Former U.S. senator Bob Menendez was recently sentenced in federal court to 11 years in prison after being convicted in 2024 of taking bribes. The New Jersey Democrat was found to have received gold bars in exchange for favors in Egypt and for other New Jersey businessmen. Menendez’s conviction marks the first time a former senator has been convicted of acting as a foreign agent.
Menendez was a veteran politician in the Democratic Party, having served for almost two decades representing the Garden State in Washington, D.C. However, he was convicted of all 16 felony charges brought against him, including bribery and fraud. He resigned from the Senate last summer, maintaining that he was an innocent man.
Prosecutors highlighted the impact of Menendez’s international influence, stating he had pushed for military aid to Egypt and assistance to Qatar. More locally, the former senator interfered with the prosecutions of businessmen in exchange for bribes. Prosecutors within the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office maintained that Menendez should spend up to 15 years in prison.
“Menendez, who swore an oath to represent the United States and the state of New Jersey, instead put his high office up for sale in exchange for this hoard of bribes,” prosecutors said in a January 9 court filing. Reportedly, 13 gold bars he was allegedly bribed with were discovered in Menendez’s home after a 2022 FBI raid.
Following his sentencing, Menendez decried his innocence, pleading for Trump to help him. “Welcome to the southern district of New York, the wild west of political prosecutions,” he said. “President Trump is right: this process is political and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool, and restores the integrity to the system.”
Last year, The American Tribune reported on a New Jersey businessman who had testified that he bribed Menendez with a Mercedez-Benz to gain access to the former congressman’s “power and influence.” The testimony claimed, “I knew that giving a car in return for influencing a United States senator to stop a criminal investigation was wrong.”
“When you bribed Robert Menendez, did you do that alone or with other people?” prosecutor Lara Pomerantz questioned. “With other people,” he said. Regardless of the incriminating testimony, Menendez denied any wrongdoing. “I am more confident than ever that New Jerseyans and the rest of the American public will see me exonerated of what I am being accused of, and I will be re-elected to the Senate once again,” he wrote in a statement.
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At the time, he also noted that he would not be running as a Democrat in the future. “I will not file for the Democratic primary this June,” he stated in a video message. “I am hopeful that my exoneration will take place this summer and allow me to pursue my candidacy as an independent Democrat in the general election.”
The controversy surrounding Menendez sparked numerous reactions from state leaders. “Americans are fed up with politicians putting their own personal benefit ahead of what’s right for the country. Everyone knows Bob Menendez isn’t running for the people of New Jersey, he’s doing it for himself. It’s beyond time for change and I’m stepping up to restore integrity back into the U.S. Senate,” Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said.
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Featured image credit: Senator Bob Menendez, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Menendez_(35532050726).jpg