Sen. Bob Menendez and wife facing federal bribery charges - NewsNation Now
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00:00 Democratic senator from New Jersey was secretly receiving gold bars and thousands of dollars
00:05 of cash in exchange for using his foreign affairs influence to benefit Egypt.
00:10 During a search of the senator's home, authorities found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars
00:15 and nearly half a million dollars in cash.
00:19 This is the second indictment against the senator in eight years.
00:24 Moderator of The Hill and Chief Washington Correspondent Blake Berman joins me now.
00:27 Blake, thank you for being with us here on this.
00:30 So his second indictment now, this is an ongoing investigation.
00:34 Just talk to us about what happens now.
00:36 Yeah, the first one, there was a hung jury, by the way, and now this is a totally different
00:41 case.
00:42 You sort of outlined it, accusations of giving sensitive information relating to Egypt, money,
00:49 gold bars, a secret Mercedes.
00:51 It's all the elements there, Nicole.
00:54 Now what has happened is that Bob Menendez, who is the head of the Senate Foreign Relations
00:59 Committee, is no longer sitting on the committee.
01:02 At top of that post, he is still a United States senator, just not running one of the
01:06 most important committees.
01:07 We know that because the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer just put out a statement minutes
01:11 ago in which he said that the senator is afforded due process, just like anybody else would
01:16 be at this point in time.
01:18 But it is remarkable, Nicole, when you think about the allegations here from the Department
01:23 of Justice against a sitting United States senator and what they are claiming.
01:28 And this is certainly a big headache for the senator right now and Democrats here in Washington,
01:36 especially in the United States Senate, because this is not something that they want back
01:40 on their radar again.
01:41 Yeah, certainly not something we want back on the radar.
01:43 And again, you know, I just feel like we can't say enough.
01:45 The second indictment now for the senator.
01:47 Talk about how he is responding.
01:49 He is saying prosecutors are out to get him.
01:53 Basically, saying they're out to get him.
01:55 That is a very good way of putting it, because this is the second time it's happened in a
01:59 decade.
02:00 He also pointed to being a Latino and thinking that had something to do with it.
02:04 He didn't really get into in his statement a lot of the facts and the details and the
02:09 rebuttal, but basically just to say that folks have been out for him for a while now and,
02:13 you know, that he's pushed back on it and so forth.
02:16 It was it was a rather it was a rather strange statement, quite honestly, Nicole, from the
02:22 senator.
02:23 But he is facing some very, very serious charges.
02:25 He certainly is.