Is this game over for Hudson Bob?
Bob Menendez reportedly scoffed at the first part of Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni’s closing arguments on Monday, remarking “[t]he government is intoxicated with their own rhetoric.”
But the government’s evidence is objectively damning and points to Menendez using his governmental office to steer hundreds of thousands of dollars in his direction including cash, gold bars, and even an expensive automobile. Monteleoni told the federal jury that a small mountain of emails and text messages prove that pirate’s horde were the proceeds of bribes.
Menendez “put his power up for sale,” Monteleoni told the jurors,” adding that New Jersey’s senior senator “also wanted to use it to pile up riches for himself and his wife.”
The trial itself is entering its ninth week and has covered alleged criminality spanning from 2018 to 2022. This is Menendez’s second career federal prosecution; his last trial (in 2017) ended in a hung jury.
A career politician, Menendez hasn’t been out of public office for almost forty years since he joined the state legislature in 1986. He’s filed petitions to run as an independent for reelection in 2024 despite being denied a path to the Democrat nomination which ultimately went to Congressman Andy Kim of Burlington County.
