breaking news today the jury in the corruption trial of us Senator Bob Menendez has handed down a sweeping guilty verdict 18 counts in total for the senator and his codefendants Fred Davies and will Hana that include conspiracy to commit bribery conspiracy to commit extortion obstruction of justice actions to benefit mendez's codefendants and conspiracy to act as a foreign agent the counts coming in one after the other guilty 16 counts in total for Menendez seven for Fred Davies and six guilty counts for will Hana so what does this mean for the Senator's future for the Democratic party in New Jersey and the balance of power in our nation's capital we're going to get into all of it but first Senator Mendez and his attorneys took their opportunity to address the public after the guilty verdict was handed down the prosecution also responded to the verdict here's what they had to say obviously I'm deeply deep disappointed by the jury's decision I have every faith that the law and the facts did not sustain that decision and that we will be successful upon appeal I have never violated my public oath I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country I have never ever been a foreign agent and the decision regender by the jury today would put at risk every member of the United States Senate in terms of to what they think a foreign agent would be uh I know my attorney want to say something and then I'll be going afternoon we were surprised and disappointed with the jury's verdict we disagree with it and we believe today as we have since day one in Bob's innocence there are grave appellate problems with this case and with this verdict and we're going to pursue all app pellet Avenues aggressively and we do expect he will be Vindicated thank you moments ago a jury in this Courthouse convicted Senator Robert Menendez of corruption and National Security offenses this case has always been about shocking levels of corruption hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in the form of cash gold bars or mercedesbenz this wasn't Politics as Usual this was politics for profit and now that a jury has convicted Bob Menendez his years of selling his office to the highest bidder have finally come to an end I want to thank the career prosecutors and law enforcement agents and analysts who meticulously investigated and prosecuted this case their work is the reason why this shocking corruption is finally been on Earth and brought to an end they are the best of the best I'm enormously proud of them and proud to serve with them thank you as the jury delivered their verdict in the courtroom I spoke with Chris gion former assistant us attorney for the District of New Jersey about how the prosecution laid out their case and how the jury arrived at their unanimous decision a clean sweep of this jury finding us Senator Bob Menendez will Hana and Fred D guilty on all charges Chris is that what you expected well once the first four counts came in which are the the conspiracy counts I think it was a safe bet and I'm sure the government prosecutors were comfortable that the underlying substantive counts of bribery and extortion under color of official right Honest Services fraud they were going to come through as well because basically the jury found that there was an illegal or a corrupt undertaking a conspiracy or unlawful agreement and if they found that the only steps that they had to find is that those actions were actually carried out and and it was clear that in the the presentment of the evidence that the government provided to the jury rang true to that regard your legal background I mean we saw the defense argue throughout that this was circumstantial evidence at best uh clearly the jury didn't see it that way there there perhaps was never a silver bullet in this case but uh was it more than circumstantial clearly the jury thought so what's your opinion my opinion is you can proceed to trial and convict on circumstantial evidence alone and in these types of cases it's really really rare where you have something in writing or a recording that states the obvious most of these cases hang on circumstantial evidence so the jury made the connection and why they did the government did a really good job at P painting the contemporaneousness of the receipt of those various things of value with official action that the senator undertook for his own personal gain um so it's not surprising I mean you can argue circumstantial evidence but there's an instruction that the jury's given that says you can convict on circumstantial evidence alone what to you was the most compelling evidence that the prosecution presented I think the most impactful evidence was all of those things of value it's really difficult I think for an ordinary jury member to appreciate or understand that people just have hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash sitting around in gold bars and people get their mortgages paid for and cars bought for them just for the purposes of you know just this was not a bribe um the other thing I think was pretty important is the evidence that the government presented that demonstrated that they tried to hide or seal these activities and that's where the obstruction of justice counts come in um a jury can appreciate I think that common sense and understanding is people don't try to hide or conceal actions that they don't otherwise know are unlawful or improper so I I think all of that taken together with like I mentioned the contemporaneousness of the the official action pertaining to the things of value received by the Menendez family that that kind of did him in here with the jury uh what happens now where does Judge Sydney Stein uh step in here with sentencing and what are we looking at let's start with the process well the next step will be um I suspect that the the the defense attorneys are going to move to have the the verdict thrown out which are very rarely successful because jury verdicts are considered kind of sacrosanct in the American Criminal Justice System then after that like it'll go to the US probation office and they'll prepare a pre-sentence investigation report that captures all of the criminal activities and conduct to which he would these defendants were convicted but also individually the personal uh historical background and information about these about these defendants what do you make of their claims that this will be overturned on appeal I it's not surprising since day one they have been beating the drum about this this speech and debate clause protecting a lot of the official actions and things that he under that the government alleged he undertook as part of a bribe scheme so when you're an elected official uh for example senator in this case any actions that you undertake are given some level of immunity under the US Constitution under the speech and debate debate clause and the reason that exists is to be able to give a senator or an elected official the ability to act robustly and and not create a chilling effect on them perform him performing his job in this case however if you step outside and engage in illegal or unlawful conduct um you shed those protections and that's kind of where the you know know the decision Matrix lies here the judge had denied their motion to exclude a lot of the conduct and actions that the senator undertook earlier on in the game and was he permitted it to go to the jury and let the government argue that some of this conduct or a lot of this conduct was the product of an illegal bribe scheme and the and the jury found that that was the case that it wasn't part of his official duties and actions he was undertaking that for his own personal and financial enrichment