Former Sen. Bob Menendez is transparently looking for a pardon from President Donald Trump, after the New Jersey Democrat was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for accepting bribes and illegally acting as an agent for Egypt.
In a news conference outside of the courthouse where he had been sentenced, Menendez blatantly tried to appeal to Trump’s wrongful belief that former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice was politicized.
“President Trump was right,” Menendez said outside of the federal courthouse in New York where he had been sentenced. “This process is political, and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores the integrity to the system.”
Menendez later wrote a long post on X where he again spewed nonsense about the DOJ being corrupt before tagging Trump’s handle, a blatant attempt to make sure Trump saw his ridiculous screed.
“Welcome to the Southern District of New York, the Wild West of political prosecutions,” Menendez wrote. “President Trump is right. This process is political and has been corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system.”
MSNBC confirmed that Menendez is, in fact, seeking clemency from Trump to avoid spending years in prison for his crimes.
Buttering Trump up to get a pardon is a good bet for Menendez, as Trump has proven on multiple occasions a willingness to grant clemency to crooks and violent offenders if they praise Trump’s leadership or support his disturbing policy agenda.
In one of his first acts of his second term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 insurrectionists who illegally broke into the U.S. Capitol to stop certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Hundreds of the pardoned insurrectionists had violently assaulted law enforcement officers, and a few have had run-ins with the law since their release.
Eric Adams
The New York Times also reported on Wednesday that Trump's DOJ is discussing dropping charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Adams was charged in September with bribery and soliciting illegal campaign contributions. Since Adams’ indictment, the mayor has been cozying up to Trump, leading Trump to say in December that he thought Adams was being treated “pretty unfairly."
Adams is also currently being defended by Trump “co-President” Elon Musk’s personal attorney, Alex Spiro. The New York Times reported that Spiro has, “suggested that the mayor would not be inclined to cooperate with the president’s immigration crackdown if he remained under indictment”—which sounds a little bit like extortion.
Menendez's pardon seeking also came the same day Trump's DOJ moved to drop charges against former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican from Nebraska.
Fortenberry was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 for lying to the FBI about foreign contributions to his campaign, but the conviction was thrown out because a judge ruled it was tried in the wrong venue. The DOJ was going to retry the case in Washington, but dropped the case in the second week of Trump's new tenure.
What’s more, in Trump’s first term, he pardoned or commuted the sentence of a number of criminals who were either his longtime buddies or who had heaped praise on Trump.
In one of his final acts in his first term, Trump commuted the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was serving a 14-year sentence for trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat that had been held by President Barack Obama. Blagojevich’s wife had made personal appeals to Trump on Fox News, Trump’s favorite network.
Trump also pardoned virulently racist former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt for refusing to comply with a judicial order to stop racially profiling immigrants.
He also pardoned right-wing agitator Dinesh D’Souza, who was convicted of carrying out a straw donor scheme; Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, who was convicted of tax evasion and witness tampering; Roger Stone, a Trump ally who was convicted of lying to Congress during the Russia investigation; and Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who in 2005 had pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns and retaliating against a cooperating witness.
Trump talks a big game about “law and order.” But in practice, Trump has pardoned hundreds of criminals because they like him. Trump’s ego knows no bounds.
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