Amid mounting calls for his resignation, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) held a press conference Monday morning, asserting he is innocent until proven guilty and asking his colleagues in Congress and in New Jersey to not rush to judgment.
“Mr. Y, we’ve been told you don’t feel well,
And we know you’ve lost your voice,
But we wonder how you managed on the salary you make
To acquire a new Rolls-Royce.”
“You’re implyin’ I’m a crook and I say no, sir!
There is nothin’ in my past I care to hide.
I been takin’ emply bottles to the grocer
And each nickel that I got was put aside. . .
(That he got was put aside)…
"Into a little tin box, a little tin box,
That a little tin key unlocks.
There is nothing unorthodox about
A little tin, about a little tin box…
“A Little Tin Box” at the BBC Proms
Fiorello (1959), lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, music by Jerry Bock
Sure, Bob, we all keep hundreds of thousands in cash and gold bars at home because something happened to us decades before. Totally normal.
Of course, he is guilty until proven innocent. However, the evidence thus far revealed makes it very difficult to see anything but rampant guilt, especially in light of the idea that this is his second go-round on indictments.
During his remarks, Menendez also tried to explain away parts of the allegations against him, saying that he has “withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash” from his “personal savings account” over the past three decades “because of the history of [his] family facing confiscation in Cuba.”
From his Wikipedia article:
Menendez was born on January 1, 1954, in New York City to Cuban immigrants[4][5] who had left Cuba a few months earlier, in 1953.[6] His father, Mario Menéndez, was a carpenter, and his mother, Evangelina, was a seamstress
Please, sir: better (read: more believable) explanations are in order.
“A cornerstone of the foundation of American democracy and our justice system is the principle that all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Menendez said.
“As is keeping thousands in cash as stuffing for your monogrammed jacket, as all hard-working Americans do.”
The dates on those 30 year old bills?
How does he think this ends? I’ve never understood this mindset. Fall on your sword, say your fight for personal innocence (which you adamantly maintain!) limits your ability to serve your constituents, and slink away with a few remaining micrograms of dignity.
He got a hung jury last time. He’s probably thinking if he holds fast and doesn’t cop to anything, he can get a repeat performance.
Not related directly to this article or this comment, but he only married his current wife Nadine in 2020. She seems like a fellow spirit on the gold-digging train. It seems like she found her way to him because of his past shady shenanigans.
“A cornerstone of the foundation of American democracy and our justice system is the principle that all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Menendez said. “All people. I ask for nothing more and deserve nothing less. The court of public opinion is no substitute for our revered justice system.”
You had that from your fellow Democrats as part of your previous indictment. All you needed to do was keep your hands clean and you could have spent the rest of your career in the Senate. Instead, mere months after escaping conviction in your previous trial, you put your fingers right back into the corruption cookie jar.
That was disrespectful to your fellow Democrats and the voters of New Jersey who supported you. Spare everyone any additional grief and resign.
They met and started dating just a few months after his hung jury in late 2017. The trial clearly put him on the radar for bad actors looking for corruptible individuals in high levels of government. He was stupid enough to accept their offer.
“A cornerstone of the foundation of American democracy and our justice system is the principle that all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Menendez said.
“And, as an aside, anyone have change for a 1 kilo gold bar? I need to take Nadine and some folks from Egypt out to dinner tonight.”
I don’t see why he should or would take any other approach. The only good thing is if he were to resign he’d be replaced by another Democrat via appointment by a Democratic governor.
Other than that, I’m sort of tired of Democrats taking the high road when this sort of behavior for the other side serves as a motivator to want to vote for them even more (shows they’re beating the system). Michelle Obama said, “when they go low we go high.” That’s fine if it’s politically beneficial. However, in this corrupt environment it no longer is.
Sure, if there’s no there there, they’ll just make something up. But circling the wagons around someone who very likely will be convicted (based on the evidence presented in the indictment) leaves you open to legitimate criticism and feeds the “both sides do it” narrative that will push low-info people to sit on their keisters.
If the Dems can consistently show themselves to be the party of moral forthrightness, I think it will eventually bleed through to some low-info folks, despite the media’s best efforts to drag them into the muck. Like I said, we can’t expect that to reach everyone, but I don’t see any reason to make it easier for the Right and the media to wax Broderist when one of our own does misbehave.
[quote=“jwbuho, post:5, topic:242567”]
…that he has “withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash” from his “personal savings account” over the past three decades “because of the history of [his] family facing confiscation in Cuba.”
That’s just pathetic.
I don’t really agree here. We are WAY past that. Politics is tribalism. My tribe against your tribe. Sure, the Democrats are certainly more thoughtful and responsible but there’s no longer any political benefit. Can that change over time? I hope so, but it, the tribalism, seems to be getting worse for the foreseeable future, not better.
Ideally, Menendez would resign tomorrow and the New Jersey governor would appoint a nice baggage free Democrat and we’d be done with this. There are no political repercussions for Menendez for digging in.
If I were a resident of New Jersey and had to choose between a corrupt Menendez and a MAGA republican I would still vote for Menendez. I wouldn’t be the dumb dumb that would sit out the election (out of moral principle) and let the other, much worse, candidate win.
He also pushed back on the growing list of lawmakers calling on him to resign from office, saying they “rushed to judgment because they see a political opportunity for themselves or those around them.”
To his credit, Menendez didn’t call them ‘demented, Bob-hating, corrupt, ultra-left, woke, Marxist cutthroats.’
It kinda makes me long for days gone by, when ‘defending yourself’ just meant hiring, and following the advice of, a defense attorney. (ed.)
We don’t need any “What about Bob?” whataboutisms from the republicans, the media, or the man on the street.
Resign my dude.
But they’ve been politically rodeo clowning (hey, look over here) for as long as I can remember. Nothing new.
If the corrupt Menendez would do the right thing you wouldn’t have to make that choice.