Nancy Solomon
Appearances
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
They both speak Arabic and were part of what you could call a lonely hearts club that often spent multiple nights a week hanging out in Bergen County restaurants.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Halal meat certification. These companies inspect meat butchering facilities to ensure that the process is done according to Muslim rules. It's like kosher, but it's halal. The Egyptian government chooses the businesses that certify meat imports into their country. And Wilhana, Nadine's friend, was trying to work his connections in Egypt to get one of those contracts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
But for a couple of years, prosecutors say he couldn't get any traction until Nadine started dating Menendez, the top Democrat of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Hi, it's me calling my very handsome senator. And within weeks, Nadine asks Menendez for a favor. Hopefully. that he meet with a high-level Egyptian official. And many meetings did happen.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Many of them included Hanna, the halal meat guy. And...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
But Larry Lussberg, Hana's defense attorney, says his client was able to get the Egyptian monopoly on the strength of Hana's own connections and business acumen. He's appealing the conviction.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Regardless, Hanna and another co-defendant were convicted of bribing Menendez in part with the money made by the lucrative halal business. And the senator was convicted of three main things. One, he made calls to an official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help Hanna maintain the monopoly. That's the quid pro quo, what he did for the bribes.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Two, he also contacted state and federal prosecutors and complained about criminal investigations against two of the men paying him off. That's obstruction of justice. And three, the Egyptian government gave Hanna the monopoly, and Menendez, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, released a hold on military aid to Egypt. That's the acting as a foreign agent charge.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Menendez was convicted on all counts and resigned from the Senate. He's now on the verge of becoming the first senator to go to prison in more than 40 years. Or maybe not.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
When he emerged from the sentencing, Menendez made his direct pitch to Donald Trump that his prosecution is just as wrong as Trump's. That was January 29th of this year, and it seemed far-fetched that Bob Menendez, a progressive who voted to impeach the president, would get a pardon from him.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
But two weeks later, Trump's Department of Justice ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop their case against the Democratic mayor, Eric Adams.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Chara Torres-Spellacy teaches at the Stetson University College of Law in Florida. She writes about political corruption.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
What do you think about the possibility that Donald Trump may pardon Menendez?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Some have argued that Menendez, because he is out of office and voted to impeach Trump, is unlikely to get a pardon. But for Torres Bellacy, the president's history means all bets are off.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Menendez has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. His lawyers aren't counting on a pardon and have said they'll appeal the conviction. And the current U.S. Supreme Court?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
So the outlook for Bob Menendez is not quite as bleak as it might seem, despite facing 11 years in prison. But whether or not he receives a pardon or wins his appeal, it remains an epic collapse of what was a historic political career. He was the first in everything he did, first in his family to go to college, first Latino in New Jersey elected mayor, state legislator, and member of Congress.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
That's what makes this case and the cartoonish details of gold bars and stacks of cash squirreled away in his home so mystifying to those who knew and respected him. Like Brad Lawrence, his consultant who worked on nearly every one of his campaigns.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
One morning in June of 2024, during the trial of Bob Menendez, I was sitting in the hallway finishing a cup of coffee outside the courtroom. There was only one other person there, standing next to the bench, looking out at the spectacular Manhattan view from the 23rd floor. Bob Menendez. He was singing, and it was killing me that I couldn't record it.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
This is Tracy Tully. She's a reporter for The New York Times, and she was in court almost every day.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Bob Menendez grew up in Union City. His parents had come from Cuba. His father was a carpenter and a gambler, and his mother a factory seamstress. He's often told the story about how he qualified for an honors program when he was a senior in high school, but he couldn't afford the books.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
This is from a public TV interview in 2012.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
It wasn't long before Menendez developed a brand.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
The fighter you don't want to mess with. And this stuck with him, from the Union City School Board in 1974 to his time as top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, nearly 50 years later.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
It was a long time ago. Charavalati was working for the city of Bayonne. the small working-class town was in a fight over a piece of land that had been an old army installation.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
And Char Velotti ended up in a meeting with Menendez, who was then the local congressman.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
I mean, when he was young, Menendez stood up to his political mentor, a popular mayor, who ended up getting convicted for allowing town contracts to go to a business with connections to the mob. Menendez even had to wear a bulletproof vest into the courthouse. Chara Velotti was impressed with Menendez, and he ended up going to work for him.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
A representative for Senator Menendez said that story is not true. And what would you say, like, some of the elements that make up his success?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Menendez opposed the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, despite the large number of Italians in his district that supported the New Jersey native. And he voted against the Iraq war.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
But there is a subset of people, a large one, who believe Menendez has been corrupt from the beginning. They don't buy the hero testifying against the machine narrative. Jay Booth used to be a political operative in Hudson County who opposed Menendez from the start. Booth says, look at the charges in the current case where Menendez tried to pressure state and federal prosecutors.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
He says that's part of a long pattern.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Booth says he witnessed Menendez in action many years ago. He happened to walk into the kitchen of Puccini's, a legendary restaurant on Jersey City's west side that was a hangout for politicos. And there, at the stainless steel prep counter, was a meeting happening, presumably on the down low.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Elected officials are not supposed to hold back-channel meetings with prosecutors. A representative for Menendez says that one didn't happen. But either way, meals in a restaurant kitchen didn't seem to help Menendez the first time the feds came after him in 2015.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Private jets, weekend getaways in the Dominican Republic, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in... This case involved a wealthy Florida eye doctor who had been under investigation for Medicare fraud. The doctor had given Menendez expensive gifts and trips to the Dominican Republic and Paris. Menendez allegedly reached out to help the doctor's Medicare problems go away.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
He insisted the charges were unfair.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Was it corruption or business as usual in Washington? It depends who you ask.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
This is Brad Lawrence. He creates messaging for political candidates.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
And Lawrence has worked for nearly every major Democratic candidate in New Jersey for the past 40-odd years. He worked for Menendez the longest. That's like 18 inches of files. Well, and there's boxes. I mean, don't forget this goes on since 1982. And he was working for Menendez when the senator ran into trouble with the gifts from the eye doctor.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
But it's an interesting idea that was that a breaking point where he felt like, okay, they're going to treat me like this, that I'm going to really get everything I'm due.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
The case ended in a hung jury, and Menendez walked out of the courthouse defiant, as if he'd been entirely exonerated.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
The trial was also a pretty pivotal time in the senator's personal life. He and his fiancée broke up right before the trial began. And soon after the hung jury, he fell for someone new. He had met Nadine Arslanian at his usual breakfast spot, the IHOP in Union City. Voicemails from Nadine were entered as evidence in the second trial. I can't wait for you to hold my hand and go to sleep.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Nadine Narslanian was born in Beirut. Her parents were Armenian. They moved to New York in the late 1970s. She studied French culture and civilization at NYU and speaks French and Arabic. Nadine was a stay-at-home mom, raising her kids in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and she liked a certain lifestyle.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
She drove her kids to a private French school in Manhattan and has been spotted with cast members of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. By the time she met Bob Menendez, she was long divorced. And by all accounts, it was a whirlwind romance.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Twenty months after they began dating, Bob proposed to Nadine in front of the Taj Mahal.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
He's known for his crooning, and the YouTube video of this one has been viewed 86,000 times. Nicholas Charvalati, who recalled Menendez kicking his chair over in a meeting, understands what it might have felt like when Menendez began dating Nadine. As a former elected official himself, he gets the financial strain. Unlike plenty of politicians, Menendez is a guy who has never had a lot of money.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Bob Menendez Came By His Gold Bars
Bob Menendez had a new girlfriend and Nadine needed money. She had financial problems and would soon face foreclosure of her home. Tracy Tully, the New York Times reporter, says the bribery case began with a friendship between Nadine and an Egyptian-American who was just as broke as she was, one of the co-defendants, Will Hanna.