President Biden has granted clemency or pardons to all varieties of criminals on his way out the door including death row inmates.
Bob Menendez? At least not yet with three weeks left to go.
The disgraced former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was convicted of 16 counts earlier this year including obstruction of justice and bribery as well as acting as an unregistered foreign agent, part of a sweeping federal corruption indictment that brought down one of the state’s most powerful politicians. Menendez plans to appealhis conviction, but sentencing is currently scheduled for January 2025.
On Thursday, Menendez’s legal team asked the court to postpone his sentencing ahead of his wife’s bribery trial which is set to begin at approximately the same time.
The former Democrat leader’s adjournment request was sent to federal Judge Sidney H. Stein.
“Put simply, the current timeline poses an unnecessary and overwhelming risk of poisoning the proceedings against Nadine,” Menendez’s lawyer argued, according to the Associated Press, referencing his wife’s battle with breast cancer. “Sentencing him during his wife’s trial will of course take a tremendous emotional toll on both Senator Menendez and his family. To ask him to face sentencing during the criminal trial of his wife, who is also in the midst of an ongoing battle against a life-threatening disease, is too much to ask of any man.”
Menendez could be spared the indignity of sentencing (and a jail sentence which could be stayed pending appeal) if his former Senate colleague Joe Biden intervenes before he leaves office at Noon on January 20th, nine days before Menendez’s current sentencing date. The NY Post previously reported that a pardon was being negotiated.
Ironically, Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Medicare fraudster Dr. Salomon Melgen, a longtime Menendez ally and alleged co-conspirator in Menendez’s first federal indictment which ultimately ended indecisively in a mistrial.
