Exclusive Preview: Sen. Robert Menendez's Gold
Pre-launch reporting on Sen. Menendez's gold bullion.
By now, you’ve read about Sen. Robert “Bob” Menendez, D-N.J.’s latest indictment on federal corruption charges. He and his wife are accused of using his elected position to benefit private individuals in exchange for bribes including gold bullion or bars.
As an example of what my subscribers will receive after the official launch of Hunter’s Political Wealth Index, let’s track those gold bars through publicly available information and learn a little more about the New Jersey Democrat’s personal financial wealth.
Sen. Menendez married his current wife Nadine Arslanian in October 2020.
Prior to his marriage, Sen. Menendez had a relatively simple portfolio as reported in his annual financial disclosures. His reported minimum net worth in 2019, $337k was well below the $1.65 million median of his peers in the U.S. Senate.
He reported accounts worth at least $100k with two financial institutions (Senate Federal Credit Union & M&T Bank); a rental Union City, N.J. property worth at least $250k; Metropolitan Life Insurance company stock worth at least $1k and an employee pension plan with the State of New Jersey from his time as an elected state official. He also held a mortgage of at least $15k for a Union City property.
His reported income from his assets and his salary from the U.S. Senate was $196,576.84 in 2019.
In 2020, after the marriage, Senator Menendez had to start disclosing his wife’s assets as listed in his amended report for the year.
The only change in his personally-held assets was the Metropolitan Life stock value changed to none (or under the minimum $1,001 threshold). He did not report a corresponding transaction for the asset, so it is unclear if he sold the stock or if it lost value.
Notably, of his spouse-held assets, he reported gold bars worth between $100k and $250k. The gold bars have continued to be reported on his most recent disclosures for calendar years 2021 & 2022. He also reported two mortgages held by his spouse worth at least $150k combined but presumably paid off his Union City rental property mortgage as it was not disclosed again.
In 2020, his reported combined minimum household net worth was $346k.
In the 2022 report filed a month ago on Aug. 26, 2023, Menendez reported four partial sales of the gold bars totaling between $200k and $400k, due to the wide reporting ranges.
The gold bullion stands out among the rest of the more traditional assets of bank accounts, state pension and rental property.
His personal assets have not changed notably since 2019.
As part of his disclosure of wedding gifts, Sen. Menendez reported receiving home goods worth $1k from Philip and Barbara Sellinger of Morristown, NJ, who is mentioned in the coverage of the corruption allegations although a wedding gift from a former fundraiser and known acquaintance is not unusual on its own.
Subscribe now to stay up-to-date before the official launch!