The Justice Department, which just weeks earlier said it was planning on retrying New Jersey’s senior Senator Bob Menendez on corruption charges, asked a district court judge on Wednesday to “dismiss the … indictment[s]” against him, and hours later the judge complied. Menendez’s sigh of relief was palpable in his statement following the dismissal:
From the very beginning, I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail. I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to reevaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion.
“From the very beginning” Menendez’s political career has been plagued with charges of corruption, graft, illegal influence peddling, and lying. Just because the DOJ has decided not to press its case against him doesn’t mean he’s innocent, just lucky.
Following a hung jury in November, Menendez has been holding his breath, waiting for the date of his retrial to be announced this week. The dismissal caught many by surprise, including former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz:
This case has been on a long, winding road, and this is a surprising end. It’s certainly a major setback for the Department of Justice, given the high-profiled nature of this case.
There are many reasons why the DOJ has backed down, including the enormous expenditure of time, effort, and taxpayers’ monies during the first trial that failed to convict him. The prosecution took eight long weeks and put 50 witnesses on the stand, and still it was unable to build a solid link between gifts to Menendez from his “good friend” Salomon Melgen, an eye doctor from Miami, and certain “official” acts by Menendez that benefitted Melgen.
That Melgen is himself corrupt is evident by his conviction on 67 counts of Medicare fraud and his imminent sentencing (up to 30 years) for them.
But perhaps the real reason — the one that appears to be most persuasive in this case — is the Supreme Court’s decision in 2016 to throw out a conviction in a similar corruption case brought against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. McDonnell was found guilty of violating the law when he received gifts, money, and loans from Jonnie Williams, the CEO of a Virginia-based company, in exchange for official acts by McDonnell that the jury saw as favorable to Williams.
Upon appeal the Supreme Court was unanimous in throwing out McDonnell’s conviction, and Chief Justice John Roberts explained why. Those “official acts” that McDonnell performed weren’t adequately tied directly to gifts from Williams:
In sum, an “official act” is a decision or action on a ‘question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy.’ Setting up a meeting, talking to another official, or organizing an event (or…