U.S. senator for sale?

We’ve heard a lot lately from Democrats about a supposed war on democracy, about threats to the continuity of the republic. As much as they rue that language after last Saturday’s assassination attempt, they might also start by looking inside their own tent. Exhibit A for undermining democracy is Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who was convicted this week of taking piles of cash and literal bars of gold to advance the interests of foreign nations like Egypt and Qatar from his post, not only as a U.S. senator but as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If anything is destructive to democracy, it’s such blatant corruption.

This is Menendez’s second such brush with the law (he is, in fact, the only U.S. senator ever to be indicted twice). Five years ago, he was indicted for alleged improprieties in his dealings with a Florida eye doctor who was dependent on taxpayer Medicare dollars to fund his top 1 percent lifestyle. The doctor gave the senator resort vacations in the Caribbean and trips on private jets. The senator then pressured federal agencies to push through items benefiting his longtime friend. The jury deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial after nine weeks of testimony.

There was no such ambiguity this time around when an FBI raid on Menendez’s home found stacks of gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, neatly bundled in stacks of 100-dollar bills before being stuffed in boots and shoeboxes around the house. They also found a Mercedes-Benz convertible parked in the garage. It was like a scene out of a James Bond novel: a corrupt senator taking bribes in gold bars to get trucks of ammunition into Egypt. The cops used fingerprints and serial numbers to trace the goods to two collaborators, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, New Jersey businessmen who acted as middlemen for the arrangement.

In exchange, Menendez leveraged his unique power as chairman of the Senate’s key committee overseeing international affairs to advocate for Egypt and Qatar. The influence-peddling went beyond large policy issues, like hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid, to specific problems like one company’s monopoly on Muslim-approved meat exports.

News reports late Wednesday indicated Menendez would resign. But if he doesn’t, a super-majority vote would be necessary to expel him. A number of Democrats are publicly indicating their willingness to take such a vote, not wanting TV ads popping up in their reelection races accusing them of sheltering a convicted colleague. And that makes it difficult for them to say that former President Donald Trump is disqualified for office because of his conviction in New York without holding Menendez to the same standard. Whether by expulsion or resignation, any vacancy will be temporarily filled by appointment from New Jersey’s Democratic governor before an election this fall for his permanent replacement.

Sadly, the temptations that lead to corruption are not new to politics. The last time we saw a sitting member of Congress headed to jail, it was a Democratic congressman from Louisiana who kept a stash of hundred-dollar bills in his freezer wrapped in aluminum foil (one might call it a bribe paid in cold hard cash). William J. Jefferson eventually served five and a half years for his crimes. Menendez faces up to 200 years in prison for his transgressions.

In both cases, the lawmakers were not trading bribes for direct votes on the floor, necessarily, but rather for access and influence—phone calls to unstick bureaucratic problems or make meetings happen that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. It shows how our politics has changed and evolved: In a dysfunctional Congress where little legislating actually happens, even corruption moves to other parts of the process where members can make a discernable difference.

A poll taken at the end of June showed President Trump ahead of President Joe Biden 41 percent to 40 percent in New Jersey. That would be shocking in any circumstance—New Jersey is a traditionally blue state that has not gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. But perhaps it should not be so much of a surprise—on top of everything else in the race, the Democratic brand in the Garden State must lose some luster when its most senior representative is headed to the federal penitentiary. Menendez will be remembered as the first senator to be convicted of acting as an agent of a foreign government. He deserves to go down as a symbol of political corruption on an epic scale.