Bob Menendez, a crooked NJ politician, just doesn't get it: Kelly

So this is how it ends.

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who set out a half-century ago as a reformer cleaning up political corruption in the cesspool of crookery known as Hudson County, New Jersey, is now facing a prison sentence. New Jersey’s senior senator is just another two-bit crook. Somewhere this man’s once promising life ran into a filthy ditch of greed.

On Tuesday, Menendez, 70, along with two New Jersey businessmen, Wael Hana, 40, and Fred Daibes, 66, was found guilty in an elaborate bribery scheme that not only involved payments of cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz but included illegal “foreign agent” dealings with officials in Egypt and Qatar. A third New Jersey businessman, Jose Uribe, 57, pleaded guilty and testified against Menendez. 

Menendez’s wife, Nadine, also faces charges in the bribery scheme. But her trial has been postponed while she recuperates from treatments for breast cancer. In yet another strange quirk of this case, Nadine is a victim of another kind of legal jeopardy involving her husband. In his own trial, Menendez blamed his wife for taking cash, gold and luxury car that became the centerpieces of the bribery scheme.

This blame-the-wife excuse, however, fell flat with the jury. Menendez’s dishonesty ― described after Tuesday’s verdict by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams as “shocking” ― was not all that complicated. He fell for one of mankind’s oldest and most lethal temptations. Simply put: He put his hand out and asked for gifts from the people he served ― freebies in exchange for using his power.

There’s a word for this.  It’s called bribery. Or as Williams added in his statement outside the federal courthouse: “This wasn’t politics as usual; this was politics for profit.  Because Senator Menendez has now been found guilty, his years of selling his office to the highest bidder have finally come to an end.”

Menendez, one of the smartest and most articulate political figures during the last half-century in New Jersey, never understood the dangers of bribery ― and how it might bring him down. The would-be political reformer turned out to be just another guy who could be bought.

Story continues after gallery

Bob Menendez's start

This pathetic story of failed values and false promises begins in 1974, on the heels of the Watergate scandal that brought down another sordidly corrupt political figure, President Richard Nixon.

Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants who escaped Fidel Castro’s communism, was a 20-year-old student at what was then called St. Peter’s College. He ran for the Union City school board ― and won. Twelve years later, after exposing the town’s long history of corruption and even wearing a bulletproof vest to protect himself from harm from the corrupt politicians he outed, Menendez was elected Union City’s mayor.

In those early days, Menendez carried the aura of something special. He didn’t seem like just another manipulative Hudson County pol. The guy looked like he was going places ― and he was, for a while.

From Union City, Menendez rose through both houses of the New Jersey state Legislature, then won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, then, finally in 2006, a place in the U.S. Senate. He was reelected twice.

At the same time, Menendez also emerged as one of America’s most prominent and articulate Hispanic political figures. He even made a short-list of potential vice presidential nominees when Al Gore mounted his presidential campaign in 2000.

You would think such a resume of success would be enough. It wasn’t. In the early 2000s, federal prosecutors heard too many reports that Menendez was bending the corruption rules, taking gifts and money he was not entitled to.

An early FBI investigation never turned up enough evidence for an indictment. Even Chris Christie, the hyper-aggressive U.S. attorney in Newark who was earning a reputation for sending corrupt New Jersey politicians to jail, couldn’t pull together a case.

But the stream of reports on Menendez’s corruption did not stop ― certainly not enough for the FBI to ignore them.

Menendez's first corruption trial

Finally, in 2015, Menendez was indicted on a litany of federal corruption charges that included free trips to Paris and the Dominican Republic by a wealthy doctor pal who wanted favors from Menendez in return. But Menendez escaped.  In 2017, a jury in Newark could not reach a verdict. The judge declared a mistrial.

At this point, you would think Menendez might look inside himself and reflect on what led him to this point.  Apparently, that kind of self-awareness eluded him. Instead, he opted to steer himself into a bitter swamp of grievance, declaring in a post-trial gathering with the media outside the federal courthouse in Newark, that “to those who were digging my political grave so they could jump into my seat, I know who you are and I won’t forget you.”

And so, the moment slipped by.

In those words, you can see the arrogance that has now brought Menendez to this moment in time. After now being found guilty on 16 counts after a nearly two-month trial in Manhattan, he is facing the possibility of 20 years in a federal prison when he is sentenced in October. In January, he turns 71. Even if he gets just 10 years, it’s the equivalent of a near-death sentence.

Bob Menendez convicted

In the last decade, Menendez has become a political ghost. He would show up at political events. But talking to him ― even asking a basic journalistic question about some development in the world ― was off-limits.  His staff acted like body guards. He offered little input ― certainly little influence ― in the political dialogue of New Jersey. No one really cared if he spoke out any issues. Not the media. Not fellow Democrats. Not even the voters.

Privately, however, Menendez was playing his old greed game. As federal investigators learned, Menendez took cash, gold bars and even a Mercedes-Benz. And in what may turn out to be one of the great ironies of this case, Menendez did not deny he and his wife had these “gifts.” As with his previous corruption trial in Newark, the message from Menendez seemed to be that he was entitled to the money and the car as long as it did not influence his judgment as a politician.

Who was he kidding?

In the end, Menendez’s own self-denial might be his greatest crime. As he left the courthouse on Tuesday, he declared that he “never violated my oath.”

He’ll likely persist in that delusion. He is, after all, a proud man.

But now the world knows the truth about Bob Menendez.

He’s just another Hudson County crook.

Mike Kelly is an award-winning columnist for NorthJersey.com, part of the USA TODAY Network, as well as the author of three critically acclaimed nonfiction books and a podcast and documentary film producer. To get unlimited access to his insightful thoughts on how we live life in the Northeast, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kellym@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Sen. Bob Menendez is just another crooked NJ politician: Kelly