After the U.S. legal professional in Manhattan introduced corruption costs final Friday in opposition to Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the veteran Democratic lawmaker lashed again, calling the claims false and saying prosecutors had “misrepresented the traditional work of congressional workplace.”
Mr. Menendez has mentioned much more in current days concerning the indictment, however his assertion final week provided a clue to the protection he could invoke, if his case goes to trial, one which different public officers going through corruption costs have used efficiently.
In a collection of key rulings since 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court docket has repeatedly narrowed the authorized definition of corruption, resulting in overturned convictions of distinguished politicians in New York and elsewhere.
In 2016, in throwing out the conviction of Bob McDonnell, a former Republican governor of Virginia, the court docket mentioned a quid-pro-quo scheme needed to embody greater than routine courtesies like arranging conferences — the traditional work Mr. Menendez invoked.
However investigators discovered gold bars and cash-stuffed envelopes in Mr. Menendez’s dwelling, and several other authorized consultants interviewed this week mentioned they believed the costs within the 39-page indictment might face up to the sorts of authorized challenges that protection legal professionals have efficiently used previously.
“It’s true that the Supreme Court docket retains narrowing the scope of what’s permissible for the federal government to pursue,” mentioned Rachel E. Barkow, a professor of legal legislation at New York College. “However I do assume that this case falls into the heartland of what’s all the time been permissible, as a result of as I learn it, that is traditional bribery.”
Daniel C. Richman, a professor at Columbia Legislation College, mentioned, “The Supreme Court docket’s level has all the time been to not criminalize regular politics” — what he known as “the common constituent service and day-to-day work of legislators.”
“Clearly, there must be some limits to regular constituent service — and maybe bars of gold will assist draw that line,” Mr. Richman added.
However David Oscar Markus, a Miami trial lawyer who has learn the indictment, cautioned in opposition to the push to judgment of a lot of Mr. Menendez’s critics, who he mentioned have merely accepted the federal government’s model.
“They’re prepared to convict him with out ever listening to from the protection,” mentioned Mr. Markus, who represented Andrew Gillum, a former Democratic governor candidate in Florida who confronted a trial wherein he was acquitted of mendacity to the F.B.I. The jury failed to succeed in a verdict on 18 different counts, which had been later dismissed.
“The very first thing that I feel is necessary for any legal protection lawyer to do is to not take something in that indictment as true or at face worth, and to query each single paragraph,” Mr. Markus mentioned.
The indictment costs that Mr. Menendez, 69, who as chairman of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee held sway over navy gross sales, financing and different support, secretly took a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} in bribes, together with gold bullion, in return for serving to the federal government of Egypt.
The federal government additionally charged the senator’s spouse, Nadine Menendez, and three New Jersey businessmen. One, Wael Hana, is an Egyptian American who prosecutors say maintained shut connections with Egyptian navy and intelligence officers, and was a linchpin within the scheme that funneled the cash to the senator and his spouse.
Mr. Menendez, his spouse, and the three different defendants all pleaded not responsible this week.
Mr. Hana, a longtime pal of Ms. Menendez, had based a enterprise that had little income in 2018 and early 2019; within the spring of 2019, the Egyptian authorities designated it as the only certifier of halal meat that was exported to that nation, regardless of Mr. Hana’s lack of expertise with halal certification.
Someday after an Egyptian official instructed Mr. Hana that his agency was more likely to turn into Egypt’s solely halal certifier, Ms. Menendez texted her husband: “Looks as if halal went via. It could be a improbable 2019 all the best way round.”
The indictment says Mr. Hana’s monopoly assured “a income stream” from which he might “make good on the bribe funds” he had promised the Menendezes.
It says that in trade for Mr. Menendez and his spouse’s promise that he would use his authority to facilitate navy gross sales to Egypt, Mr. Hana promised to place Ms. Menendez on the payroll of his firm in a job the place she would do little or no work.
In a single 2018 episode, Mr. Menendez agreed, at his spouse’s request, to ghostwrite a letter lobbying different U.S. senators to launch a maintain on $300 million in support to Egypt. Mr. Menendez then emailed the draft to his spouse, who forwarded it to Mr. Hana, who then despatched it to Egyptian officers. Two months later, Mr. Menendez texted his spouse, asking her to inform Mr. Hana that he would log off on a $99 million navy deal.
The indictment says that U.S. Division of Agriculture officers contacted the Egyptian authorities in 2019 asking that it rethink its grant of monopoly rights to Mr. Hana’s firm, IS EG Halal. Mr. Menendez known as a high-ranking division official and insisted “the united statesD.A. cease opposing IS EG Halal’s standing as sole halal certifier,” in keeping with the indictment.
Randall D. Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches white-collar legal legislation at George Washington College, mentioned that on its face, the indictment presents “a fairly damning case” in its accounts of conferences and the passing of knowledge to Egypt and funds to Mr. Menendez and his spouse from their co-defendants.
However, he mentioned, the indictment appears “a bit unclear” on what funds Mr. Menendez was receiving, and when, in return for particular actions he was taking.
“That’s going to be the important thing: Are you able to hyperlink it up and show the quid professional quo — that he took a specific motion due to a specific reward?”
Professor Eliason famous that in an earlier corruption trial of Mr. Menendez that led to a hung jury in 2017, the federal government confirmed the senator obtained presents however did not persuade the jury that he agreed to train the facility of his workplace in trade.
Alexandra Shapiro, a lawyer who has represented a collection of shoppers in public corruption appeals, mentioned the problem of whether or not Mr. Menendez exchanged official acts for bribes can be a query for the jury.
“It’ll probably rely upon what inferences the jury can draw from the timing of the alleged bribes and any official motion he took,” mentioned Ms. Shapiro, of the agency Shapiro Arato Bach.
Arlo Devlin-Brown, who from 2014 to 2016 served as chief of the Southern District’s public corruption unit and at present is a protection lawyer on the agency Covington & Burling, mentioned he believed that if confirmed, Mr. Menendez’s pressuring of the Agriculture Division official with a purpose to shield Mr. Hana’s monopoly very probably satisfies the Supreme Court docket’s definition of an official act.
He mentioned the protection could ask the decide, Sidney H. Stein, to dismiss or slender the indictment as a result of most of the allegations don’t quantity to official acts beneath the Supreme Court docket’s newest interpretations. He, too, mentioned the decide could depart such questions for a jury to resolve, based mostly on the federal government’s proof.
Mr. Devlin-Brown mentioned that given the Supreme Court docket’s tighter definition of corruption, the Southern District could also be extra conservative within the authorized theories it costs and the jury directions it seeks.
However, he added, “I feel public corruption continues to be a major precedence for the U.S. legal professional’s workplace for the Southern District of New York, and I don’t see that altering any time quickly.”
