A stone’s throw from the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump has been in the dock, an equally picaresque political-corruption trial is under way with less publicity. Robert Menendez, New Jersey’s Democratic senior senator, is charged with bribery and extortion, among other crimes. He allegedly used his influence as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help Egypt and Qatar in exchange for gold bars, a Mercedes and cash. “This was politics for profit,” Lara Pomerantz, a federal prosecutor, declared in her opening statement. Mr Menendez, who asserts his innocence and has declined to resign from office, was a “United States senator on the take”, she added.