They won’t be fooled again.
Jurors found Bob “Gold Bars” Menendez guilty on all 18 counts Tuesday.
Last time he stood trial for corruption, in 2017, he skated — with jurors deadlocked, triggering a mistrial.
But this jury wasn’t buying his tripe.
Justice was served.
Step back in awe of Menendez’s arrogance: He got got away with it once — and then went right back to rolling in sleaze.
In both trials, he claimed he was merely helping constituents as part of his official duties: His actions were “exactly what we want our elected officials to do,” his lawyer, Adam Fee, insisted.
Sorry: Constituents don’t include the Qatari and Egyptian governments. And they certainly don’t reward you with a Mercedes, no-show jobs and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars.
“This wasn’t politics as usual, this was politics for profit,” fumed US Attorney Damien Williams. “Years of selling [Menendez’s] office for profit has finally come to an end.”
Prosecutors laid out damning evidence of a mind-blowing list of favors that bribing Menendez bought, such as interfering in probes, pressuring the Agriculture Department to protect a firm’s monopoly on approved halal meat exports and using his Senate Foreign Relations Committee heft to help Egypt win millions in US aid.
“What else can the love of my life do for you?” Menendez’s wife Nadine asked an Egyptian official, as an FBI agent secretly watched.
Jurors rightly convicted him on 16 felony counts, including fraud, bribery, extortion, obstructing justice and acting as an illegal foreign agent.
His sentence could total more than 200 years; pray it’s a good chunk of that.
Menendez’s massive corruption — and outrageous temerity — deserve consequences to match his monumental crimes.
And pols who abuse the public trust should be subject to even higher sanctions.
On top of vowing to appeal, Bob is defying widespread calls to resign now; he won’t even call off his bid for reelection as an independent (which could throw the November race to the Republicans).
Many think he’s angling for one more bribe: a presidential pardon right after Election Day.
Instead, the Senate should act now to make him the first senator expelled in more than a century.
Don’t wait on the Ethics Committee: Strip him of every possible opportunity to abuse his office for even one more day.
