Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine have been indicted on federal bribery charges in the Southern District of New York.
“A press event will be held today at 11:00 a.m. to announce the unsealing of an indictment charging Robert Menendez, U.S. Senator from New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, with bribery offenses in connection with their corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen,” tweeted the office.
From the indictment (emphasis mine):
From at least 2018 up to and including in or about 2022, MENENDEZ and his wife, NADINE MENENDEZ, a/k/a “Nadine Arslanian,” the defendant, engaged in a corrupt relationship with three New Jersey associates and businessmen—WAEL HANA, ida “Will Hana,” JOSE URIBE, and FRED DAIBES, the defendants—in which MENENDEZ and NADINE MENENDEZ agreed to and did accept hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using MENENDEZ’s power and influence as a Senator to seek to protect and protect HANA, URIBE, and DAIBES and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt. Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value.
I emphasized Egypt because Menendez is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Federal agents executed a search warrant at the couple’s house and in their safe deposit box.
The indictment claims the agents found proof of their bribery agreement with the three businessmen.
Some of the items include $480,000 in cash hidden around the house, $70,000 in Nadine’s safe deposit box, a luxury vehicle paid for by Uribe, and $100,000 worth in gold bars.
The alleged corruption happened between 2018-2022. Which country was a top receiver of American aid? Egypt:
At all times relevant to this Indictment, Egypt was among the largest recipients in the world of U.S. military aid. Between approximately 2018 and approximately 2022, the U.S. Government supplied substantial military aid to Egypt, including in the form of grants of over $1 billion per year (“foreign military financing”), and in the form of direct government-to-government sales of military equipment (“foreign military sales”), which Egypt typically paid for with foreign military financing, and which the Executive Branch was required to notify Congress about under certain circumstances prior to going forward with those sales.
The State Department reviews and approves the foreign aid.
However, the department doesn’t usually transfer the aid to Egypt to its bank account in Manhattan if the Chairman or Ranking Member of the Foreign Relations Committee had not signed off on it.
“As a result, at all times relevant to the Indictment, ROBERT MENENDEZ, the defendant, as the Chairman or the Ranking Member of the SFRC, possessed substantial influence over foreign military sales and foreign military financing to Egypt,” it says in the indictment.
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