I was out for a run in the woods the other day when I spied a vulture overhead.

For a minute there I wondered if it was assessing me - or perhaps my dog Betty - as potential carrion.

Or in other words, for a minute there I felt the way our senior senator must feel.

Bob Menendez has been fighting off federal corruption charges for a long time - too long perhaps.

If the case against him had come to its conclusion during the administration of Barack Obama, he might have been able to engineer a graceful exit. Former U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli showed the way back in 2002, when he executed a last-minute pullout that preserved a Democratic Senate seat for six more years.

But Menendez filed an appeal that brought his case into the era of President Donald Trump. That appeal was rejected recently and the senator's trial is set for September.

The timing simply couldn't be more intriguing when it comes to the question of a possible successor - in the event the senator is ousted, of course.

My Republican friends who are circling the scene envision a scenario in which Menendez is forced out of office in the waning weeks of the Christie administration. That would permit the governor to name a Republican to the Democratic seat.

He did so in 2013, when he called a special election that returned the seat to the Dems four months after the death of Democrat Frank Lautenberg.

The difference this time is that, depending on the date when a vacancy might occur, the governor would also have the power to delay the replacement election to the following November.

That's almost a full year during which Trump and the GOP would have a 53-vote margin in the 100-member Senate as opposed to the current 52.

Here's the best part for all you political junkies out there: Gov. Chris Christie could name as senator a guy by the name of Chris Christie. Instead of a lame duck, Christie would be a perfectly healthy vulture.

As for my Democratic friends, they're worried. They note that Menendez was much closer to Hillary Clinton than he was to Obama, with whom the Cuban-American senator tussled over policy toward Havana.

If Clinton had cruised to the presidency as expected, there were many ways this issue could have been settled amicably.

Perhaps the senator might have been permitted to leave office in a deal timed to put his seat on this November's ballot, where it would likely be won by a Democrat.

The new Attorney General, former Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, is not likely to make that deal. But if he felt like playing politics, Sessions could be in a great position to make any deal he wanted to.

A lot of that hinges on the outcome of a trial now going on in West Palm Beach, Fla. Wealthy Miami eye doctor Salomon Melgen is on trial in federal court on charges he defrauded Medicare of $108 million by "falsely diagnosing patients and by performing unnecessary tests and treatment" as the prosecutor put it.

From the news accounts, Melgen's attorneys are putting up a spirited defense by arguing this is in essence a billing dispute. But one local guy who's familiar with the area told me the deck is stacked against the doctor.

"It's a jury trial and I gotta tell you people in South Florida just have no patience for any kind of health care fraud in any way shape or form," said Tom Anderson. "It's mostly retired people down here. They know and they know Medicare fraud cause because they see it too much."

And even if he somehow wins an acquittal, Melgen must then face a federal trial all over again, this time on the charge that the many favors he gave to Menendez amount to bribery.

Those favors included numerous flights to the Dominican Republic on Melgen's private jet. Those trips included parties with a lot of young women.

It was those parties that first brought the issue into the news, because of allegations that some of the women were underage. Those allegations were denied by local officials and the feds investigated but ultimately did not decide to pursue them.

But they led Anderson, who is with the National Legal and Policy Center, to uncover a deal the eye doctor was pursuing to win a lucrative port-security contract in his native Dominican Republic.

The records showed that the senator from New Jersey was running interference for this eye doctor from Florida in the Senate. That got tacked onto the rest of the allegations and Menendez ended up facing a 22-count indictment.

There is some chance he could be found innocent, but even my Democratic sources are pessimistic on that point. These days, federal prosecutors have so many tools at their disposal that judges complain they are no longer trial managers but plea-bargain managers.

That means a lot could depend on what sort of plea might be offered.

My dog and I escaped that field intact.

The senator might not be as lucky.