{"id":4899,"date":"2024-05-11T17:19:40","date_gmt":"2024-05-11T17:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/?p=4899"},"modified":"2024-05-12T01:00:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T01:00:58","slug":"controversial-senator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/11\/controversial-senator\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversial senator insists on tough U.S. policy toward Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

To prosecutors, he\u2019s a criminal, a clever politician who stashed gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in his closet.
\nBut to supporters, Sen. Bob Menendez is a patriot, a hero who can do no wrong.
\nMenendez \u201cis the most important figure in the history of the Cuban exile in Washington,\u201d television executive Carlos Vasallo gushed after interviewing the New Jersey Democrat in December.
\nThe senator\u2019s crowning achievement, his supporters say, has been his ability to keep in force the Cuban embargo, aimed at crushing the socialist government\u2019s economy. And the Biden administration makes clear that when it comes to Cuba, Menendez is a key gatekeeper.
\nMenendez reminded people of his power to sway Cuba policy during the interview with Vasallo, president and CEO Am\u00e9rica CV, a Spanish-language television network. He said if not for himself and other Cuban-American lawmakers, including Mario D\u00edaz Balart, U.S. \u201cpolicy towards Cuba would have been very different.\u201d
\nCritics say it\u2019s wrong for one man to have a stranglehold on Cuba policy.
\n\u201cIt’s supposedly a democratic system, but yet you have Bob Menendez who has this disproportionate impact on the policy,\u201d Erik Sperling, a foe of the Cuba embargo, said in a new film, Uphill on the Hill<\/a>, by the media outlet Belly of the Beast<\/a>.
\nSperling, executive director of the DC-based advocacy group Just Foreign Policy, is especially critical of the State Department\u2019s decision, at the senator\u2019s urging, to designate Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism on Jan. 12, 2021.
\nThe Biden administration has struggled to provide any evidence for the claim.
\nThe terrorism designation severely limits Cuba\u2019s ability to carry out international financial transactions and has been devastating to its already battered and dysfunctional economy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo: Alexi J. Rosenfield\/Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Liz Oliva Fern\u00e1ndez, a journalist with Belly of the Beast, investigated the terrorism designation in Uphill on the Hill. At a State Department press briefing, she asked for evidence that Cuba sponsored terrorism.
\nPrincipal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel replied:
\n\u201cWell, the regime has a long track record of egregious human rights abuses, suppression of a free press, suppression of civil society and other key factors that continue to keep them on that list.\u201d
\n\u201cBut can you give examples?\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez asked.
\nPatel evaded the question and called on another reporter.
\nLater in the documentary, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told Fern\u00e1ndez that U.S. policy toward Cuba is \u201can embarrassment and a miserable failure.\u201d
\nPutting Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism \u201cis literally strangling the island,\u201d McGovern told her, \u201cand is tantamount to a human rights violation. Cuba’s on there for political reasons.\u201d
\nThe only other countries on the State Department\u2019s blacklist are North Korea, Iran and Syria.
\n\u201cThe State Department\u2019s list of state sponsors of terrorism cannot be taken seriously. The latest annual report on terrorism offers no evidence whatsoever that Cuba is sponsoring terrorism,\u201d said William LeoGrande, a leading expert on Cuba.
\n\u201cTrump put Cuba on the list just weeks before leaving office in order to complicate U.S.-Cuban relations for Biden, and Biden has not had the political courage to take it off. The hypocrisy of this list goes well beyond Sen. Menendez; the U.S. government has harbored many Cuban exiles guilty of terrorist attacks on Cuba, including Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, guilty bombing a Cuban airline flight killing all 73 people aboard, and bombing tourist hotels in Havana. And most of those terrorists were originally trained by the CIA to wage paramilitary war against Cuba, which was a form of state sponsored terrorism.\u201d
\nWhen it comes to Cuba, many in the U.S. believe \u201canything goes,\u201d former Cuban diplomat Carlos Alzugaray said.
\n\u201cThere is a tendency to consider that terrorist acts are a legitimate form of struggle,\u201d he said. \u201cA rational attitude toward Cuba should prioritize national interests and not a desire of revenge, which leads U.S. policy to repeat again and again the mantra of coercive actions to provoke a regime change.\u201d
\nMenendez is unapologetic.
\n\u201cWe are in this fight standing tall and we are not going to let go until we achieve the freedom of the Cuban people,\u201d he said in the interview with Vasallo.
\nJoe Garcia, a former Florida congressman, said the embargo is proof of Cuban exiles\u2019 success in penetrating the highest levels of power in Washington. The Cuban-American community \u201chas achieved all it can achieve,\u201d he said, other than sending in the Army\u2019s 82nd Airborne Division to invade Cuba.
\n\u201cThis is not a policy,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cIt’s a religion. It’s a faith. Cuban Americans believe in the embargo. They can’t prove it works, but they believe in it. The embargo is as reliable as going into church and praying to God.\u201d
\nBarack Obama, who opposed Cuba sanctions, restored diplomatic relations with Havana in December 2014.
\nAs Menendez tells it, Obama betrayed him. In the interview with Vasallo, Menendez said he supported Obama\u2019s re-election bid in 2012 on two conditions: Iran must never have nuclear missiles, and Cuba policy can\u2019t change unless the senator is consulted first.
\n\u201cHe said, \u2018I give you my word,\u2019 and based on that I supported his candidacy for president, and he was elected president,\u201d Menendez told Vasallo.
\nVasallo, who described Menendez as his \u201cidol,\u201d added an outlandish accusation. He claimed, without evidence, that the Obama administration pursued criminal charges against Menendez in retaliation for his unwillingness to support the president\u2019s Cuba initiatives.
\nVasallo told his viewers that Obama threatened the senator with \u201cconsequences that may not be pleasant.\u201d
\nMenendez replied, \u201cI will face them.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd that is the origin of the first trial,\u201d Vasallo said.
\nThe TV executive was referring to a 2015 federal indictment accusing Menendez of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions along with luxurious vacations and other gifts from a wealthy Florida doctor named Salomon Melgen. In return, the doctor asked Menendez for several favors, including getting visas for three of his girlfriends and avoiding an $8.9 million fine for overbilling Medicare, prosecutors said.
\nThe senator\u2019s trial ended in a hung jury in 2017.
\nThe Senate Ethics Committee later rebuked Menendez, saying he \u201cknowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value from Dr. Melgen,\u201d failed to publicly disclose the gifts as required by law and used his position as senator \u201cto advance Dr. Melgen\u2019s personal and business interests.\u201d
\nDespite his troubles, Menendez retained his powerful position as chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, prompting some to call him \u201cBulletproof Bob.\u201d
\nTabloid newspapers gave the senator a new nickname in 2023: \u201cGold Bar Bob.\u201d
\nIn an 18-count indictment, prosecutors accused Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, 57, of accepting 13 gold bars, more than $480,000 in cash, a 2019 Mercedes-Benz convertible and other gifts in exchange for assisting the Egyptian and Qatar governments and two associates.
\nThe senator\u2019s lawyers deny the accusations.
\n\u201cSenator Robert Menendez has served his constituents, his state, and his country with honor, dedication, and distinction for nearly 50 years,\u201d they write in a court document. \u201cThe government\u2019s accusations in this case\u2014that he sold his office and even sold out his nation\u2014are outrageously false, and indeed distort reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sen. Robert Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian. Photo: Susan Walsh, Associated Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Menendez stepped down temporarily as Foreign Relations chair after the 2023 indictment. He is the first U.S. senator to be indicted in connection with two separate criminal cases.
\nHe is scheduled to go on trial on May 13 in Manhattan. In April, his lawyers said they intended to argue that he \u201csuffered intergenerational trauma stemming from his family\u2019s experience as refugees, who had their funds confiscated by the Cuban government and were left with only a small amount of cash they had stashed away in their home.\u201d
\nMenendez was born in New York City on Jan. 1, 1954. His parents, Mario and Evangelina Menendez, left Cuba in 1952, seven years before Fidel Castro took power.
\nHis lawyers say he later developed a mental condition \u2013 redacted in court documents \u2013 that \u201cresulted a fear of scarcity\u201d and \u201ca longstanding coping mechanism of routinely withdrawing and storing cash in his home.\u201d
\nAnother source of trauma, the lawyers say, is that his father was a compulsive gambler who committed suicide in the 1970s.
\nProsecutors are not convinced. They say any mental condition the senator may have \u201cdoes not constitute a defense.\u201d And they believe defense lawyers are trying \u201cto engender sympathy based on his family background, in the guise of expert testimony.\u201d
\n\"\"<\/a>Whatever the outcome of the trial, the senator\u2019s legacy of defending the embargo will remain, said LeoGrande, professor at American University in Washington.
\n\u201cSen. Menendez is not contesting the Democratic primary so he will lose his place on the Democratic ballot and will almost certainly lose his seat,\u201d LeoGrande said. \u201cThis reduces his ability to bully the Biden administration on Cuba issues, but he has known President Biden a long time from their years together in the Senate and may still retain some personal influence with the president.\u201d
\nGarcia said while he has had some policy disagreements with Menendez, he admires the senator\u2019s dedication to public service over many decades and his desire to bring democracy to Cuba.
\n\u201cBob Menendez was the literally the epitome of \u2026 all the power of the Cuban American community,\u201d said Garcia, who knew the senator even before his election to Congress.
\n\u201cPart of the problem now is that we achieved what we were supposed to do. We just don’t have the courage on either side to figure out the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To prosecutors, he\u2019s a criminal, a clever politician who stashed gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in his closet. But to supporters, Sen. Bob Menendez is a patriot, a hero who can do no wrong. Menendez \u201cis the most important figure in the history of the Cuban exile in Washington,\u201d television … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[279,24,276,277,278],"class_list":["post-4899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-belly-of-the-beast","tag-cuba","tag-robert-menendez","tag-senator","tag-uphill-on-the-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4899"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4924,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4899\/revisions\/4924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}