Menendez Corruption Allegations – Round Two
Bribe, Swindle or Steal
Alexandra Addison-Wrage of TRACE International
4.9 • 582 Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2023
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jessica Tillipman, Associate Dean for Government Procurement Law at George Washington Law School, joins the podcast to give a fantastic, detailed and fast-paced overview of the latest Menendez corruption allegations, interspersed with gold bars, bundles of cash and a Mercedes convertible. In the process, Jessica takes us back to the overturning of Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's corruption conviction and what we should expect in its wake.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the podcast, bribe, swindle, or steel. I'm Alexandra Rogi, and today we're talking |
| 0:11.8 | about the second round of Menendez's corruption allegations, as well as the shifting context for these charges. |
| 0:18.1 | My guest is Jessica Tillapman. Jessica is the Associate Dean for Government Procurement |
| 0:22.3 | Law, amongst other responsibilities, at the George Washington University Law School. She teaches a course |
| 0:27.8 | that focuses on anti-corruption, ethics and compliance issues in government procurement, and is an |
| 0:32.9 | active commentator in this space. Jessica, thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me. It is great to be back |
| 0:39.2 | on one of my favorite podcasts. For an international audience, who is Robert Menendez, and how did he first |
| 0:47.7 | make it into the news? This is really our second round with him. Yeah, so it's a really interesting case and it definitely makes it |
| 0:56.6 | far more interesting that we're seeing the same type of corruption charges in such a short period |
| 1:03.0 | of time. So getting to the basics, Robert Menendez, also known as Bob Menendez, is the senior U.S. |
| 1:09.6 | Senator from New Jersey. He served in this role since |
| 1:12.5 | 2006. And until recently, he served as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. |
| 1:18.5 | And I'm going to get to why this is important in a moment, but notably the committee has |
| 1:23.3 | jurisdiction over things like foreign military sales and foreign aid. So we're coming back to that. |
| 1:29.6 | In 2015, he was indicted by prosecutors in New Jersey on multiple counts of basically |
| 1:36.4 | bribery and corruption-related offenses. That trial ended in 2017 with what we refer to as a |
| 1:43.1 | hung jury. They couldn't come to an agreement. And ultimately, |
| 1:46.6 | the government decided not to recharge him or not to retry the case after a judge dismissed some of the |
| 1:53.1 | charges. So in short, the first trial was a flop for the United States Justice Department. So let's get |
| 2:00.2 | into the specifics with the first |
| 2:02.4 | prosecution. In the first one, they basically alleged that Menendez had accepted bribes from his |
| 2:08.4 | co-defendant, a gentleman named Dr. Solomon Melgan. Now, these two knew each other for several |
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