Sen. Menendez pleads not guilty to new obstruction charge

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NEW YORK — Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife pleaded not guilty on Monday to new obstruction of justice charges in a New York court.

The new charges were in a rewritten indictment returned last week against the Democrat in Manhattan federal court.



“Once again, not guilty your honor,” Menendez responded after Judge Sidney H. Stein asked him to enter a plea at a 20-minute hearing. Menendez had previously pleaded not guilty to charges in October.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, entered the pleas to the indictment containing new charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. Afterward, they briefly spoke to one another before leaving the courtroom together.

https://www.nj.com/news/2024/03/sen-menendez-pleads-not-guilty-to-new-obstruction-charge.html

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Convicting Politicians
As a bribery case against a U.S. senator moves forward, a look at why corruption charges are so hard to prove.

n the last decade, it has proved surprisingly hard to put politicians accused of corruption behind bars. Appeals courts have reversed several convictions. And juries have occasionally thought the officeholders’ behavior didn’t meet the high standard for corruption.

Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who was arraigned yesterday in a federal bribery case, is both an example of the conundrum and a test of whether federal prosecutors now know how to overcome it. In the senator’s last corruption trial, in 2017, jurors couldn’t make sense of the gifts and favors he’d received from a wealthy eye doctor. Were they illegal — or just the sort of thing friends do for each other?

Menendez, a Democrat, faces new charges for taking cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible. In exchange, prosecutors say, he attempted to disrupt criminal cases and used his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee inappropriately. He introduced a businessman who sought funding to a member of Qatar’s royal family, and he helped push through aid and weapons sales for Egypt, the charges say.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/briefing/bob-menendez-bribery-case.html