Menendez is guilty and Christie is history; Trump sets record for lies in his first year

In these photos from Getty Images, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, left, and his friend, Dr. Salomon Melgen, were tried in federal court in Newark, but the judge declared a mistrial after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked on the 18 counts against them.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The most famous case of jury nullification likely was the 1995 acquittal of O.J. Simpson despite all of the evidence against him in the brutal double murders of his estranged wife and her friend.

And on Thursday in Newark, 10 out of 12 members of  a federal jury reportedly were determined to vote "not guilty" on the corruption charges against Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., before the judge declared a mistrial.

I feel Menendez is guilty of having an unspoken corrupt arrangement with his friend and co-defendant, Dr. Salomon Melgen, to trade gifts and political contributions for official favors.

That's why the senator tried to pressure Obama administration officials to drop charges against the eye doctor in an $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute.

Pay to play

If you live in New Jersey, you're familiar with "pay to play," especially as it is practiced in small towns and cities that fill jobs or award contracts to engineers, attorneys, consultants and others who contribute to council and school board candidates.

The arrangement between Menendez and Melgen was on a grander scale -- the eye doctor gave nearly $700,000 to entities that could help the senator get re-elected in 2012, as well as free flights on his private jet and a $4,934 stay at a Paris hotel.

During the Newark trial, most of the news outlets I followed, including The Record of Woodland Park, rarely mentioned that in April, Melgen was convicted in federal court in West Palm Beach, Fla., on 67 counts of defrauding Medicare out of as much as $105 million from 2008 to 2013.

The case was labeled one of the largest Medicare rip-offs ever, but Melgen's sentencing was postponed until December.

On his side

The Record has been on Menendez's side since he was indicted in April 2015 on bribery, fraud, making false statements and other charges.

And Friday's paper devoted nearly three full pages to the mistrial, including a so-called analysis on Page 1, a favorable editorial, and a column by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, who compared the jury deliberations to the Henry Fonda movie "Twelve Angry Men."

"...No one should count Bob Menendez out," the editorial concluded. "He's a fighter."

As if Friday's coverage wasn't enough, Editor Richard Green put a really long Mike Kelly column recapping the Menendez trial on Page 1 today.

Tackle it, and if you haven't been able to sleep lately, the column will knock you out immediately.

Although he was never formally charged, the court of public opinion convicted Governor Christie of masterminding lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in September 2013 to retaliate against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for refusing to endorse Christie's re-election bid. The ensuing Bridgegate scandal derailed his White House campaign.

Christie 3-parter

I wasn't able to get through "The Christie Legacy," a tedious, 3-part retrospective of Governor Christie's two terms by Record political Columnist Charles Stile, once the governor's chief booster.

Shit. I barely read the headlines.

Stile wrote column after column polishing the GOP bully's image as a compromiser, and tried to be the first Trenton reporter to signal Christie's run for president (maybe the veteran reporter was hoping to become White House press secretary).

The sub-headline on the first part, which ran last Wednesday, said:

"OPPORTUNITY SQUANDERED

 FOR A GIFTED POLITICIAN"

The final part on Friday listed his "successes and failures," but I didn't see a word about how Christie single-handedly destroyed mass transit, and cut NJ Transit's state subsidy by $300 million a year or 90%.

And did Stile spend any time on Christie's nearly 600 vetoes or threats of vetoes, which he used to control the Democratic majority in the state Legislature?

He put the kibosh on everything from a millionaire's tax surcharge to the $15-an-hour minimum wage.

The Record has made too little of how Christie's divisive, mean-spirited rule was a foreshadowing of what the nation is experiencing under President Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress.

"Worst governor in New Jersey history" would have been an appropriate headline for Stile's three-parter.

HuffingtonPost.com reports many people are hilariously reimagining President Trump's awkwardly using two hands to drink from a water bottle, including this one of him kissing a framed photo of daughter Ivanka.

Fact Checker

Last week, The Washington Post's Fact Checker reported "our updated tally of President Trump's false/misleading claims [read 'lies']: 1,628 claims in 298 days."

"In the last 35 days, Trump has averaged an astonishing nine claims a day," said the newspaper, which has awarded numerous Pinocchios to the Liar-In-Chief.

"There are now at least 50 claims that he has repeated three or more times. The president's claim that 'Obamacare is failing' continues to top the list ... followed by his habit of taking credit for business decisions he didn't make. 

"Two claims about taxes are on the rise: that the tax plan will be the biggest tax cut in U.S. history and that the United States is one of the highest-taxed nations (both false).

"Ten months in, the president's tally stands at 1,628 false or misleading claims through Nov. 13. That's an average of 5.5 claims a day and puts him on track to reach 1,999 claims by the end of his first year in office, though he obviously would easily exceed 2,000, if maintained the pace of the past month."

I'm still waiting for a reporter from The Washington Post or any other news outlet to get up at a news conference and tell Trump:

"Mr. President, please stop lying to the American people."