Well, good evening, im laura coates. A week that began with Merrick Garland being accused of weaponizing the Department Of Justice against republicans ends with one of the most powerful democrats in washington, d. C. Now indicted for corruption. The chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, new jersey senator bob menendez stands accused of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. Essentially using his official position to force someone to give him something of value. Tonight, we are taking a deep dive into all of it from the investigation to the indictment and, of course, the political fallout and here are the Big Questions ive been asking all day, after seeing all the reports ive cut through all of it, here are the real questions, number one, did he do it . Right did he do it . Could a senator who left a hung jury in his last trial for conspiracy, bribery and Honest Services fraud, sound familiar, led to
So shanahan was a longtime employee of boeing. some 30 years. he was an executive there. and they have received complaints, the inspector general, that he s been favoring boeing for products. he s been disparaging competitors. and so complaints have the specinspector general is reviewing those complaints to make shanahan isn t doing anything unethical, whether he s following procedures in place to protect from this stuff happening. certainly there are conflicts because he was an executive at boeing, and they want to make sure he s not favoring boeing over other products that the pentagon was looking to purchase. shimon prokupecz, appreciate it. more on this breaking news when we come back. we ll talk with former bush white house ethics lawyer richard painter. we know there s some things you just can t put a bow on. we know the best gift of all is still out there.
Town hall is coming up. we have more on our breaking news right now. cnn s barbara starr is reporting the defense department s inspector general has begun an athletics investigation into whether patrick shanahan violated procedures while promoting boeing products while serving in his current role. he s a former executive who worked for the company before working for government. a spokesman says shanahan welcomes the review. joining me now is richard painter, the ethics lawyer for former president george bush. he s also with crew, citizens for ethics and responsibility. richard, can you just explain what exactly you believe that the acting defense secretary shanahan did here when it comes to his former employer? well, we re going to have to find out what he did. but he clearly should not be shilling for boeing products or saying bad things about the
Daniels to federal court. daniels attorneys say this, we are not going away and we will not be intimidated. joining us, ethics lawyer richard painter. so what s your take on this? i mean this case went from the president saying no relationship, nothing there, to now essentially an acknowledgement, right, by pursuing this case on a federal level to say she violated a nondisclosure agreement, that she shouldn t be talking about the relationship that never happened? this is the president went in litigation with a porn star about a nondisclosure agreement with respect to something that s already disclosed. and of course we know that he had a relationship with her. we know that he s had all sorts of problems with lots of women.
With this president. i think he needs to be shown the door. right. okay. hospitals of clouds as you put it. this stormy daniels cloud and of course the ongoing cloud of the russia probe. all right, thank you so much, richard, thank you so much. it s become a game of global tit-for-tat. russia expels 23 uk diplomats following the uk diplomatic expulsions as the fallout over the nerve agent attack there grows. whoooo.