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Bob Menendez arrest watch

Cooked Crack

By Cooked Crack
in The Tailgate

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bearrock

bearrock

Posted
Posted

Kinda in the same boat with others.  Ordinarily I would want the ethics committee investigation to be over before removal, but in Menendez's case, the evidence of guilt appears so overwhelming that I wouldn't have an issue with booting him asap.  And agree with many that no way any criminal conviction should be the threshold for removal.

 

With respect to the due process argument, I don't think we even need to get into whether a duly seated senator's right to continue serving in the Senate triggers the liberty prong because a senate vote to oust him would amply satisfy the due process requirement.  Article 1 specifically gives power to the Senate to oust a member by 2/3 vote and leaves the mechanism to the Senate's discretion.  A select committee to hold short hearing and recommend expulsion with a full vote would not be so unfair to traditional notions of fairness to trigger constitutional due process issues.  It's been done exactly that way before.

 

In any event, the sooner Menendez is no longer a US senator, the better.

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Long n Left

Long n Left

Posted
Posted (edited)
18 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

This is definitely the argument they are making, that someone shouldn't lose their seat in Congress before they've had due process.  But as Jamie Raskin (who was literally my Constitutional Law professor) well knows, the Due Process clause states that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."  A Senate seat is not someone's life, liberty or property.  

 

At a certain point, a reasonable person can view the publicly available evidence and conclude that a person is no longer fit to serve in the Senate (and sit in on classified briefings as @TheGreatBuzzpoints out).  Getting to a conviction takes a LONG TIME for powerful people, and the bar for continuing to serve in the United States Senate should be higher than "hasn't yet been convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery and extortion and acting as a foreign agent, but the guy had gold bars in his house that have been traced directly back to the dude accused of bribing him."

Don’t dispute a single thing you say here, but as you say, your professor took a position that there has to be more than allegations, and even evidence. There must be a documented committee investigation, or a guilty verdict.

 

I certainly believe in the “higher standard”, and that he should be voted out, but I also understand the reasoning as why that hasn’t taken place yet.

 

Also, not sure a senate vote would expel him.

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Larry

Larry

Posted
Posted

I'll certainly agree that there needs to be a high bar, to expel somebody.  

 

Otherwise we both know that at least one party will abuse the system.  

 

(Not that they would regard this precedent as being binding on them showing similar restraint.)  

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PleaseBlitz

PleaseBlitz

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Larry said:

I'll certainly agree that there needs to be a high bar, to expel somebody.  

 

Otherwise we both know that at least one party will abuse the system.  

 

(Not that they would regard this precedent as being binding on them showing similar restraint.)  

 

You still need a 2/3 vote to expel, so it would be tough for one party to abuse it. 

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TheGreatBuzz

TheGreatBuzz

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

You still need a 2/3 vote to expel, so it would be tough for one party to abuse it. 

 

And this idea that not breaking a precedent because it will give the GOP an excuse to break it is pretty rich.  Merrick Garland says hi.

Edited by TheGreatBuzz
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PleaseBlitz

PleaseBlitz

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

 

And this idea that not breaking a precedent because it will give the GOP an excuse to break it is pretty rich.  Merrick Garland says hi.

 

And the precedent you are setting is "it is okay to lie, cheat and steal in order to gain a seat, and abuse your office for personal gain once you have it, and you will get to keep that seat unless and until you are convicted in a court of law (or, more likely, until you cop a plea bargain that lets you off without serious punishment)."

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tshile

tshile

Posted
Posted (edited)

The precedent I’m seeing set is that some objective party that’s responsible for sorting through it and establishing a baseline of facts must occur before people are willing to consider if the accusations warrant expulsion. 
 

news reports, cable news shows, and twitter aren’t gonna cut it. 
 

seems like a fair standard. 

Edited by tshile
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mistertim

mistertim

Posted
Posted

So basically the Dems have a crook in their midst in Menendez and his approval among Dems immediately tanks after the indictments.

 

Republicans have a crook in their midst in Trump and his approval rating among Republicans immediately increases after the indictments.

 

Quite telling.

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The Sisko

The Sisko

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 10/28/2023 at 12:01 PM, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

 

On 12/7/2023 at 9:03 AM, mistertim said:

So basically the Dems have a crook in their midst in Menendez and his approval among Dems immediately tanks after the indictments.

 

Republicans have a crook in their midst in Trump and his approval rating among Republicans immediately increases after the indictments.

 

Quite telling.

 

This is what's jumped out at me in recent ethics violations. To one side, it indicates moral turpitude and being unfit for office. To the other side, it's a feature, not a bug. At the very least, the closest they ever come to common sense accountability is the "What about Hunter Biden" type distractors.🙄 When the other side is that disingenuous and enough of the electorate is dumb and/or willfully ignorant enough not to hold politicians to account, the country is schtupped. It's the Achilles heel of Democracy. Welcome to Weimar U.S.A.

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China

China

Posted
Posted

Sen. Bob Menendez Says FBI Illegally Seized His Gold Bars

 

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez wants a New York judge to toss out much of the evidence in the bribery prosecution against him, saying investigators illegally searched his residence as revenge because the Democrat defeated a prior prosecution in his home state.

 

His arguments, delivered by his lawyers, were contained in papers filed late Monday in Manhattan federal court, where Menendez faces a May trial.

 

In 2017, a federal jury in New Jersey deadlocked on 18 criminal charges against Menendez and a wealthy Florida eye doctor accused of buying his influence with luxury vacations and campaign contributions. Prosecutors then dropped the case.

 

“The government’s apparent zeal to ‘get back’ at Senator Menendez for defeating its prior prosecution has overwhelmed its sound judgment,” his lawyers said. “The FBI ran roughshod over the Senator’s Fourth Amendment rights, and all evidence collected from those searches must therefore be suppressed.”

 

Along with his wife, the 70-year-old Democrat is now charged with accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury car over the last five years to carry out favors for three businessmen who are also charged. All have pleaded not guilty.

 

After his fall arrest, the senator was forced to give up his powerful post leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

 

Menendez’s lawyers asserted in their latest effort to find defects in the indictment against him that search warrants used to get judicial permission for the seizure of Menendez’s personal belongings “were riddled with material misrepresentations and omissions.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

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China

China

Posted
Posted

Disgraced pol Bob Menendez showed cash-stuffed safe to married lover who posed nude for him — 15 years before FBI gold bars raid: dossier

 

US Sen. Bob Menendez showed his married lover a safe stuffed with cash 15 years before the FBI raided the New Jersey Democrat’s home, an explosive dossier shared with The Post alleges.

 

The lover bragged to her friends that she had seen “bundles of cash” stuffed in “hidden places” in 2007, according to the document.

 

And it also claimed that Menendez boasted about “kickbacks from contractors and influence seeking people” while they conducted a torrid affair that included nude photos and sex on both a private jet and a bed that the senator said had been used by President John F. Kennedy.

 

The revelations come after veteran Democrat Menendez, 70, and his second wife, Nadine Arslanian, were indicted on bribery and corruption charges last year after federal authorities seized nearly $500,000 in cash and gold bars at their Englewood Cliffs, NJ, home.

 

Click on the link for the full article

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