When you read a headline that says, “$100,000 in gold bars found in the home of Sen. Menendez,” that sounds pretty bad. But I would suggest a different headline. There are 100 senators. Another way of putting the same information would be “Exciting news! By searching the home of Sen. Menendez, authorities discover that the average senator has $1,000 in gold bars!” That’s much less sensational, I think, and much fairer.
Allegedly storing $480,000 in cash is also not the mark of corruption — indeed, with inflation, it’s almost the opposite of corruption. Any other way to store the cash would have caused the cash to become higher in value. My cash was getting less and less valuable with each passing moment! In the long view of things, it’s like I was storing no money at all! Which is essentially what I was doing. Actually — actually, what I was doing was fighting inflation, myself, by taking as much money out of circulation as I could. You’re welcome. I was just doing my part to fix the economy. If it’s fixed now, that was me.
Also those were my emotional support dollars. I have a note here saying that I need to have them with me at all times. Hang on, I am finding the note. Did I mention that my family fled Cuba? After Castro? No, before, but why is that important?
Also the cash was decorative. If I could, I would look at Mount Rushmore every day. But I cannot. So instead, I looked at other beautiful renderings of past American luminaries, conveniently printed onto a shape that I could carry in my pocket. Can you blame me? I am a busy man. I have responsibilities in the Senate, as the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, and also I am very busy with a sideline that I run where I do a lot of legwork to benefit specific businessmen and Egyptian government officials. In this hustle economy, that’s only natural, and has no national security implications. It’s like you might have a day job but also drive an Uber, where you let people give you money and then you work hard to get them where they need to be. And people don’t call that corruption! If anyone deserves blame here, it is the hustle economy.
Look, if we have learned anything from watching Oprah, it is that sometimes someone gives you a car for no reason. That’s what happened to me. If Oprah is right to look at an audience of people and give them all brand-new cars, then why is it wrong when a New Jersey businessman looks at me and decides I deserve a Mercedes-Benz? I will answer: It is not wrong.
Did you read about that artist who did an artwork called “Take The Money And Run,” where he was supposed to display a lot of cash but he decided that instead of displaying the cash as art, he would take the cash for himself, and that would be the highest form of art of all? Why is it that only artists get to do that? That’s what I want to know! I thought art was for everybody.
To all those who say that this was a clear case of quid pro quo, I say, “That is meaningless Latin jargon, and I won’t respond to it.”
The point is, this is not as bad as it looks. So I decorated my home with a little bit of art-cash. So I made a little gold. So I had cash stuffed into a jacket with my name, allegedly! But — come on! It’s not like I wore it on the floor of the Senate! That would be a real scandal!
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