Embattled Democrat Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) this week accused the FBI of ‘running roughshod over his Fourth Amendment rights’ when they s...
Embattled Democrat Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) this week accused the FBI of ‘running roughshod over his Fourth Amendment rights’ when they seized gold bars and cash from his home last year.
Lawyers for Menendez asked a New York judge to throw out some of the evidence used to indict the senator. They accused the federal government of ‘getting back’ at Menendez after he defeated its 2017 prosecution on charges of influence peddling.
ABC News reported:
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.”
In October Embattled Democrat Senator Bob Menendez was charged with acting as a foreign agent in a superseding indictment. The new indictment filed by a federal grand jury in Manhattan claims Menendez “provided sensitive U.S. Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt.”
Last month federal prosecutors announced that Democrat U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, and his wife, have been indicted on charges of bribery and corruption.
Federal prosecutors out of the Southern District of New York obtained a 3-count indictment against Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez.
Fred Daibes, a real estate developer, New Jersey businessman Wael Hana and Joseph Uribe were also charged.
“The Senator and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes….. cash, gold, home mortgage payments, jobs, cars, and other things of value” in exchange for “using his power and influence to protect and enrich [New Jersey] businessmen and to benefit the government of Egypt,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said.
Nadine Menendez was given a “no-show” or “low-show” job, a Mercedes Benz and other things of value, Damian Williams said.
Special agents discovered $500,000 of cash stuffed into envelopes in closets. “Some of the cash was stuffed in the Senator’s jacket pockets. Some of the envelopes of cash contained Daibes’ fingerprints and Daibes’ DNA,” Williams said at a press conference last month.
evidence photos show cash, Mercedes and gold bars
Menendez previously used the race card after he was indicted.
“It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere,” Menendez said.
Earlier this month Bob Menendez was hit with a second superseding indictment for praising Qatar in exchange for luxury watches.
“Menendez provided Daibes with these statements so that Daibes could share them with the Qatari Investor and a Qatari government official associated with the Qatari Investment Company,” the indictment said, according to NBC News.
Despite being under federal indictment for acting as a foreign agent, Menendez is still attending classified briefings.
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