This is the On the Media Midweek podcast. I'm Brooke Gladstone. Bob Menendez will become the first senator to go to

prison in more than 40 years when he reports to federal penitentiary next week. Most of you will no

doubt be aware of the broad strokes of his corruption and bribery case. You know, the gold bars and cash found in his suburban ranch home.

But our home station, WNYC, has produced a podcast that goes deeper than most of the media coverage.

So we're bringing you the first episode just released today of Dead End, The Rise and Fall of Gold Bar Bob Menendez.

It's hosted and reported by Nancy Solomon, who'll take things from here.

One morning in June of 2024, during the trial of Bob Menendez, I was sitting in the hallway

finishing a cup of coffee outside the courtroom.

There was only one of the person there, standing next to the bench,

looking out at the spectacular Manhattan view from the 23rd floor, Bob Menendez.

He was singing, and it was killing me that I couldn't record it.

In that courthouse, you have no phones.

Nobody has recording devices. So they developed this sort of cocoon-like space where the defendants,

the reporters, the lawyers, we were all kind of existing together for nine weeks.

This is Tracy Tully. She's a reporter for the New York Times, and she was in court almost every day.

He would sing during breaks in court, sometimes in the courtroom, often outside in that vestibule that you described.

And I remember riding down an elevator with a crowd of people at one point, and one of the lawyers said, I think it's a form of prayer.

This is Dead End, the rise and fall of Goldbar Bob Menendez. Over the course of three episodes, we're going to tell you about the epic collapse of New Jersey's senior senator.

He was convicted of a bribery scheme involving a monopoly on halal meat exports to Egypt

and helping that country obtain U.S. military aid,

we'll dig into the details and try to solve a mystery.

How could a successful politician at the peak of his power do something that ultimately ruined him?

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