On July 16, 2024, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez was convicted on charges of bribery, fraud, and extortion. Menendez, a Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was accused of orchestrating a bribery scheme that included selling his office to foreign powers and business executives. His conviction marks the first time a U.S. senator has ever been found guilty of being a foreign agent. Here, Stanford Law School criminal law expert, Robert Weisberg, discusses the charges and conviction.

Can you briefly explain the charges against Senator Menendez?

The gist is pretty plain old bribery. The government decided to gild the prosecutorial lily by framing the case under three different statutes—18 USC 201 (bribe taking by a federal official) but also a wire fraud and even an extortion count. But the different statutory definitions of these don’t matter much here.  They’re all about the same crooked deals. Oh, and the government lassoed the Senator and his spouse and some of the bribe-payors into conspiracy charges as well.

Menendez and his wife received things of great value in exchange for him engaging in actions which lay within his power. One payor was working for the Egyptian government, and Menendez used his power on the Senate Foreign Services Committee to release arms funding to Egypt. Two other payors ran a company which sought to be the sole certified importer to the US of Halal food; Mendez used his influence to lean on the US Department of Agriculture to make sure this business kept its monopoly. Finally, one of the bribe payors was worried that two of bis business associates  were facing state criminal charges in New Jersey, and Menendez used his considerable influence with the state prosecutor in an effort to get those  charge dropped, But there was also a federal charge against one of the payors ,and Mendez agreed to lean on the President, who was about to pick a new US Attorney for New Jersey, to choose a particular candidate Menendez was confident would be favorable towards this payor.

So, these crimes are very serious.

Very serious felonies.  Prison aside, they will likely quickly lead to his removal from the Senate, by resignation or force.

How tough a case was this for the prosecution?

The case was a dream for the prosecutor. We’ve all read about the gold bars found in the search of the Menendez home, and then there were the envelopes stuffed in various places in the house full of cash with writing on the outside connecting to the payors.  And then there was the Mercedes “bought” by Ms.  Menendez but paid for by one of the confederates.  Oh, plus a no-show job offered Ms. Menendez.  Why were these riches conferred?   The government obtained thousands of texts among the parties helping meet the requirement of a quid pro quo—the goodies were direct consideration   for the Senator’s favorable actions.   (Plus, some oddities like proof that Menendez googled, “What is the value of a kilo of gold?)

What were the challenges for the defense team?

The defense had little to work with. It argued that the dots the prosecution was connecting were really unconnected, but the jury had no trouble concluding otherwise. The defense also tried to pin the blame on Ms. Menendez, not the Senator. In fact, she was charged as well, but her separate trial has been delayed because she is undergoing cancer treatment. The jury obviously found that there was plenty of guilt to go around for both. Finally, conceding that gold bars are unusual things to have in one’s house, the defense argued that the gold, cash, etc. were merely generous gifts from one of the confederates who was sympathetic to Ms. Menendez because she had gone through some financial difficulty.

What are Menendez’s next legal moves? Does an appeal stand a good chance of succeeding?

Of course he will appeal. It can argue that the jury decision was unsound on the facts, but that kind of “insufficiency of evidence” argument rarely wins because appellate courts defer to jury judgments about the credibility and weight of evidence. As for true legal arguments, in recent years the Supreme Court has overturned a number of major white-collar convictions by narrowly construing some of these laws, but I don’t see any of those rulings as very applicable to Menendez.  A key case was the reversal of the conviction of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell some years back, but the Court found that what McDonnell had offered in return for money was not truly an official act, but a rather minor political favor. The official acts by Menendez were very different.

What kind of sentence is Menendez looking at?

The multiple charges will essentially be grouped so that the maximum theoretical sentence will be 20 years, but there’s still plenty of judicial discretion. A rough guess is that Menendez will be seeing something in the mid high single digits; he’ll get some consideration for his age and the fact that he’s a first-time offender.

Do you have any additional thoughts about this conviction?

It’s hard to imagine a more incompetent criminal.  Last year one of Menendez’s lawyers arranged a so-called proffer session with the prosecutor, where the lawyer would try to make the case that the charges were unsound. What the lawyer said might have been convincing, but it was also false. Not because the lawyer lied but because he had been fed false information by Menendez. Once this was found out, the prosecutor added an obstruction of justice charge, of which Menendez was also just convicted.