Who will replace Menendez?

Who will win the next election for Senator for NJ?  Can't be Menendez can it?  


why not?I'm not crazy about the guy, but has anyone announced to run against him? He'd be tough to beat.


While he wasn't convicted of a criminal offense, the trial did pretty well prove he was a very unethical politician.  

     


That doesn't matter anymore.  Look at Trump.


As most NJ politicians go (especially those from Hudson Country), Menendez is just about squeaky clean. 


The Jury was reportedly 10-2 for acquittal. How does the trial show him to be "unethical"?


tomcat said:

As most NJ politicians go (especially those from Hudson Country), Menendez is just about squeaky clean. 

Why do people keep saying that about NJ. NJ is no worse than anyplace else.

How many members of the New York Legislature have been indicted?



LOST said:

The Jury was reportedly 10-2 for acquittal. How does the trial show him to be "unethical"?



tomcat said:

As most NJ politicians go (especially those from Hudson Country), Menendez is just about squeaky clean. 

Why do people keep saying that about NJ. NJ is no worse than anyplace else.

How many members of the New York Legislature have been indicted?

I worked for years in a grocery co op.........we did 1.2 million dollars a year in business.   We were one of the few companies that had both a 401k and a pension plan.  We were in effect the food warehouse for one of the supermarket chains.   When the company went under due to a number of inefficiencies and graft

our pension funds should have transferred to another financial holding company...............Except

our pension funds had been looted and there was no money in the kitty

Don't need politicians to be corrupt...........the private sector does a fine job


The charges against Menendez were trumped up. They could show no quid quo pro at all.

It could very well just be the fact that Menendez had a good friend who was rich, and the friend gave him stuff.

I don't care for him politically, but I don't see anything unethical in his behavior.


LOST said:

The Jury was reportedly 10-2 for acquittal. How does the trial show him to be "unethical"?



tomcat said:

As most NJ politicians go (especially those from Hudson Country), Menendez is just about squeaky clean. 

Why do people keep saying that about NJ. NJ is no worse than anyplace else.

How many members of the New York Legislature have been indicted?




drummerboy said:

The charges against Menendez were trumped up. They could show no quid quo pro at all.


It could very well just be the fact that Menendez had a good friend who was rich, and the friend gave him stuff.

But he is supposed to declare that stuff. And he didn't. 


that's an administrative issue, not a criminal one, and that's not what the case was about anyway.

ml1 said:



drummerboy said:

The charges against Menendez were trumped up. They could show no quid quo pro at all.


It could very well just be the fact that Menendez had a good friend who was rich, and the friend gave him stuff.

But he is supposed to declare that stuff. And he didn't. 



I call Menendez and Booker's offices frequently and the contrast between the quality of the staff is striking. I suppose some of that has to do with the difference between a rising star and a setting moon but one gets a distinct whiff of hackage coming off many of the Menendez folks (when you can manage to get a person).



Let him win re-election, be a really powerful figure in a Senate which hopefully flips blue in 2018 or 2020. Then maybe let him retire in 2024.


I would love to see Senator Collum sworn in as his replacement in 2025.  smile 


I can't blame Menendez for being friends with a guy like this and taking money from him...

Melgen was convicted of 67 counts of health care fraud in April 2017 in what the Palm Beach Post called one of the biggest Medicare fraud cases in the U.S.

During that case, prosecutors argued that Melgen, who was born in the Dominican Republic, robbed Medicare of as much as $105 million, according to the newspaper. 



That's correct. But it's the next issue that will be taken up by the Senate ethics committee. He didn't do anything illegal but it seems like he wanted to be able to accept all those goodies without any transparency. So he is going to have to explain himself. 


drummerboy said:

that's an administrative issue, not a criminal one, and that's not what the case was about anyway.



It seems to me that the legal question of his guilt or innocence hinged pretty heavily on that SCOTUS case that got the plainly guilty Virginia governor off.  Just speaking in terms of common sense, Menendez's behavior was plainly unethical and, if it was not, in fact, against the law, it ought to have been.


Unfortunately, we need to hold all politicians to the same standard.  Trump and McConnell have set that bar at zero.  


What exactly was unethical about his behavior? What is it that you would make against the law?

Klinker said:

It seems to me that the legal question of his guilt or innocence hinged pretty heavily on that SCOTUS case that got the plainly guilty Virginia governor off.  Just speaking in terms of common sense, Menendez's behavior was plainly unethical and, if it was not, in fact, against the law, it ought to have been.



Menendez is a sleaze. He used his position to gain special treatment from a wealthy donor. 

I'd be happy to see him go if Democrats held the seat.


That is exactly what the trial failed to prove. Or come close to proving.


yahooyahoo said:

Menendez is a sleaze. He used his position to gain special treatment from a wealthy donor. 

I'd be happy to see him go if Democrats held the seat.




drummerboy said:

That is exactly what the trial failed to prove. Or come close to proving.



yahooyahoo said:

Menendez is a sleaze. He used his position to gain special treatment from a wealthy donor. 

I'd be happy to see him go if Democrats held the seat.

As shown by this story:

A Sudden Folding of the Case Against Menendez

Five days after the Department of Justice announced that it would retry Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the judge in the case all but ripped out its core. Prosecutors, he said in an 53-page opinion, had failed to prove that the senator, a Democrat, had accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for lobbying on behalf of his co-defendant.

The government’s allegations of campaign contributions for favors performed were “empty of relevant evidential fact,” Judge William Walls wrote. “There is no there there.”




drummerboy said:

That is exactly what the trial failed to prove. Or come close to proving.



yahooyahoo said:

Menendez is a sleaze. He used his position to gain special treatment from a wealthy donor. 

I'd be happy to see him go if Democrats held the seat.

Menendez and Melgen have been traveling together and hanging out together for decades.  I am willing to accept that they really are friends, which means it's ok to accept gifts.  But he should be disclosing such gifts for transparency according to Senate rules.

I think it's a touch shady, but it's not illegal, and as such not enough for me to not vote for him in the primary if he looks like the strongest Democratic candidate.


If Menendez were to retire, perhaps Torricelli would come back.  It's a whole different climate now; look at what they can get away with.


I didn't say it was illegal. I said it was sleazy.

Everyone agrees that he took trips with his "friend" at his friend's expense. This is fact. Would Menendez have received all these generous trips if he wasn't a US Senator?  Do you honestly think the answer is yes?

ml1 said:



drummerboy said:

That is exactly what the trial failed to prove. Or come close to proving.



yahooyahoo said:

Menendez is a sleaze. He used his position to gain special treatment from a wealthy donor. 

I'd be happy to see him go if Democrats held the seat.

Menendez and Melgen have been traveling together and hanging out together for decades.  I am willing to accept that they really are friends, which means it's ok to accept gifts.  But he should be disclosing such gifts for transparency according to Senate rules.

I think it's a touch shady, but it's not illegal, and as such not enough for me to not vote for him in the primary if he looks like the strongest Democratic candidate.



Reviving this thread for no particular reason. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/sen-menendez-federal-criminal-investigation-new-york-rcna54179

Our Senator is once again the subject of a federal criminal investigation. Not a lot of details have emerged but I am rolling my eyes. 

I believe in due process but I am also a political pragmatist. If he announced his retirement, Murphy could replace him with someone who would then be the established incumbent for the next election. I think that’s worth considering. It’s also a chance to perhaps get a younger democrat in the Senate. Someone who could emerge as a leader for years.  I’m not familiar enough with the political landscape of the Garden State to put forth any names though. 


whatever one thinks of Menendez it's really shameful how someone in law enforcement always leaks to the press that he's "under investigation." And we should also remember the last set of allegations against him were completely false.


ml1 said:

whatever one thinks of Menendez it's really shameful how someone in law enforcement always leaks to the press that he's "under investigation." And we should also remember the last set of allegations against him were completely false.

Completely false?  Menendez got lucky when the last case ended in a mistrial.

I'll never vote for him.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/politics/menendez-indictment-takeaways

The 68-page indictment outlines in colorful detail those duties as a senator — which include allegedly intervening on behalf of Melgen’s three girlfriends’ visa applications, among other things — and his friendship — which includes nearly $1 million in trips, political contributions and other perks.

Despite the appearance of payment for services as alleged by the Justice Department, the two have been friends for decades, which Menendez allies say will make it challenging to successfully prosecute the two. As Menendez attorney Abbe David Lowell said during the Thursday press conference, prosecutors “have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a 20-year relationship between doctor Melgen and Senator Menendez was something else.”

We’ve summarized the main takeaways from the Justice Department indictment so you can decide for yourself. One thing, at least, seems clear: Everybody should be so lucky to have a friend like Salomon Melgen.


My main concern is that these investigations make him politically vulnerable to a potential Republican challenge in two more years. Depending on who runs, enough independent voters May feel turned off by the appearance of impropriety and decide to go with a new face. Even if no charges are filed, you know this stuff will be in political ads in two years.

So although I would happily vote for him again, I am not convinced that he is an unassailable candidate here in the great garden state. I forgot that Menendez was actually appointed to the Senate originally by Corzine when he became governor.



yahooyahoo said:

Completely false?  Menendez got lucky when the last case ended in a mistrial.

I'll never vote for him.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/politics/menendez-indictment-takeaways

The 68-page indictment outlines in colorful detail those duties as a senator — which include allegedly intervening on behalf of Melgen’s three girlfriends’ visa applications, among other things — and his friendship — which includes nearly $1 million in trips, political contributions and other perks.

Despite the appearance of payment for services as alleged by the Justice Department, the two have been friends for decades, which Menendez allies say will make it challenging to successfully prosecute the two. As Menendez attorney Abbe David Lowell said during the Thursday press conference, prosecutors “have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a 20-year relationship between doctor Melgen and Senator Menendez was something else.”

We’ve summarized the main takeaways from the Justice Department indictment so you can decide for yourself. One thing, at least, seems clear: Everybody should be so lucky to have a friend like Salomon Melgen.

not that allegation. The one that was totally false. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/us/politics/menendez-hugin-prostitutes-fact-check.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare




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