Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: There's a criminal trial that's playing out right now that
Speaker 2: could influence how Washington works next year, and it's not
Speaker 2: the one that you're thinking about.
Speaker 3: The corruption trial of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. Gold
Speaker 3: bars and cash found in the home he shared with
Speaker 3: his wife, hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes.
Speaker 2: Democratic Senator Bob Menendez is standing trial on charges of
Speaker 2: bribery and acting as an agent of Egypt. He's been
Speaker 2: in a New York court the past few weeks. Bloomberg's
Speaker 2: Patricia Hurtado has been there covering it.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a couple of lawyers I know
Speaker 1: in Manhattan, fed they're in a securities fraud case, and
Speaker 1: they were telling me they couldn't believe that across the
Speaker 1: street is a former US president on trial. You have
Speaker 1: a former congressman that's going to face trial in September.
Speaker 1: In the courthouse they were in you have a senator.
Speaker 1: They were basically shrugging, you know, like who would have
Speaker 1: laved this?
Speaker 2: It feels like twenty twenty four is turning into a
Speaker 2: tug of war over which major party is the least
Speaker 2: well criminal the first.
Speaker 4: Former president of the United States to be indicted.
Speaker 1: Santo's quote sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his
Speaker 1: House candidacies for his own personal financial profit.
Speaker 4: Texas Congressman Henry Quaar and his wife were facing conspiracy
Speaker 4: and bribery charges.
Speaker 2: And Menendez's trial could shred the Democratic Party argument that
Speaker 2: they're elected officials stay above board in a way that
Speaker 2: Republicans don't. It isn't just the latest in a slew
Speaker 2: of political criminal indictments. The case itself feels like it's
Speaker 2: straight out of a TV crime drama. Alleged bribery, gold bars,
Speaker 2: secret FBI recordings at steakhouses, and all that drama. Doesn't
Speaker 2: just matter to Menendez's career. It could also have major
Speaker 2: implications for Democrats, their hold of the Senate, and the
Speaker 2: party's reputation. Today, on the show Senator Bob Menendez his
Speaker 2: corruption trial and what it could mean for the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four election cycle. From Bloomberg's Washington Bureau. This is
Speaker 2: the Big Take DC Podcast. I'm salea mosen.
Speaker 5: So Bob menandas has been a core player in Democratic
Speaker 5: politics for decades.
Speaker 2: Megan Scully is the team leader for Bloomberg's Congress coverage.
Speaker 5: He was in the House before he was in the Senate.
Speaker 5: He's a household name in New Jersey. His son is
Speaker 5: a sitting House Democrat. Prior to this, He's close with
Speaker 5: Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer and was considered a bit
Speaker 5: of a statesman in the Senate, very well versed in
Speaker 5: foreign affairs. He also was fairly moderate and was able
Speaker 5: to negotiate with Republicans.
Speaker 2: And he was also a representative for the Hispanic community.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, you know he's pushed the administration for more
Speaker 5: Hispanic nominees to post, such as the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2: When Menendez won his first Senate election in two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, you could hear him playing up his reputation
Speaker 2: as a fighter for the everyman.
Speaker 4: Only in America and especially in New Jersey could one
Speaker 4: generation come seeking opportunity for their family, and now their
Speaker 4: child is elected to create opportunity for every family.
Speaker 2: In the years since, he's worked his way up through
Speaker 2: the ranks of Congress, he was.
Speaker 5: The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Speaker 2: Which is a plumb post.
Speaker 5: A plumb post, yes, and one in which he was
Speaker 5: able to enrich himself by taking these bribes allegedly. I
Speaker 5: should note he has pleaded not guilty.
Speaker 2: It's worth noting that Menendez's record before this trial was
Speaker 2: not completely clear. In twenty fifteen, he was charged with
Speaker 2: corruption and bribery charges that he denied. That trial ended
Speaker 2: two years later in a hung jury. Now Menendez is
Speaker 2: back in court on charges of bribery and acting as
Speaker 2: an agent of Egypt. Remember this is all while he
Speaker 2: was serving on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, weighing
Speaker 2: in on then President Donald Trump's aggressive u turn on
Speaker 2: multiple foreign policy objectives that were rocking geopolitics. Patricia Hurtado
Speaker 2: has been covering the current Menendez trial from the Manhattan
Speaker 2: Federal Courthouse.
Speaker 1: It's like a movie, and you know, it is interesting.
Speaker 1: Why is a guy who's so well respected doing these
Speaker 1: backroom deals and having these discussions at restaurants and at
Speaker 1: the corner smoking cigars. I mean, the jury's got to
Speaker 1: be thinking what's really going on?
Speaker 2: So let's get into it. Here's what Menendez is being
Speaker 2: charged with now.
Speaker 3: The seven year old Democrat has pled not guilty to
Speaker 3: multiple charges of bribery, extortion, fraud, and obstruction of justice.
Speaker 1: The government accuses Menendez of accepting bribes to help businessman
Speaker 1: in New Jersey win influence, as well as basically acting
Speaker 1: to help the government of Egypt.
Speaker 2: At the center of this case are three New Jersey businessmen.
Speaker 1: Fred Dabs, Jose Urube, and While Hanna and these guys
Speaker 1: were all friends with each other.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty eighteen, Arabe was worried about being investigated
Speaker 2: for insurance fraud, so were some other people close to him.
Speaker 2: People erbe treated like family, and.
Speaker 1: He wanted this all to go away. So the allegations are,
Speaker 1: Hanna said, I know somebody I know Nadine, her boyfriend
Speaker 1: is the senator who can quote unquote make it go
Speaker 1: away for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Nadine was Menendez's girlfriend at the time. She's now his wife,
Speaker 2: and according to the FBI, she went on to facilitate
Speaker 2: a series of meetings between Menendez and the businessmen. Menendez
Speaker 2: an elected official whose salary is paid by taxpayers.
Speaker 1: Basically all their meetings transpire at steakhouse rants in New
Speaker 1: Jersey or DC, where they're always meeting over drinks laughs.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors have presented text messages that allegedly showed Nadine setting
Speaker 2: up those meetings. In other messages, she seems to be
Speaker 2: dropping not so subtle hints about the way Erbe can
Speaker 2: curry favor.
Speaker 1: Nadine had been in a car accident and totaled her Mercedes,
Speaker 1: so she needed a new car, and she let it
Speaker 1: be known to these businessmen, and basically Urbe steps up
Speaker 1: to the need and basically gives her an envelope stuffed
Speaker 1: with fifteen thousand dollars in cash as a down payment
Speaker 1: for the car, and Nadine at one point professed that she.
Speaker 3: Was going to help Arabe.
Speaker 1: A couple of times the car payment's late and he
Speaker 1: rushes in to save the day, so she says things
Speaker 1: like to the effect you are my brother. I will
Speaker 1: never forget this.
Speaker 2: The jury also saw a video of one of these
Speaker 2: steakhouse dinners from an undercover FBI recording, and they've been
Speaker 2: hearing testimony from Urbe himself. In exchange for the money
Speaker 2: and gifts, Urbe said he got to meet with Senator
Speaker 2: Menandez and give him the names of the people being
Speaker 2: investigated for that insurance fraud. The problem he wanted to
Speaker 2: go away.
Speaker 1: And he describes being summoned to Nadine Menendez's home to
Speaker 1: give the names to Menendez and the senators. Sitting there
Speaker 1: drinking a glass of Grandmagne and smoking a cigar, he
Speaker 1: says that Menandez, he has a little bell at the table,
Speaker 1: and he rings the bell to summon Nadine and says,
Speaker 1: mono more, mona more, please come here, and Nadine rushes in,
Speaker 1: and he asks for paper, and then Urbe writes down
Speaker 1: the names of all the individuals that are being investigated.
Speaker 1: Menandez puffs a cigar, folds the piece of paper with
Speaker 1: the names, and stuffs it into his pants pocket.
Speaker 2: It's like something straight out of the Sopranos. The FBI
Speaker 2: also alleges that Menendez gave sensitive US information to the
Speaker 2: Egyptian government in exchange for money. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: the FBI raided the Menendez home. They found Nadine's Mercedes
Speaker 2: Benz parked in the garage, But that wasn't all.
Speaker 3: Evidence that needs explaining includes more than one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars worth of gold bars and over four hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty six thousand dollars in cash.
Speaker 2: Thirteen gold bars and a lot of money.
Speaker 1: There was so much money the FBI realized they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to use a regular counter, so they had
Speaker 1: to get one of those kind that they use at
Speaker 1: banks that you see are featured in movies, the high
Speaker 1: speed processing money counters.
Speaker 3: If you can believe.
Speaker 2: That Menendez has pleaded not guilty, he says he keeps
Speaker 2: his personal savings in cash because of his family history
Speaker 2: in Cuba. His lawyers have tried to discredit urubae and
Speaker 2: pin all of this on his wife, Nadine. Menendez is
Speaker 2: expected to be in court for the next few weeks,
Speaker 2: but in the meantime, he's also staring down the barrel
Speaker 2: of a political campaign because, and here's where things might
Speaker 2: sound familiar, amid a mountain of legal troubles, he's thrown
Speaker 2: his hat back into the political ring.
Speaker 5: This seat was never considered to be in play, and
Speaker 5: now it is on the map coming up.
Speaker 2: What that could mean for Democrats and what criminal cases
Speaker 2: like Menendez is mean for government trust. When these charges
Speaker 2: came out against Senator Bob Menendez, members of his party
Speaker 2: and longtime friends pressured him to step down from his
Speaker 2: position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Speaker 5: Even Corey Booker, a fellow New Jersey Democrat has called
Speaker 5: for his resignation. He's done it gently, saying thank you
Speaker 5: to the Senator for his years of service to the state,
Speaker 5: but could you please step down.
Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg's congres team leader Megan Scully. Again, Menendez obliged.
Speaker 2: He announced that he would not be seeking re election
Speaker 2: as a Democrat, but then.
Speaker 5: He announced he's running as an independent. This really kind
Speaker 5: of changes the calculus for the Senate map for Democrats.
Speaker 5: Democrats are facing an uphill battle. They have a narrow
Speaker 5: majority in the Senate right now. The map this year,
Speaker 5: because only a third of the Senate is running, the
Speaker 5: map is much more favorable to Republicans. So Democrats are
Speaker 5: already defending their seats in states like Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin,
Speaker 5: and several others where they are must wins. New Jersey
Speaker 5: is a safely blue state statewide, but if Menendez manages
Speaker 5: to win just about eight percent of the vote, he
Speaker 5: could turn this race over to Republicans.
Speaker 2: Essentially, meaning if just eight percent of the voters who
Speaker 2: would have voted for Andy Kim, the Democrat who's running
Speaker 2: to replace Menendez, vote for Bob Menendez instead, he could
Speaker 2: spoil this long held Democratic Senate seat for the party.
Speaker 5: Let's also note that this is New Jersey, a state
Speaker 5: that is not unfamiliar with political corruption, and it becomes
Speaker 5: a bit of a wild card. Can Bob Menendez find
Speaker 5: eight percent of the vote to throw this election into
Speaker 5: chaos quite potentially, So it suddenly becomes a much more
Speaker 5: interesting race, and a race in which Democrats are going
Speaker 5: to need to spend that's expensive because you're talking about
Speaker 5: media markets in Pennsylvania, like outside of Philly and in
Speaker 5: New York. This was an expense they were not planning
Speaker 5: to have.
Speaker 2: And it's not just putting Democratic control of a Senate
Speaker 2: at risk. Megan says, New Jersey is becoming a focal
Speaker 2: point for the presidential campaign.
Speaker 5: Republicans are somewhat gleeful that this is happening. Steve Daanz,
Speaker 5: who is a Senator from Montana who is in charge
Speaker 5: of the Senate Republicans campaign effort, responded to a reporter
Speaker 5: question in a hallway recently with a smile and saying,
Speaker 5: keep your eye on New Jersey. Trump himself has said
Speaker 5: that he wants New Jersey in play for the presidential
Speaker 5: That seems like a distant hope, but he's traveled to
Speaker 5: South Jersey to Wildwood, a famed you know, boardwalk, and
Speaker 5: done rallies, and so this just sort of adds to
Speaker 5: the pressure on New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Plus it's an optics problem. Just this week, Hunter Biden
Speaker 2: was convicted for gun charges. Biden is not a politician.
Speaker 2: His conviction has nothing to do with governing. But Megan
Speaker 2: told me it's not clear voters are making that distinction.
Speaker 5: What we've seen, you know, in polls and just anecdotally
Speaker 5: over the last several years, is voter trust in the
Speaker 5: government really going to an all time low. And we're
Speaker 5: in a period of first Right, we had the first
Speaker 5: former president ever convicted of a felony, and now we
Speaker 5: have the first child of sitting president convicted of a felony,
Speaker 5: and that certainly doesn't help make the case that one
Speaker 5: party is above the other.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty four is all of a sudden turning into
Speaker 2: this election of trying to prove which party is more
Speaker 2: criminal than the other. Right, I'm curious to your thoughts
Speaker 2: on what this means for Republicans trying to cast the
Speaker 2: current Justice Department under Biden as doing Biden's political bidding.
Speaker 2: If a member of his own party, and then a
Speaker 2: member of his family are also being tried and convicted.
Speaker 5: Well, actually members of his own party plural, because Henry Quaiar,
Speaker 5: a Democrat from southern Texas, is also under indictment for
Speaker 5: bribery charges, taking about six hundred thousand dollars. So I
Speaker 5: think it undercuts that argument that Justice Department investigations are
Speaker 5: partisan and purely political in nature. Certainly, none of these
Speaker 5: cases have drawn as much attention as the conviction of
Speaker 5: former President Trump. But it is both a blessing and
Speaker 5: a curse to Democrats, right they want to portray themselves
Speaker 5: as the grown ups in the room and the party
Speaker 5: of law and order, and they can't do that when
Speaker 5: you look at, you know, the federal docket. But then
Speaker 5: it does help them in the sense that the Justice
Speaker 5: Department is trying democrats as well.
Speaker 2: By the time Menendez's trial ends, his wife Nadine could
Speaker 2: be taking the stand, former President Trump's conviction could be
Speaker 2: back in court on appeal, and George Santos will be
Speaker 2: gearing up for his court date. I'm curious, do you
Speaker 2: think that now as a country, voters need to get
Speaker 2: used to the fact that we're going to have candidates
Speaker 2: with legal troubles in front of us all the time.
Speaker 5: I think that the whole nature of politics has changed
Speaker 5: since Trump ran for president for the first time in
Speaker 5: twenty fifteen and went down those golden escalators and things
Speaker 5: that we thought were points of no return. As a
Speaker 5: voting population, I think we've become immune to a lot
Speaker 5: of things that were once considered the third rail in politics,
Speaker 5: and federal convictions might be the new third rail that
Speaker 5: we just sort of shrug off. After Trump's conviction, he
Speaker 5: really went after the jury decision and the case and
Speaker 5: the judge and all of that, and Republicans got behind him.
Speaker 5: So we now have a situation where, you know, trust
Speaker 5: in the election process is now you know, kind of
Speaker 5: at an all time low, and are we now heading
Speaker 5: in a direction where trust in the judicial system is
Speaker 5: also plummeting.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Big Take DC podcast from
Speaker 2: bloomber News. I'm Salaija Mosen. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Julia Press. It was mixed by Blake Maples and fact
Speaker 2: checked by Audrianna Tapia. It was edited by Aaron Edwards,
Speaker 2: David Borakis, and Wendy Benjaminson, who provides editorial direction with
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Ponso, Naomi Shaven, and Kim Gettelson are our senior producers.
Speaker 2: Nicole beemster Bower is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is
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