Constant Carnivore Caught in Corrupt Conversation (Menendez Does Morton's 250 Nights a Year)

Politico has a nice story today about how the FBI first tumbled to Senator Menendez's latest corrupt doings while conducting surveillance on an unassuming expense account dinner in Washington DC. 

Read it here: The steakhouse stakeout that entangled Bob Menendez.

That evening, two FBI investigators, posing as a husband and wife, were inside the steakhouse eavesdropping on a trio of Egyptian men seated at a table, including one who was the subject of their investigation.

Then Menendez and his now-wife, Nadine, joined the men. And the senator — who infamously goes to Morton’s much of the time he’s in D.C. and charges meals to his political action committee — ended up in the middle of the steakhouse stake out.

Lots of dramatic details there that measure up to any good cops-n'-robbers movie.

It’s unclear who investigators were there to watch. But two of the investigators testified that their target was someone who came in from New York and arrived at the steakhouse in a car with Washington, D.C., diplomatic plates. The FBI couple inside were equipped with a cover story and a concealed video camera that took silent footage. Another investigator was in a van with cameras outside the steakhouse. Another, who did not testify Tuesday, had posed as an Uber driver.

Get that. Just like in every movie stake-out you've ever seen, there was some unlucky agent who had to sit outside in a van while the FBI's pretend couple wined and dined inside!

And for you ladies, please be aware that you might not be free of FBI surveillance even when in the ladies room.

One of the FBI investigators, Terrie Williams-Thompson, who posed as the wife and at one point got up to follow Nadine Menendez to the bathroom, testified that the men did most of the talking during the dinner. Silent video footage shows Menendez pouring wine and Helmy smoking at the table, which is on the Morton’s patio, where smoking is allowed.

Thank God the FBI didn't catch any of those characters smoking inside the restaurant. They're in enough trouble as it is. 

Speaking in Menendez's defense, his mouthpiece told the judge that Menendez was doing nothing that night that he doesn't do most nights.

Defense attorneys portrayed the meeting as an innocent one at Menendez’s regular spot — not a shady meeting of criminal co-conspirators. Adam Fee, Menendez’s attorney, told the judge overseeing the case that when the senator is in D.C., he probably eats “at that same restaurant at that same table 250 nights a year.”

Fee told the judge, “you can find Senator Menendez having the same dinner with diplomats and other government officials almost every night of the workweek at Morton's in Washington, D.C.”

Just as I suspected!