43 years ago today: U.S. Senator from N.J. convicted of bribery – New Jersey Globe

Before gold bars, it was titanium.

Forty-three years ago today, Harrison A. Williams, Jr., a four-term U.S. Senator from New Jersey, was convicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges related to the ABSCAM scandal.

The anniversary of a jury verdict that found Williams guilty of nine counts of corruption comes less than two weeks before the criminal trial of his successor, Bob Menendez, begins on May 13.

The outcome of this trial could lead to the three-term Democrat seeking re-election as an independent – or an interim appointment to Menendez’s Senate seat by Gov. Phil Murphy.

Williams maintained his innocence and refused to leave the Senate.  He stayed there for more than ten months, resigning just as his colleagues were on the verge of expelling him.

Undercover FBI agents posed as Arab sheiks in a sting operation that led to the convictions of Williams, six congressmen, including 13-term Rep. Frank Thompson, Jr. (D-Trenton), and others, including State Sen. Angelo Errichetti, the mayor of Camden.

After nearly 28 hours of deliberation, a jury believed the Justice Department’s allegation that Williams and Alexander Feinberg, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and 1958 Democratic congressional candidate, received an 18% share in a Virginia titanium mine in exchange for the senator’s help in obtaining military contracts.  The mine was to be resold with a profit of $12.6 million for Williams.

Williams was the chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee at the time of his indictment.

The senator’s friends claimed he got into trouble because his second wife, Jeanette, his former Senate staffer, had lofty ambitions and lavish tastes he could not afford.

Jeanette Williams claimed that Jimmy Carter’s White House was retaliating against her husband for backing Ted Kennedy in the 1980 Democratic presidential primary, and alleged that the governor of New Jersey, a Carter supporter, hoped to replace Williams.

“Why can’t I say it,” she said after the verdict.  “Brendan Byrne wants his seat.  According to the Star-Ledger, from behind a closed door, Jeanette Williams yelled, “It was an outrage from beginning to end.”

Hours after Wiliams was convicted, the Senate Ethics announced their own investigation.  They had opened a probe in 1980 after new reports of Williams’ involvement in the sting operation but suspended it after the Justice Department unsealed its indictment.

Williams would not resign his seat.

“While I may have crossed over the line which divides appropriate service to constituents from excessive boasting and posturing,” Williams told the Senate Ethics Committee.  “I never engaged in any illegal conduct; I never corrupted my office, and I never intended to do anything that would bring dishonor to the Senate.”

Calling his behavior “ethically repugnant, the committee voted unanimously in August 1981 to recommend

Williams went to court to challenge the Ethics Committee’s refusal to allow him to be represented by counsel during their process, but a federal judge refused his bid for a temporary restraining order to prevent the Senate from ousting him.

Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye had agreed to represent Williams on the Senate floor and was granted several delays as he prepared to defend his colleague.

Republicans had ended a 24-year Democratic majority in 1980, and Williams’ seat was up in 1982.  In the background was the closest gubernatorial race in New Jersey history; after a recount that went to the end of November, Republican Tom Kean edged out Democrat Jim Florio by just 1,797 votes, 49.46% to 49.38%.

To avoid Kean’s appointment of a Republican U.S. Senator, Democrats in New Jersey and Washington began to intensify their pressure on Williams to resign so that the outgoing governor, Democrat Brendan Byrne, could make the appointment.  But Williams, whose sentencing had been pushed to February 1982, refused to go.

Democrats, led by Minority Leader Robert Byrd, sharpened their push in the days before Kean’s January 19, 1982 inauguration, which continued into inauguration day.

Byrne went to Kean’s inaugural with a letter in his suit pocket addressed to Secretary of State Donald Lan appointing former Senate President Joseph Merlino to the United States Senate.  Lan was ordered to remain at Byrne’s side, without fail, until the moment Kean took office, just in case Williams changed his mind at the last minute and resigned.

(While Menendez was on trial in 2017, then-Gov. Chris Christie was preparing to appoint Bob Hugin, the head of a New Jersey pharmaceutical company, Celgene, to replace him.  Hugin had committed to self-funding his 2018 campaign; he wound up doing that anyway, but lost to Menendez.)

Bradley stood by Williams until almost the end

The state’s other senator, Bill Bradley, stood by him and said that government allegations aren’t always true. Bradley still refused to call for Williams’s resignation following his 1981 conviction.

In March 1982, ten months after Williams’s conviction, the United States Senate moved to debate whether Williams would become just the third U.S. Senator in history – and the first since the Civil War – to be expelled. Expulsion required a two-thirds vote.

But on March 10, at the end of the fifth day of the Senate expulsion trial, Bradley announced that he would vote to expel Williams.  The loss of Bradley tipped the scales; with a vote near and without the support to avoid being expelled, Williams, for the first time, hinted that resignation was an option. He resigned the following day.

Williams was sentenced to three years in federal prison and served 21 months.

In a 1986 interview, Williams said he was convicted of a “dishonest crime.”  He defined that as “when someone else creates the situation for which you are convicted.

Suffering from heart disease in late 2000, he asked Bill Clinton to pardon him.  Clinton declined, and Williams died in 2001 at age 81.

Williams had lost bids for the State Assembly and the Plainfield City Council before winning a 1953 special election for Congress.  He was re-elected in 1954 but unseated two years later by Republican Florence Dwyer (R-Elizabeth).  He defeated Rep. Robert W. Kean (R-Livingston) for an open U.S. Senate seat in 1958.   In 1980, just a few weeks before his involvement in Abscam became known, he publicly toted with running for governor in 1981.

Thompson, the powerful chairman of the House Administration Committee, lost his seat in 1980 to Republican Christopher Smith, then a 27-year-old pro-life lobbyist and now the longest-serving congressman in New Jersey history.

This will be Menendez’s second bribery trial. In 2017, a jury failed to deliver a verdict on different alleged crimes. The charges against him were dropped, and Menendez won re-election to the Senate by a wide margin.

During Williams’ legal troubles, Menendez was in between stints on the Union City Board of Education and his election as mayor in 1986.

It’s unclear how the Senate will immediately deal with Menendez if he’s convicted, although the Ethics Committee would be likely to take up the case quickly.

Democrats are battling to hold control of the U.S. Senate, and at least four of their incumbents are in tough races.  Republicans in those states could make an issue of Menendez remaining in the Senate. It would take 67 votes to remove him from office.  Murphy would appoint a caretaker to hold the seat until January 3, 2025.

Friends of Menendez insist he’ll never resign.