The top Democrat faces growing calls to resign after being found guilty of accepting cash, gold bars and other bribes.
Prominent U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was found guilty of all 16 criminal charges he faced in a widely watched corruption trial in New York, including bribery and acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
A Manhattan federal court jury delivered its verdict Tuesday after deliberating for more than 12 hours over three days.
After the verdict was read, Menendez rested his elbows on the table, clasped his hands together and looked straight ahead. He said later that he plans to appeal.
“I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country. I have never, ever been a foreign agent,” Menéndez said.
Prosecutors accused Menendez, a New Jersey lawmaker and an influential figure in the Democratic Party, of participating in overlapping bribery schemes in which he and his wife accepted bribes from three businessmen who wanted Menendez’s help.
In exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars, and car and mortgage payments, Menendez helped direct billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Egypt, where one of the businessmen, Wael Hana, had ties to government officials, according to prosecutors. .
Menéndez was also accused of trying to influence criminal investigations involving two other businessmen, Fred Daibes and José Uribe.
Hana and Daibes were co-defendants in the US senator’s trial and were also convicted on each of the charges they faced. Uribe pleaded guilty and testified as a prosecution witness against Menendez.
Menéndez – who also pleaded not guilty to charges, which included bribery, acting as an unregistered foreign agent and obstruction of justice – did not testify during the trial.
But he insisted publicly that he was just doing his job as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reporting from outside the courthouse in New York on Tuesday afternoon after the verdict was handed down, Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey said Menendez’s lawyers also tried to portray the senator’s wife, Nadine, as the culprit during The judgement.
“But the prosecution presented a very detailed case during those nine weeks, showing that Menendez was not only involved in this, but knew what was going on,” Saloomey said.
Calls to resign
Menéndez’s conviction comes four months before the November US elections and potentially quashes any hopes the longtime politician had of campaigning for re-election as an independent candidate.
Immediately after Tuesday’s guilty verdict was announced, progressive activists and lawmakers from Menendez’s own Democratic Party called on him to resign.
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said on social media that “there is no room in the Senate for a convicted criminal, especially one convicted of taking bribes.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also said in X that Menéndez should “do what is right for his voters, the Senate and our country, and resign.”
This was echoed by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, who said in a statement that Menéndez had “violated the trust of his constituents and betrayed his oath of office.”
“I reiterate my call for Senator Menéndez to resign immediately,” Murphy said. “If he refuses to vacate his position, I call on the U.S. Senate to vote to expel him.”
Today’s verdict finding Senator Bob Menendez guilty on 16 counts demonstrates that the senator broke the law, violated the trust of his constituents and betrayed his oath of office.
In America, everyone – no matter how powerful – is accountable to our laws. pic.twitter.com/ljJrQFB2eu
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) July 16, 2024
Menéndez resigned as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being charged last September, but resisted calls to resign.
In a 2022 raid on the New Jersey home where Menendez lived with his wife, FBI agents confiscated gold bars worth nearly $150,000 and more than $480,000 in cash, some of it stuffed into patterned boots and jackets. with the senator’s name.
Menendez’s wife was also charged, although her trial was postponed while she recovers from breast cancer surgery.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein set Menendez’s sentencing for Oct. 29, a week before the Nov. 5 election.
The senator faces the possibility of a long prison sentence: of the 16 crimes for which he was convicted, the most serious carry a potential sentence of 20 years.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
