Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez found guilty in federal corruption trial; Chuck Schumer calls on him to resign

(CNN) — A jury has found Sen. Bob Menendez guilty on all counts in his federal corruption trial.

The New Jersey Democrat was convicted of 16 counts – including bribery, extortion, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent – for his role in a yearslong bribery scheme.

Menendez appeared to shake his head when the first guilty verdict against him was read. When the jury was finished, he leaned his elbows on the defense table with his hands clasped in front of his face.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer immediately called for Menendez to resign.

The verdict is a staggering blow for the Democratic establishment in New Jersey, where longtime state powerbroker George Norcross faces a separate racketeering indictment, and a stain on the party’s national brand. Menendez, one of the most feared and influential figures in state politics, now faces decades in prison – and further questions about how he wielded his power as the former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Even before his conviction, Menendez’s case sparked a revolt among rank-and-file Democrats against the state party machine, which has for decades run roughshod over outsider candidates. The race to replace him, which began shortly after Menendez was indicted, initially featured first lady Tammy Murphy. The surge of support for her from county party bosses, over the more popular Rep. Andy Kim, now the nominee, led to a grassroots backlash.

“This is a sad and somber day for New Jersey and our country,” Kim said in a statement Tuesday, “Our public servants should work for the people, and today we saw the people judge Senator Menendez as guilty and unfit to serve. I called on Senator Menendez to step down when these charges were first made public, and now that he has been found guilty, I believe the only course of action for him is to resign his seat immediately. The people of New Jersey deserve better.”

Should Menendez remain in the race as an independent candidate, that could split the Democratic vote, opening a path for Republican nominee Curtis Bashaw – a scenario Democrats are desperate to avoid given the many challenges they face in defending their narrow majority.

Sentencing set for October 29

Prosecutors successfully argued that the senator tried to use his power to advance Egyptian military interests, interfere in criminal prosecutions and secure investment from Qatari officials, among other things. Menendez and his wife allegedly received gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and other bribes in exchange for his influence.

The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was also charged in the case, but her trial was postponed indefinitely by the judge after her breast cancer diagnosis. She has pleaded not guilty.

The most serious charges of extortion and wire fraud carry a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison on each count. In all, Menendez faces a maximum of 222 years in prison for the 16 charges if served consecutively. However, any sentences would run concurrently unless the court orders otherwise.

Sentencing is scheduled for October 29, just a week before Election Day.

Menendez’s co-defendants, New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, were also found guilty on all the counts they faced for their roles in the scheme.

Gold bars, cars and cash

Prosecutors spent nearly seven weeks untangling the multiple corruption schemes that they allege Bob and Nadine Menendez and the co-defendants were involved in.

Federal prosecutors structured their case by chapters, calling witnesses to testify about separate schemes allegedly brokered by the senator in tandem with his wife. According to evidence presented by prosecutors in court, the schemes were brokered involved Hana, Daibes and another co-conspirator, Jose Uribe, the New Jersey businessman who allegedly bribed the senator in exchange for legal favors. Uribe struck a plea deal ahead of the trial.

Uribe, one of the government’s star witnesses, testified that he bribed Menendez in exchange for his influence to attempt to sway top prosecutors in New Jersey from pursuing criminal cases against his associates. Uribe testified about the conspiracy and how he paid for Nadine Menendez’s Mercedes.

“I (agreed) with Nadine Menendez and other people to provide a car for Nadine in order to get the power and influence of Mr. Menendez,” Uribe testified, in order “to help me get a better resolution for one of my associates who was being charged in a criminal matter and to stop and kill investigations that could lead to my daughter and family members.”

Uribe testified that during a 2020 dinner, the senator told him in Spanish, “I saved your a** twice. Not once, but twice.”

Menendez’s attorney said Uribe, is a “good liar,” and “embellished” his testimony to “invent corroboration” with other evidence of text messages, phone calls, and restaurant meetings that were presented at trial adding that Uribe did not discuss anything criminal with the senator.

Prosecutors pointed to a meeting Menendez had with Gurbir Grewal, a former New Jersey attorney general, where Menendez allegedly brought up the cases of Uribe’s associates to sway top prosecutors, but his defense attorneys claimed the senator was concerned the cases were selective prosecutions against his Latino constituents.

Grewal testified that Menendez he never mentioned any defendants by name and the senator never asked him to interfere in any specific case but a colleague of the attorney general who was at the meeting called the interaction “gross.”

Prosecutors alleged Hana paid Nadine Menendez three checks of $10,000 set up a “sham job,” at IS EG Halal, Hana’s halal certification business, as a cover up for bribes and also made mortgage payments for her.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Menendez helped Hana secure a halal certification monopoly with the Egyptian government in exchange for giving Nadine Menendez gold bars, cash and paying her mortgage. Prosecutors also allege the senator pushed the country of Egypt’s agenda for years and signed off on military funding in exchange for the bribes.

Ted McKinney, a former top official at the US Department of Agriculture, testified that the senator told him in a call to stop interfering with his constituents after McKinney flagged concerns over the monopoly.

Sarah Arkin, a former senior Senate Foreign Relations staff member under Menendez, described the planning leading up to an October 2021 congressional delegation trip to Egypt and Qatar as “weird.”

Prosecutors allege Menendez ghost-wrote a letter for the Egyptian government to use to lobby other members of Congress over their concerns about the country’s human rights record.

“Menendez wasn’t acting weirdly, he was acting corruptly,” Monteleoni said. “He was acting like a bribed man, because that’s what he was.”  The prosecutor told the jury these actions were part of a “broader pattern of corruption.”

Prosecutors alleged Menendez met with Egyptian intelligence officials on several occasions, including a Morton’s steakhouse dinner that was surveilled by FBI teams, and conspired with Hana to secure favorable military arms deals for Egypt.

Prosecutors say Menendez pushed Egypt’s agenda for years in the Senate – where he previously served as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee – and signed off on millions in military funding in exchange for bribes from Hana.

Prosecutors allege that Daibes used the senator’s connections to secure a multimillion-dollar commercial real estate deal with a Qatari investment firm tied to members of the Qatari royal family. The jury saw messages between the senator and Qatari contacts, facilitating an introduction with Daibes. The senator also penned complimentary press releases about the Qatari government, which he instructed Daibes to flag to the Qatari investors to curry favor, records shown at trial revealed.

Fingerprints belonging to the senator and Daibes were found on cash-filled envelopes that were among the items seized from Nadine Menendez’s home, where the senator also lived, during an FBI raid. Serial numbers on gold bars also seized at the home during that raid revealed that Daibes had once possessed the gold, according to trial evidence.

Meanwhile, other text messages shown by prosecutors at the trial illustrated a timeline of how the senator pushed the nomination of Philip Sellinger, the current US attorney for the District of New Jersey.

Sellinger testified that Menendez had hoped the US attorney contender would look at a criminal case against Daibes “carefully” if he secured the position. But Sellinger also said he never felt pressured to tip the scales for Daibes.

During the trial, the senator’s lawyers called five witnesses, including his sister, sister-in-law and the attorney for a friend of Uribe. A Menendez lawyer said the senator customarily stored cash due to familial trauma caused by the Cuban communist regime. (Menendez was born in New York City, and Fidel Castro had not yet come to power at the time his family left Cuba.) In his closing argument, Menendez’s defense attorney said the lack of evidence in the case against the senator made it “shaky and rotten to its core.”

The senator’s sister, Caridad Gonzalez, testified that her family’s cash-storing practices were “normal.”

“It’s a Cuban thing,” Gonzalez, 80, said on the stand. “Every Cuban who came to the States in the early 50s, 60s, 70s” stored cash in their home and in boxes because “they were afraid of losing what they worked so hard for, because in Cuba, they took everything away from you.”

The FBI seized a total of $486,461, 11 one-ounce gold bars and two one-kilogram gold bars from the Menendez home on June 16, 2022.

Menendez’s attorneys consistently suggested in cross-examinations that the senator was not aware of the deals his wife struck with the co-defendants, which included offering the senator’s influence for a price.

Prosecutors alleged that Nadine Menendez was an intermediary for communications between the co-conspirators and her willing husband.