September 30, 2023 || ISSUE NO. 116

What Bob Menendez's Gold Bars Were For

In this issue...

Preparing The Demands//'Clerical Error' Of The Week//Santos Uses Feinstein Condolences Tweet To Reveal He Has A 'Husband'

Written by TPM Staff

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Sen. Menendez's indictment last week on another round of federal corruption charges left out something important.

Sure, it's clear that he was charged with selling his office, in this case for gold bars, income from a no-show halal his wife allegedly held, and other perks like car payments and an air purifier.

But while prosecutors described how Menendez allegedly muscled in on their turf by trying to install a crony as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and by meddling in state-level prosecutions of his friends, what he did within his powers as Senator was omitted.

I set out this week to find out what that was. A clue came tucked several paragraphs deep into the indictment, where prosecutors accused Menendez of ghostwriting a letter on behalf of an Egyptian official, who his wife purportedly called "the General," to persuade the Senate to release a $300 million hold on military aid.

That allegedly took place in May 2018. I found an article from that month describing a hold which then-Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had placed on a portion of $300 million in aid to Egypt, in part over a bizarre and horrifying case: that of April Corley, an American roller skater who found herself under attack by the Egyptian military during a 2015 trip. A U.S.-supplied Apache helicopter strafed the tourist group that Corley was with, killing 12 while maiming her.

I spoke with Tim Rieser, a Leahy aide for 35 years on foreign policy, about the case. He's a measured speaker, diplomatic after all that time working on foreign affairs in the Senate. He was disturbed at the idea that Menendez was not only secretly fighting to block efforts to get Corley a settlement from the Egyptians, but that the senator was taking money to do so.

That said, nobody here is unaware of who Menendez is. Nancy Okail, an Egyptian-born foreign policy expert whose own run-in with the country's government was subject to the same hold as Corley's, summed it up to me succinctly.

"Integrity was not the quality people would use to describe Senator Menendez," she remarked.

Preparing The Demands

On Thursday, Emine Yücel and I broke the news that House Democrats are, in fact, preparing their demands should Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) come knocking for their votes to either open the government or help him keep his gavel.

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) told Emine that the caucus — which includes over 100 House Democrats — discussed as a full group Thursday and as an executive board last week demanding a power-sharing agreement in exchange for its support.

"There are things we can do in codifying the rules of the House that would give Hakeem Jeffries, our leadership, real power over the floor, over committees, etc," she said.

She also said that such an agreement would be written into the House rules — critical, because she and many House Democrats have lost all trust in McCarthy after he walked away from the debt ceiling agreement he crafted with President Joe Biden.

This is a major insight into Democratic strategizing while most members are still sticking to the party line that they haven't even hazarded a thought in that direction, that they're singularly focused on keeping the government open. Right.

With the government near-inevitably going to shut down this weekend, the only path out will be an agreement between House Democrats and the sane House Republicans (unless Matt Gaetz gets a lobotomy or something). House Democratic support will come up — and now we have at least an inkling about the ransom they might demand.

— Kate Riga

'Clerical Error' Of The Week

I clicked on the notification that there'd been a new filing in the social media case at the 5th Circuit, where a couple red states and a far right-provocateur or two are accusing the Biden administration of censoring their social media posts. It immediately struck me as weird.

Now, this was not the filing from the day before, where the 5th Circuit panel quickly granted a petition for rehearing from the red states seeking to get a couple more agencies blocked from most communications with the tech companies. That, from the 5th Circuit, did not prick up my ears.

What was odd was the notification that the panel was withdrawing that one-day-old order, and granting the government time to respond. That move came on the heels of a scathing filing from the Solicitor General at the Supreme Court (where the case had already been appealed) noting that the court seemed to run afoul of Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure by granting the hearing without giving the government time to respond.

So I went to the source, and asked the 5th Circuit, in so many words, wtf was going on.

"The order today cures a clerical error made by my staff," Clerk of Court Lyle Cayce told me in an email. "The court intended yesterday only to permit the filing of a motion for panel rehearing — but the order we entered made it appear that a rehearing was granted. That was erroneous and not in accordance with direction."

I ran it by an expert.

"Unusual to be sure," said Greg Sisk, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas and former appellate specialist at the Justice Department. "I can't recall something like this."

So we'll leave it there for now. But I'll be keeping my eye on my strangest scoop yet.

— Kate Riga

A sampling of TPM's coverage of the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a trailblazer and the longest serving woman in the Senate, after news broke of her passing Friday morning.

"Our colleague from Georgia has introduced before pornographic exhibits and displayed things that are really not suitable for children who might be watching … I would like the member to be instructed to not introduce any pornography today."

That's Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) owning conspiracy theorist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) during a congressional hearing this week. Raskin, of course, is taking the opportunity to dunk on MTG for previously showing naked pictures of Hunter Biden during a July hearing.

MTG went on the defense immediately, interrupting Raskin to say "a bathing suit is not pornography." Raskin then pushed back saying he doesn't know what she is about to introduce because the congresswoman did not make her exhibit available to the minority beforehand.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also jumped in, saying, "you're submitting a naked woman's body."

MTG then snapped back at AOC as well, telling her to put her glasses on because the woman in the exhibit is wearing a bathing suit.

You love to see your representatives fighting the good fight for the betterment of the country.

— Emine Yücel

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