So, About Sen. Bob Menendez...
Jan. 22nd, 2024 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIt's time for me to comment on US Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey. Actually it's well past time. I've been meaning to do it for months but haven't gotten around to it. The situation with Sen. Menendez is that he's facing federal charges for conspiring to act as an agent for foreign governments, specifically Egypt and Qatar. Authorities allege that he and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for official acts taken to benefit the countries.
Part of the reason I say it's past time for me to write about this is that in the past 12 months I've written numerous times about US Representative George Santos (R-NY). Recall he's the clown who lied up and down about his qualifications for political office, spent months telling even wilder lies when confronted about the first set of lies, also faced federal charges for what he did, and after surviving a few failed expulsion votes earlier in the year was finally expelled from Congress in December.
In the time that I posted numerous times about Santos and called for his resignation and/or expulsion, I've posted nothing about Menendez. Yet aren't Menendez's alleged crimes way more serious than Santos's? Where's my outrage on Menendez? Why haven't I also called for Menendez to step down?
For one, as I've noted before, this isn't a politics blog. Although politics is a thing I pay attention to daily, I write about it when the mood strikes me and I have time. So the fact I've written about one thing and not the other isn't an indication one is more important than the other.
Two, the availability of facts is not comparable. Allegations against George Santos began with investigative journalism. Ample facts about him were established in the public domain months before criminal charges were filed and almost a year before the successful expulsion vote against him. During that time any reasonable person could look at the publicly available evidence and determine that the guy was totally full of shit. Moreover, Santos acknowledged many of these facts publicly— while at the same time adding more obvious lies to the public record.
With Menendez there are lurid allegations from authorities, but the facts behind those allegations are not public, they are secret. The facts won't become public until at least the start of a criminal trial a few months from now. Menendez has denied all the allegations. It's also worth pointing out that when authorities made similar charges against Menendez years ago, he was acquitted.
I don't minimize the severity of what Menendez is alleged to have done. If he did it, he should resign. If or when facts emerge to support the charges, he should be expelled if he hasn't already resigned. But right now we don't have those facts.
BTW, if this sounds like "Innocent until proven guilty," it is. Sort of. I am not holding as the standard that a politician must be proven guilty in a court of law before calling for their removal. In Santos's situation there were ample facts in the public record for a reasonable person to make determination, based on facts, that he was unsuitable for continuing in public office. With Menendez whatever facts exist are largely not in the public record so we'll probably have to wait for the criminal trial to run its course before we know.
Part of the reason I say it's past time for me to write about this is that in the past 12 months I've written numerous times about US Representative George Santos (R-NY). Recall he's the clown who lied up and down about his qualifications for political office, spent months telling even wilder lies when confronted about the first set of lies, also faced federal charges for what he did, and after surviving a few failed expulsion votes earlier in the year was finally expelled from Congress in December.
In the time that I posted numerous times about Santos and called for his resignation and/or expulsion, I've posted nothing about Menendez. Yet aren't Menendez's alleged crimes way more serious than Santos's? Where's my outrage on Menendez? Why haven't I also called for Menendez to step down?
For one, as I've noted before, this isn't a politics blog. Although politics is a thing I pay attention to daily, I write about it when the mood strikes me and I have time. So the fact I've written about one thing and not the other isn't an indication one is more important than the other.
Two, the availability of facts is not comparable. Allegations against George Santos began with investigative journalism. Ample facts about him were established in the public domain months before criminal charges were filed and almost a year before the successful expulsion vote against him. During that time any reasonable person could look at the publicly available evidence and determine that the guy was totally full of shit. Moreover, Santos acknowledged many of these facts publicly— while at the same time adding more obvious lies to the public record.
With Menendez there are lurid allegations from authorities, but the facts behind those allegations are not public, they are secret. The facts won't become public until at least the start of a criminal trial a few months from now. Menendez has denied all the allegations. It's also worth pointing out that when authorities made similar charges against Menendez years ago, he was acquitted.
I don't minimize the severity of what Menendez is alleged to have done. If he did it, he should resign. If or when facts emerge to support the charges, he should be expelled if he hasn't already resigned. But right now we don't have those facts.
BTW, if this sounds like "Innocent until proven guilty," it is. Sort of. I am not holding as the standard that a politician must be proven guilty in a court of law before calling for their removal. In Santos's situation there were ample facts in the public record for a reasonable person to make determination, based on facts, that he was unsuitable for continuing in public office. With Menendez whatever facts exist are largely not in the public record so we'll probably have to wait for the criminal trial to run its course before we know.
