The absurdity of American politics makes its way to the courtroom.
In any other year, the trial of a United States senator accused of aiding a foreign government would be the trial of the year or maybe even the decade.
But 2024 is not any other year and Sen. Bob Menendez's federal corruption trial isn’t even the trial of the month. It began last week in a federal courtroom just a New York City block from former President Donald Trump’s state criminal trial.
Prosecutors in both courthouses, a brisk two-minute walk from each other, are unspooling allegations about a pair of politicians — one a Republican, the other a Democrat — whose fates have been strangely intertwined, and may remain that way.
The salacious nature of both cases will likely end up in some sort of political hall of infamy. Trump is accused of falsifying business records while paying off a porn star. Menendez is accused of acting as foreign agent and being paid off in gold bars. And both say they have been targeted by overzealous prosecutors who have long tried to nail them in court and end their political careers.
“He's an American patriot,” Menendez attorney Avi Weitzman said in his opening statement last week. “He did not violate the law. Period. And the United States Attorney's Office allegations otherwise [are] wrong. Dead wrong. Far from a bribe taker, Senator Menendez is a lifelong public servant.”
Menendez seems much more vulnerable given the severity of the allegations, which come with decades of prison time compared to four years maximum for Trump, which he is considered unlikely to serve even if found guilty. Menendez also lacks political support from his party and voters, which Trump maintains.
While the Trump trial is winding down, it's possible some attention could turn toward Menendez. But, for now, Trump — as usual — has been consuming nearly all the oxygen.
There is a bank of TV cameras outside the Trump courthouse filled by anchors and all-day coverage.
Outside of the Menendez trial, it’s a handful of correspondents and photographers. The only anchor to show up in court during his trial has been his own daughter, who works at MSNBC and has recused herself from covering the case.
During a lunch break this week, a crowd did form outside of the courthouse where Menendez is. But they were there to get photos of Trump’s motorcade.
Still, for a politician who puts a lot of stock in crowd size, Trump is not exactly being greeted by a ticker tape parade each morning.
“There was 100,000 people in Jersey Saturday, and there’s five people here today. It’s very disappointing,” Brooklyn resident Dion Cini said one morning, using Trump’s overcount at a recent rally in Wildwood, New Jersey. “Thankfully, I’m un-cancelable; you can’t cancel me. But most MAGA people are afraid just to have their picture taken and lose their job.”
Trump loyalists would do anything for the presumptive Republican nominee for president, but they’ve opted thus far not to show up en masse to protest the criminal proceedings that he and surrogates have sought denounced as a sham.
“They would like to show their support,” Trump told reporters recently in a courthouse hallway, but “it’s like an armed camp outside; you can’t get within three blocks of this courthouse.”
But high-profile surrogates are taking turns accompanying the former president in court and have hosted short news conferences in a neary park. House Speaker Mike Johnson and names floated as potential Trump running mates, like North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, have cycled through.
The highest profile Democrat to appear in the Menendez courtroom is probably Damian Williams — the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who is prosecuting him.
There is more than just coincidence that binds Menendez and Trump.
Both men’s current charges will be another test of the nation’s ability to bring public corruption cases. In recent years, prosecutors have lost a series of high-profile corruption cases against a range of political figures from both parties, including Republican Gov. Chris Christie aides involved in “Bridgegate,” former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, and former New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, a Democrat.
Menendez’s legal team, which was involved in some of those cases before they began representing him, will, of course, be trying to avoid a guilty verdict, but they will also be looking to keep open legal avenues for an appeal that would overturn any conviction.
While both men have pleaded not guilty and denied the charges against them, Trump has been more bombastic, attacking the Democratic state prosecutor who filed the charges and the state judge overseeing the trial.
Menendez has lodged a few complaints about prosecutors, especially since this is his second corruption trial in less than a decade. The first ended in a mistrial. But he can’t use the partisan witch hunt line because the Department of Justice is led by Democrats, like he is.
Yes, Menendez’s attorneys have accused prosecutors of bringing the charges in New York to avoid having a trial on the senator’s home turf in New Jersey. They have also accused prosecutors of attempting to take down Menendez.
But their sharp words have been buried in legal filings, not broadcast during rallies, press conferences and social media, like Trump’s attacks.
When he was president, one of Trump’s final acts was to commute the lengthy Medicare fraud prison sentence of Menendez’s friend and former co-defendant in a separate corruption case. That case ended in a mistrial but the friend, Florida Dr. Salomon Melgen, went to prison in a related case.
Perhaps the most consistent group providing moral support to Trump outside the courthouse: New Yorkers of Chinese descent. At the end of the day, when their numbers swell to one or two dozen, they like to scoot from the park to an intersection nearby where they can see the former president’s motorcade and wave to him.
“We want to show the court: Stop political persecution,” Ai Wang, 67, of Queens, said. “If you do political persecution, that is the Chinese Communist Party. This is America.”
That’s probably something both men could agree on.
A family of four from Nashville recently took selfies with the state courthouse as a backdrop. They said they were neither for or against Trump.
“It’s just observing history in the making,” said Bobby Robertson, who traveled to Manhattan to celebrate his daughter’s 10th birthday with tickets to the Westminster dog show.
The child didn’t hesitate when asked which news event she found more momentous, chirping, “The dog show!”
