Its been almost two weeks since Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was indicted on bribery charges , and hes made it clear that hes not going anywhere.

He says hes done nothing wrong . That he isnt going to resign from the Senate; in fact, he plans to run for reelection. He says he has a perfectly reasonable explanation for the allegations that he accepted cash, gold and a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for aiding the Egyptian government and a trio of New Jersey businessmen. That $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes and clothing hidden all over his house? Obviously he was just keeping that money on hand in case of an emergency .

Maybe hes right. Maybe for U.S. senators, it is totally normal to have $100,000 worth of gold bars lying around the house.

And really, who among us has not, as Menendez allegedly did, googled, How much is one kilo of gold worth?

I have not, said Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.). Ive never even seen a gold bar.

He was proud to say that he has seen gold coins, though.

A friend of mines father, he gave me one-tenth of an ounce of little coins, Hickenlooper said. I can tell you, those were worth about $102, $104, in 1995.

Wait, what? said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who did not know what HuffPost was talking about and then figured it out. He said he did not have gold bars at home.

I dont think I have ever seen a bar of gold, he said.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said hes never even thought about googling how much gold is worth. Without naming names, he said it was strange to think that here in 2023, anyone would be allegedly accepting bribes that include actual bars of gold.

I never have seen a bar of gold, no, Cramer said. I keep wondering, how does a guy get offers like this in this job?