Menendez used donor cash for legal costs ahead of conviction

By Anna Massoglia. This story was originally published by Open Secrets.

Sen. Bob Menendez, who was found guilty on all 16 counts in his federal corruption trial, steered millions of dollars in campaign donor funds to cover his legal costs, a new OpenSecrets analysis found. 

Prosecutors accused the former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of accepting bribes in exchange for wielding his influence to enrich three New Jersey businessmen and benefit the interests of foreign governments, including Qatar and Egypt. 

The bribes took the form of cash, gold bars, mortgage payments and a luxury car. Two of the New Jersey businessmen who were also charged in the bribery scheme were convicted on all counts. 

Menendez precipitously ramped up legal spending while facing mounting legal issues. Since the start of the 2024 cycle, the Menendez campaign steered the bulk of its campaign expenditures to lawyers. 

Legal services is by far the scandal-plagued senator’s top campaign expense this cycle — with about $5.6 million of the nearly $7.9 million it spent between the start of the 2024 cycle and the end of June going to legal fees.

Menendez’s campaign spent $3 million on legal expenses during the first six months of this year, about 400 times more than the $7,744 it raised over the same period. This has left the campaign chipping away at its cash reserves. The campaign ended June with $3.3 million cash on hand, according to FEC reports filed July 15. 

Paul Hastings LLP is the Menendez campaign’s top-paid legal service provider with $3 million in payments since the firm was hired in November 2023 to replace Menendez’s previous lawyers in the criminal probe. 

Until November, Abbe Lowell, the co-chair of Winston & Strawn’s White Collar, Regulatory Defense & Investigations Practice represented Menendez in his ongoing federal bribery case and previously represented the New Jersey Democrat in his 2015 corruption case. 

Lowell has a long track record of representing high-profile political players on both sides of the aisle, including Hunter Biden, who was found guilty of three felony gun charges in June. Lowell previously helped Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, secure a security clearance. He also represented Matthew Grimes, an employee of former President Donald Trump’s longtime supporter Tom Barrack, against charges of secretly acting as a foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates. Grimes was acquitted in November 2022. Winston & Strawn LLP raked in over $781,000 from Menendez’s campaign during that period and another $70,000 from his legal defense fund. 

The campaign paid another $648,000 to Schertler & Oronato during the 2024 cycle. The law firm also represents Menendez’s wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, who faced the same charges as her husband. She was initially supposed to be tried alongside her co-defendants but they were eventually separated due to Arslanian Menendez’s diagnosis of breast cancer. The senator’s attorneys went on to repeatedly blame his wife for the bribery scheme. But federal prosecutors trying the case told jurors that the senator simply used his wife as a go-between in the scheme.

On July 15, the judge in the case announced that Arslanian Menendez’s trial is postponed until requested documents are provided with a deadline of Aug. 16.

Menendez started paying trial consulting company DOAR Inc. in March and continued steering campaign donor funds to the firm in the second quarter of the year, OpenSecrets’ analysis of new FEC records filed July 15 found. In total, the campaign has paid DOAR about $325,000.

Jones Day received another $300,000 from the Menendez campaign and $100,000 from the senator’s legal defense fund. Menendez added Jones Day attorney Yaakov Roth to the legal team representing him in January. Roth previously represented former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) in his bribery case.

The Menendez campaign paid another $175,000 to McDermott, Will & Emery, a law firm that has represented the senator against allegations of corruption for several years. 

The Menendez campaign also paid about $18,000 to Elias Law Group this year. Menendez’s legal defense fund paid the law firm, which is run by Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, another $70,000 with payments as recently as April of this year.

While this is Menendez’s first conviction, the New Jersey Democrat has faced a long string of legal issues, multiple other indictments, and federal investigations during his tenure in the Senate.

Menendez was indicted in 2015 on federal corruption charges for accepting lavish gifts such as foreign villas and private jet rides to help a wealthy Florida eye doctor, Salomon Melgen. In exchange, Menendez allegedly intervened in an audit of Melgen’s alleged Medicare fraud, helped Melgen get visas for his mistresses, and helped stop U.S. Customs and Border Protection from disrupting Melgan’s business ventures.

The Justice Department eventually dismissed those charges after jurors did not reach a unanimous verdict and the judge declared a mistrial. Federal prosecutors declined to retry the senator in 2018 but investigations into other corruption allegations soon ramped up. , and Melgan was sentenced to 17 years in prison in a separate fraud case.

Researcher Andrew Mayersohn contributed to this report.