Holy chutzpah!
As if the crimes he’s now on trial for weren’t enough, Sen. Bob “Gold Bars” Menendez seems to be engaged in political blackmail by filing to run as an independent in New Jersey’s Senate race.
Insiders suggest he’s fishing for a pardon from President Biden.
Gold Bars is rumored to fear the loss of his cushy six-figure Senate pension and health benefits if he’s convicted; a pardon could let him keep them.
And if he stays on the November ballot, he’d take votes from the Democratic nominee, lefty Rep. Andy Kim — potentially letting hotel operator Curtis Bashaw, who defeated a Trump-backed candidate for the GOP nod, take the seat.
The Garden State hasn’t elected a Republican US senator since 1972 — and Democrats already face an uphill battle to retain their slim Senate majority this fall.
Too bad for the Dems; maybe they shouldn’t have turned a blind eye for so long to Menendez’s evident corruption.
(Or did he just not stand out among Jersey Dems?)
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They also did nothing to remove him from the Senate after he was charged.
Federal prosecutors seem to have Bob dead-to-rights, what with the wads of cash, gold bars and so on seized from his home, plus the no-show job and other perks for his wife, Nadine Arslanian — all plainly “earned” with favors for his co-defendants and foreign governments, such as:
None of that is ordinary constituent services nor “the normal work of a congressional office,” as Menendez claims.
There’s no shame in this scoundrel’s political game: Some suggest he’d even seek a pardon from a re-elected President Donald Trump as a reward for betraying his party.
Make this the first question at this month’s prez debate: Refusing to bail out this sleazeball should be one thing Biden and Trump can actually agree on.