Deep In the Heart of Jersey

I wasn't going to comment on this until it actually happened, but it happened; my U.S. Senator has been indicted on corruption charges.

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has been accused by the U.S .Justice Department - which, last time I checked, is not controlled by Republicans - of accepting almost $1 million of gifts and campaign contributions from Florida doctor Salomon Melgen, an optometrist who's also a longtime Menendez friend, and using his Senate office to influence the settling of disputes involving ongoing contractual and Medicare billing disputes worth to Melgen many times the value of the gifts Menendez received.  The probe into whether or not to indict the senator had been going on for months.    

Senator Menendez has denied all charges against him, yet he is stepping down temporarily as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in order to deal with the case against him so he can prove his innocence.

Oh, and he's admitted to flying numerous times on Melgen's private jet to the Dominican Republic and initially failing to properly pay for the trips, having reimbursed Melgen $58,500 in 2013 for the full cost of two such trips.

Anything else?  Oh, nothing in particular . . . except maybe another flight from Florida to New Jersey two years earlier, which Menendez said he'd reimbursed Melgen for at a cost of $11,250.

He's first-class . . . definitely not coach.

And to think after all these investigations of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who looked to be the latest poster boy for traditional, good ol' fashioned Garden State corruption, it's Menendez who ends up getting indicted.  If convicted, he would be the first U.S. Senator to be convicted of corruption since Democrat Harrison Williams of . . . New Jersey!

Stay classy, Bob.