Sen. Bob Menendez faces ‘monster’ of an indictment on bribery
Constitutional law attorney and FOX News contributor Jonathan Turley reacts to New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez's bribery charge, saying it will ‘rock the city.’
FOX News contributor Jonathan Turley said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., will continue his service on Capitol Hill because Democrats "can't afford to lose his vote" after his bribery charges. Turley told "America's Newsroom" that on top of President Biden facing an impeachment inquiry, the Democratic senator facing "colossal" criminal charges is a big problem for the party.
DEMOCRATIC SEN. BOB MENENDEZ FACING INDICTMENT ON BRIBERY CHARGES
JONATHAN TURLEY: This is an extraordinary development for Washington. I just arrived by train. This is going to rock the city because Menendez is obviously a fixture in this city. He's been accused of corruption before. Ironically, he was in my jury during the last judicial impeachment trial of a judge accused of the same type of corrupt practices. And yet, even though he had been previously alleged to have committed these acts, he had no problem serving on that jury. Now, this has really come back with a vengeance for the senator. I mean, he was able to dodge that bullet six years ago. This thing is really a monster of an indictment. I mean, they're charging classic acts of bribery. And, you know, the denial of honest services as a senator. It's going to create a serious problem for the Democrats. This is a razor-thin Senate. He's going to have to continue in his position. They can't afford to lose his vote and so in the middle of an impeachment inquiry into the president, you're going to have a sitting senator who's facing these colossal criminal charges coming out of the Southern District of New York.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., arrives for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meeting with U.S. senators at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is being charged with bribery offenses in a federal indictment out of the Southern District of New York to be unsealed Friday, prosecutors announced.
NBC News 4 reported Monday that the FBI and IRS criminal investigators are attempting to determine if Menendez or his wife had taken up to $400,000 worth of gold bars from Fred Daibes, a New Jersey developer and former bank chairman, or his associates in a swap for Menendez reaching out to the Justice Department to aid the "admitted felon" accused of banking crimes.
The unsealed indictment alleges that from at least 2018 through 2022, Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, "engaged in a corrupt relationship" with Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe.
Menendez strongly denied the allegations and said he had been "falsely accused" before and asked voters to wait for a trial before accepting "the prosecutor's version" of the facts.
Fox News' Chris Pandolfo and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.
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