Sleaze and stupidity: Trump and Menendez are their own worst enemies | Mike Kelly

About 1,000 feet of concrete and asphalt in lower Manhattan separate two buildings that are imposing reminders of the worst sides of American politics.

But let’s not mince words about this tiny patch of landscape. Let’s call it the “Sleaze Zone for Dummies.”

One building — the New York State Supreme Court at 100 Centre St. — is now home to the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump, who also happens to be the leading Republican candidate in the fall presidential election. Starting Monday and just a short walk around the corner, the other building — the U.S. District Court at 500 Pearl St. — will be the site of the trial of Sen. Bob Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat and exiled chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Neither trial will offer any serious insight into political policy issues despite the obvious status — and implied importance — of Trump and Menendez. These legal proceedings offer no room to discuss the continuing Middle East crisis or the simmering protests on college campuses. There will be no time to talk about the ongoing tornadoes that sweep across the South and Midwest as a reminder of climate problems. Nothing on homelessness. Or high taxes. Or inflation. Or the national debt. Or the nation’s rusting infrastructure. Or crime in the subways. Or the broken immigration system.

No, this is pure sleaze. Both trials are reminders that the best intentions of American politics can easily be crippled by the behavior of deeply flawed people.

Trump and Menendez: Our latest shake-your-head moment

Actually, “flawed” is too kind a description of what Trump and Menendez are accused of doing. At issue in both trials is the most basic shortcoming in the human condition: sheer stupidity. Add in the sleaze factor of both trials and you have what can be justly described as another shake-your-head-moment in American history.

Consider the basics here:

Trump is on trial for doctoring his financial books after paying hush money to former porn actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged extramarital affair with her. The other day, the judge instructed lawyers to refrain from describing the former president’s “genitalia.” Daniels also testified that before Trump jumped into bed with her — in the “missionary position” — he told her she reminded him of his daughter.

In case you wondered, the sound you heard was a nation of angry women voters yelling “ick.”

Trump's alleged crime is reported violation of election laws

But Trump’s alleged crime — 34 counts — was not the sexual affair or even paying Daniels to keep her mouth shut. It was the absolutely crass cover-up — or, in this case, Trump’s reported violation of election laws.

In doctoring his records to hide the reason for paying $130,000 in hush money to Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election, prosecutors say, Trump violated rules requiring candidates to come clean about campaign expenditures. Prosecutors say the $130,000 was essentially a campaign marketing expense to keep negative information from voters. Prosecutors say Trump broke the law by ordering the money classified as legal expenses. In other words, he wasn't honest. If convicted, Trump could face up to four years in prison.

Menendez faces federal prison if convicted in bribery conspiracy

Menendez’s legal problems are far worse. He faces decades in federal prison if convicted in a bribery conspiracy scheme that allegedly involved his wife, three New Jersey businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

One of the businessmen has already pleaded guilty. Menendez’s wife was granted a separate trial after she recovers from surgery. But the center of this swirling mess is the senator, who rose from poverty in Hudson County to become one of America’s most influential Latino political figures.

Like Trump, Menendez’s essential flaw seems to be his own blind stupidity. He is accused of brazenly accepting $480,000 in cash, 13 gold bars and even a luxury car as payment for using his status to help the three businessmen gain help from a variety of U.S. and foreign government agencies.

Sound familiar? Well, yes. In 2017, Menendez barely escaped prison when a jury could not reach a verdict on similar charges that he took too many freebies from a Florida-based doctor who needed help from a variety of government agencies. Menendez explained that those gifts, which included campaign cash, trips on a private jet and a vacation in Paris in which the senator ordered a room with a special soaking tub, were just the kinds of things that friends do for each other.

In other words, Menendez didn’t deny he took the freebies. He just reasoned that he was entitled to them — you know, gifts from his good pals. No bribes.

Can Americans trust a verdict in Donald Trump's hush money case? Will they?

This time, however, the charges against Menendez go beyond his penchant for taking gifts that federal prosecutors say are really bribes.

Authorities charge Menendez with acting as an agent on behalf of Egypt and Qatar

Federal authorities have charged him with illegally acting as an agent on behalf of the governments of Egypt and Qatar, which wanted favors from the United States. In one especially alarming accusation, Menendez reportedly ignored basic diplomatic security precautions by giving Egyptian officials the names of Egyptian citizens who worked for the U.S. Embassy there.

Why an experienced U.S. senator — no less, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — would do something so dumb as to give a foreign government security information is one of the great questions of this upcoming trial. Maybe Menendez will adopt his 2017 gift-taking excuse — that it was just the kind of thing that friends do for one another. You know, Menendez and his good buddies in Egypt.

As for Trump, one of the lingering questions from his trial is why a guy who bragged for decades about his business smarts didn’t spot the obvious problems in a scheme to pay a porn star not to go public about a sexual encounter with someone as well-known as he was. Didn't Trump know that a basic requirement of porn stars is that they have no qualms about being public about sex?

What’s more, Trump denies that he ever had a sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels. Which, of course, raises this question: If you didn’t have sex with Daniels, why pay her to shut up about having sex with you?

Yep, this is all about stupidity.

Both Menendez and Trump are playing blame games

Meanwhile, Trump is blaming President Joe Biden and the Democrats for keeping him away from the campaign trail by forcing him to sit in a stuffy courtroom on the 15th floor of that criminal courthouse on Centre Street. Trump’s oft-repeated mantra is “witch hunt.”

Inside the federal courthouse around the corner, Menendez has concocted his own blame game and may point a finger at his wife, Nadine.

According to a court filing released last month that his attorneys tried — and failed — to keep under seal, Menendez hinted that Nadine withheld information from him and caused him to believe that “nothing unlawful was taking place” when all those gifts showed up at the house. As Menendez’s attorneys deftly noted in a filing in January, the senator “lacked the requisite knowledge of much of the conduct and statements of his wife.”

Menendez further claims that if he took the witness stand in his own defense, he might have to blow the whistle on Nadine. The lawyers say that what they describe as marital communications “will tend to exonerate Senator Menendez by demonstrating the absence of any improper intent on Senator Menendez’s part,” but “may inculpate Nadine by demonstrating the ways in which she withheld information from Senator Menendez or otherwise led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place.”

Yep, that excuse is going to work real well with New Jersey’s female voters if Menendez follows through on his plan to run as an independent candidate to retain his Senate seat in the November election. He has already withdrawn from the Democratic primary in June.

What are the 'forces behind the scenes' Bob Menendez is blaming?

As with Trump and gal-pal Stormy Daniels, Menendez’s judgment raises this basic question: How could such a smart guy be so stupid and not ask his wife why she was getting so many freebies? (Ah, honey, can we really afford a Mercedes?")

Incredibly, the possible Menendez excuses get even more strange.

Another court filing, based on an analysis of Menendez by a psychiatrist, indicates that one reason why the senator had so much cash in his house when the FBI paid a visit was tied to the trauma of his family's escape from Cuba before he was born and his father's gambling habit and suicide. In a court filing, Menendez's lawyers wrote that the suicide of the senator's father and the family's problems in Cuba led to a “fear of scarcity.” The lawyers wrote that Menendez developed a “longstanding coping mechanism of routinely withdrawing and storing cash in his home.”

Basic ethics rules should deter any elected official from casually taking gifts — especially when they come in the form of gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz. And in Menendez’s case, you would think he might be a bit more cautious after barely escaping federal prison in his 2017 gift-taking trial. As for keeping so much cash in the house, shouldn't Menendez have found a safe place to store it?

As Menendez noted after a federal judge declared a mistrial in 2017 when a jury could not reach a verdict on his guilt: “To those who were digging my political grave so that they could jump into my seat, I know who you are and I won’t forget you.”

That snippet of insightful rhetoric by Menendez worked out really well, didn’t it?

But let’s not digress too far into the rabbit holes of political dumbness. We still have several more weeks of the Trump trial left. And the Menendez case is expected to last at least a month, maybe longer.

If you want to catch both shows, you can easily walk from the Trump courtroom to the one with Menendez. Google Maps estimates that you can make the trek on foot in just two or three minutes.

You’ll pass the New York City clerk’s office and another room that is home to the official “New York City Hall wedding photographer.” So there are usually brides and grooms to dodge on the sidewalk. And as you arrive at the federal courthouse, don’t forget to stop at Columbus Park across the street. The city has set up public pingpong tables there.

When it comes to Trump and Menendez and the river of sleaze and ridiculous choices between them, we all might need a pingpong break.

Mike Kelly is an award-winning columnist for NorthJersey.com, part of the USA TODAY Network, as well as the author of three critically acclaimed nonfiction books and a podcast and documentary film producer. To get unlimited access to his insightful thoughts on how we live life in the Northeast, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kellym@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Trump, Bob Menendez trials boil down to pure stupidity