Did disgraced U.S. Senator Bob Menendez end his quixotic independent run for reelection in the hopes of receiving – or in exchange for – a presidential pardon?
That’s the premise of a NY Post article out today, Save Jerseyans. And there could be truth to it.
“Sources said dropping out was likely Menendez’s last bargaining chip. Had he stayed in the race, Democrats worried he could split the vote, resulting in a victory for the Republican candidate Curtis Bashaw,” wrote NYP Reporter Isabel Vincent.
Pre-conviction polling showed Menendez pulling as much as 9% of the general election vote in a three-way match-up. While no New Jersey Republican has won a U.S. Senate seat since before Watergate, a high-single digit Menendez showing could’ve been enough to doom Democrat nominee Andy Kim in November.
Everything comes full circle. Bob Menendez’s long-time friend Salomon Melgen had his own sentence commuted back in 2021 by President Trump after Menendez beat a first federal corruption indictment; according to the government when the indictment was unsealted in 2015, “Menendez accepted close to $1 million worth of lavish gifts and campaign contributions from Melgen in exchange for using the power of his Senate office to influence the outcome of ongoing contractual and Medicare billing disputes worth tens of millions of dollars to Melgen and to support the visa applications of several of Melgen’s girlfriends.”
Senator Menendez’s first prosecution infamously ended in a mistrial, and he was reelected in 2018. Menendez then lobbied for clemency for his old friend.
Relations between Biden and Menendez haven’t always been chummy. The New Jersey Senator – who resigns on Tuesday – sometimes vocally criticized the Biden Administration on issues ranging from foreign policy to immigration.
It’s not unusual for departing presidents to issue a wave of last-minute pardons and commutations on the eve of leaving office, and those decisions are often controversial.
It remains to be seen if Biden pardons his own son, Hunter, and there’s perhaps something to be said for the fact that both the Biden’s and the Menendez’s have been accused to selling influence to foreign interests. Menendez accepted gold bars and other presents for aiding foreign actors, notably Qatar and Egypt; today, the U.S. House reported that Biden’s have raked in $27 million since 2014 from foreign interests.
