SENATOR ROBERT MENENDEZ INDICTED ON CORRUPTION CHARGES U.S. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey was indicted this week on charges of accepting nearly a million dollars in gifts and campaign contributions from a long-time friend in exchange for political favors. Menendez, the second sitting U.S. Senator to be indicted in the last decade The indictment of Senator Menendez challenges everything about ‘Citizens United’ WAPO’S DANA MILBANK: SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ SHOULD RESIGN A disturbing set of facts that call into question the court’s logic and conclusions about corruption. The April 1 indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez on bribery charges alleges a chronology that should worry everyone who cares about integrity in national politics. According to the indictment, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist, Salomon Melgen, who was seeking Robert Menendez’s support on matters before the U.S. government, wrote two checks for $300,000 each in 2012 to the Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC devoted to supporting the election of Senate Democrats. “Bob Menendez doesn’t belong in the U.S. Senate” “It’s not just the New Jersey Democrat’s 14-count indictment on corruption charges, though that’s plenty. As bad is the appalling way in which he responded: with a political rally to kick off a campaign against the Justice Department in which Robert Menendez plays the persecuted minority. “Menendez called his event Wednesday night in Newark a ‘press conference,’ but it was no such thing. He took no questions, instead reading a combative statement that claimed the Justice Department — a Democratic administration’s Justice Department — was doing the bidding of ‘those who have a political motive to silence me.’” Read More
Corrupt Kamala Devi Harris Irony Alert: Kamala Harris Profited from an Affair with Willie Brown, Yet She Wages War on Sex Work Deputy Atty. Gen. Kevin R. Vienna was there to urge three judges on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold murder convictions against Johnny Baca for two 1995 killings in Riverside County. Other courts had already determined that prosecutors had presented false evidence in Baca’s trial but upheld the verdicts anyway. Vienna had barely started his argument when the pummeling began. Judge Alex Kozinski asked Vienna if his boss, Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, wanted to defend a conviction “obtained by lying prosecutors.” If Harris did not back off the case, Kozinski warned, the court would “name names” in a ruling that would not be “very pretty.” Judge Kim Wardlaw wanted to know why Riverside County prosecutors presented a murder-for-hire case against the killer but did not charge the man they said had arranged the killings. “It looks terrible,” said Judge William Fletcher. The January hearing in Pasadena, posted online under new 9th Circuit policies, provided a rare and critical examination of a murder case in which prosecutors presented false evidence but were never investigated or disciplined. The low-profile case probably would have gone unnoticed if not for the video, which attorneys emailed to other attorneys and debated on blogs. In a series of searing questions, the three judges expressed frustration and anger that California state judges were not cracking down on prosecutorial misconduct. By law, federal judges are supposed to defer to the decisions of state court judges. Prosecutors “got caught this time but they are going to keep doing it because they have state judges who are willing to look the other way,” Kozinski… Read More
