Today In Menendez Follies: Should You Use Gold Bars Previously Photographed By Police To Bribe A Senator?

// We really should be past the point where Bob Menendez could surprise us.

We’ve seen the pictures of the windbreaker with the Senate logo and the pockets stuffed with envelopes of cash. We’ve read the messages from Menendez’s wife Nadine promising that her husband would act as a veritable concierge service for the Egyptian government. We’ve WTF-ed at the fake halal export company scheme used to funnel cash to Nadine’s “consulting” business. We’ve laughed in horror at the Mercedes their co-defendants bought her after she banged her old car up while killing a pedestrian.

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And yet, the senator still has it in him to shock!

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NBC reports that at least four of the gold bars seized from Menendez’s house in June of 2022 bear serial numbers matching ones on bars recovered by police after a 2013 robbery of the Edgewater, New Jersey home of real estate developer Fred Daibes. Daibes, who was robbed at gunpoint by four masked individuals, identified the ingots by their unique markings when he claimed them from police.

“Each gold bar has its own serial number,” he told the law enforcement officers. “They’re all stamped … you’ll never see two stamped the same way.”

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Cue the Yakety Sax music.

Daibes is one of Menendez’s co-defendants in this indictment. His fingerprints and DNA were found on envelopes of cash taken from Menendez’s house, and he’s alleged to given Menendez the gold bars as part of the bribery scheme. And apparently he used multiple non-fungible chunks of metal that he knew could be identified by the police to pay off a United States senator.

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Probably Daibes was out of those exploding ink things bank tellers slip in with the cash during a robbery. Next time he’ll plan ahead! And considering that this is Menendez’s second corruption trial, the possibility of another go round is more than a hilarious hypo.

Here’s Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman telling Menendez to GTFO now, and in the most hilarious way possible.

I thought my ethically-challenged colleague @BobMenendezNJ could use some encouragement given his substantial legal problems.

So, I approached a seasoned expert on the matter to give ‘Bobby from Jersey’ some advice. pic.twitter.com/y8iX55EyNi

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) December 4, 2023

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And when you get an attaboy from George freakin’ Santos …

Gold bars featured in Sen. Bob Menendez bribery case are linked to a 2013 robbery, records show [NBC]

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes the Law and Chaos substack and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

Topics

Bob Menendez, Government