Democratic Senator Bob Menendez is in even more trouble after a new indictment alleges that his corruption went on even longer than previously known – and it involved more foreign countries sending him bribes. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Democratic Senator Bob Menendez is in even more trouble after a new indictment alleges that his corruption went on longer than previously known. It involved more foreign countries, sending bribes seems to be the problem. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about what’s happening on these issues. I don’t know anybody that’s better on issues like this than you. Pick this one up. Okay.
Farron Cousins: So Menendez earlier this week gets hit with this superseding indictment that says, not only was your corruption, it went into last year into 2023 and they previously thought, okay, he stopped around 2022. But nope, all through last year as well. And it’s not just Egypt where he was selling favors. Now we find out he’s doing it according to these allegations with Qatar, basically on behalf of a wealthy donor friend, getting him his hands on the Qatari Government’s investment fund in exchange for favors from Menendez.
Mike Papantonio: So the real estate guy, the funder that, if you don’t think he’s splitting money with Menendez on top of all this, that’s not in the story, but I bet that’s what they’re gonna find.
Farron Cousins: Probably.
Mike Papantonio: But here you’ve got this guy that has been, he’s part of the Menendez gang, so to speak. He’s been dealing with him a long time, and he says, hey, listen, I can get you a really good deal on some funds that you wanna be invested in. And to help you do it, I’m gonna write a letter for you. Oh, by the way, what do I get in exchange? So, starts off with watches. Take it from there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. They send him a picture of these watches that cost tens of thousands dollars a piece and he says, okay, yeah, that looks good. They give him Grand Prix race tickets. All kinds of cash and favors. And all Menendez really has to do is he puts forward this resolution in the Senate saying, Qatar is one of our great friends. It’s a great country. We shouldn’t have any kind of hostility towards them. And that is the exchange, basically saying, the US government gives Qatar the green light to do whatever. We’re not gonna interfere as part of any of our terrorism investigations.
Mike Papantonio: Isn’t he foreign agent, Farron?
Farron Cousins: It certainly seems that way. Yes. I mean, it’s obvious at this point, he is working on behalf of foreign governments to influence US policy.
Mike Papantonio: Right. Okay. So you’ve got him where he is, we know he’s got gold bars stuffed everywhere around his house. We know he’s got cash stuffed all around his house. And now we’re finding that that’s just really the surface of all this. So why in the hell haven’t the Democrats gotten rid of him?
Farron Cousins: That’s what’s starting to really anger me at this point. At least, when you look at like Santos in the House who got expelled a month ago, that push was actually driven by Republicans in his state that said, we gotta get this guy out. He’s making us all look bad. The Democrats need to come out and say, get out of this body. There is enough evidence against you. Look, the tens of thousands of dollars you had stuffed in your jacket, pockets in your closet. That’s not normal.
Mike Papantonio: Gold bars. Who has stacks of gold bars in their closet?
Farron Cousins: Under his bed.
Mike Papantonio: Under his bed. Wife is involved. I call it the Menendez gang. Up in New Jersey, there’s this mobster mentality in the very area that he represents. And it seems like that’s just the way that they conduct business and they need to get rid of him. He’s an embarrassment. And every time they fail to get rid of him, the Republicans are able to say, look, we at least took care of Santos. You need to take care of this thug.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. He’s gonna become an election issue for the Democrats.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, no question.
Farron Cousins: If they’re not careful about this. They gotta get rid of him now. And look, he’s terrified, he’s gonna spend possibly the rest of his life in prison at this point.
Mike Papantonio: With a little luck.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. But, I mean, the evidence is overwhelming.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. It is.
