National
In the wake of the historic expulsion of former Congressman George Santos (R-Queens), another expulsion-worthy scandal may be reaching its denouement in the other chamber of Congress.
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is no stranger to corruption charges and investigations on Capitol Hill. In 2015, he was indicted on federal corruption charges but due to a hung jury, the charges were dropped in 2018. The Senate Ethics Committee “severely admonished” Menendez for accepting gifts from Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, who was later charged with massive Medicare fraud. The 2018 legal battles contributed to a closer-than-expected Senate race for Menendez that year, although, due to the blue wave of 2018, he fended off his opponent Bob Hugin (R) by a decent margin.
Now, Menendez faces more severe and apparent charges that continue to metastasize into what some guess might be the end of his political career.
Earlier this autumn, Menendez was indicted again for allegedly accepting expensive gifts in exchange for contracts and favors. This time, however, instead of accepting gifts from a Florida retinologist in exchange for the help of federal agencies, his alleged corruption involves fraternization with the Egyptian government.
He and his wife, Nadine, were charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion. The charges alleged that Menendez and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for aiding the Egyptian government by providing sensitive U.S. information. Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that he withheld military aid and directly pressured officials over Egypt’s human rights abuses. The indictment, however, accuses him of ghost-writing a letter to Egyptian officials, leveraging lifts on arms trade restrictions in exchange for bribes.
Federal prosecutors obtained from his Bergen County home envelopes of cash totalling $480,000, gold bars, a luxury car, and other forms of alleged payment.
The anthology now deepens as some of the gold bars extricated from his home appear to have been stolen. Four of the thirteen gold bars recovered from the home – all together totalling over $100,000 in value – are linked via stamped serial numbers to Fred Daibes, a New Jersey businessman who is now accused of bribing Menendez. The 2013 robbery case shows that Daibes was the victim of an armed robbery, reporting losses of $500,000 in cash and twenty-two gold bars. He signed “property release forms,” certifying that the gold bars belonged to him. Two of the bars were recovered from the Menendez home, while photos of two others were found on Menendez’s wife’s phone. The FBI believes Nadine Menendez gave the bars to a jeweler to be sold.
The FBI says that the quid pro quo between Daibes and Menendez materialized in the form of Menendez attempting to influence the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s office, which, in 2018, was investigating Daibes for bank fraud. According to police reports, the four people who robbed Daibes were all caught and pleaded guilty, while the stolen property was returned to Daibes. This reestablishes the possibility of transaction of the gold bars between Daibes and Menendez.
Both men claim their innocence and that they will eventually be exonerated. Menendez initially said to the large sums of gold and cash found in his home in September that he keeps such large amounts in his home “for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.”
Calls for Menendez to resign date back to the September indictment. While Senate procedure usually follows that a sitting chair of a committee must step down from that position upon indictment, procedure does not typically require a resignation from the Senate overall. Menendez has stepped down as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and was succeeded by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD).
Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) has taken the prerogative of taunting Menendez online and calling for his removal from the Senate. He discussed his thoughts during a recent appearance on The View. When questioned on the George Santos expulsion, Fetterman instead focused on his colleague.
“We have a colleague in the Senate that’s actually done much more sinister and serious kinds of things, Senator Menendez,” said Fetterman. “He needs to go. If you are going to expel Santos, how can you allow somebody like Menendez to remain in the Senate? Santos’ lies were almost kind of funny. He landed on the moon and that kind of stuff. Menendez is really a Senator for Egypt, not New Jersey. So, I really think he needs to go, especially since it’s kind of strange that Santos is not allowed to remain in the House.”
Fetterman also introduced a resolution last month to bar incumbent Senators charged with “certain criminal offenses from receiving classified information.” Menendez had received a classified briefing on the situation in Ukraine.
Menendez responded to Fetterman’s words:
“Mr. Fetterman appears to think he’s judge, jury, and executioner,” said Menendez. “The junior senator from Pennsylvania seems to be more interested in clickbait than justice. He cannot say he stands for core constitutional principles of due process and the presumption of innocence when he is actively working to undermine my rights. I’m confident when all the facts are presented, I will be exonerated and the senator will have to eat his words.”
The Constitution gives the Senate power to expel members with a two-thirds majority vote, similar to the power afforded to the U.S. House. Only fifteen Senators have been expelled in history, eleven of whom were expelled in 1861 for supporting the Confederacy. Expulsion has not occurred since 1912, when William Lorimer (R-IL) was expelled three years after his election for using corrupt methods and practices, including bribery, to get elected.
State
Governor Kathy Hochul (D) has stepped back from her controversial plan to overrule local zoning to meet State housing demands. She has acknowledged that the plan should not be in contention when state lawmakers will be on the ballot in 2024.
“I’ll work with [the Legislature], but I also have so many priorities, I’m not going to head down the same path we did last year with the exact same plan, in a year that is an election year for members,” she said, according to City & State.
Hochul attempted to earn the legislature’s support for her housing plan, which would have built 800,000 new homes and affordable housing across the state over the next decade. Long Island was set to see the bulk of that growth, as the agenda required Long Island to increase its housing by 3% over three-year cycles, while Upstate New York was required to grow its housing supply by 1% over three-year cycles.
Local
Congressman Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) of the Second District has spearheaded a renewed effort to allow the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to cover hot food.
Garbarino, with a bipartisan slate of legislators, sent a letter to the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees urging them to take up their Hot Food Act as part of the upcoming Farm Bill.
“Since its enactment 60 years ago, SNAP has prohibited the purchase of hot foods,” said the lawmakers in their letter. “While this restriction may have made sense in the 1970s, when most families were cooking their meals at home, it is no longer an accurate reflection of American families’ dietary or lifestyle needs. During natural disasters, USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service grants waivers to affected counties so that SNAP participants can use their benefits to purchase hot foods when they are unable to prepare food at home. Such waivers demonstrate that the restriction on hot foods is an unnecessary red tape of business owners, program administrators, and American families.”
Congressman Garbarino said of the introduction of the Hot Foods Act last May: “Right now, a working mom struggling to feed her family is permitted to purchase a cold sandwich for her kids using SNAP benefits but prohibited from buying soup or a rotisserie chicken to ensure they get a hot meal. It makes little sense to continue to impose an arbitrary and outdated restriction on the use of SNAP benefits to purchase hot foods when the ability to do so could make a significant difference to so many families.”
