruption. Any recent polling on his chances for re-election?
The vivid & fresh memories of Christie will be a pretty large impediment to any GOP success in NJ for a while - however never underestimate the ability of the NJ Democratic party to put forward a hideously unappealing or inept candidate. If Menendez were to announce that he will not run - instantly there would be a handful of sketchy “Usual suspects” with warts and odors and a bunch of favors that are owed to them lining up to run.
Holt would be superb - but sense that he grew weary of having to deal with numerous fools who knew little but commanded much.
No information about Holt’s plans, and he didn’t get much traction in the Senate primary a couple of years ago. I was just stating my long held wish.
New Jersey is actually a lot like Massachusetts in that the governorship is traded back and forth between Dems and Republicans pretty regularly while the Senators (almost invariably), Congressmen (predictably), and state legislature (predominantly) are Dems. There’s something in the psyche of these deep blue states about the balance of power that makes running for governor as a Republican pretty competitive.