New York | AFP and The New York Times
Federal prosecutors in New York accused this Friday (22) Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his wife of corruption.
According to prosecutor Damian Williams, between 2018 and 2022, the senator accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes from three New Jersey businessmen to “protect and enrich them” and “support the Egyptian government.”
The FBI, the American federal police, found bundles of banknotes stuffed in coat pockets, three kilograms of gold bars and a luxury car in the couple’s house items “that were part of the fraud,” according to the prosecutor’s office.
The senator, who is of Cuban descent, denied the allegations. “Whoever is behind this campaign simply cannot accept that a firstgeneration Latino American of humble origins can become a U.S. senator and serve with honor and distinction,” he said in a statement.
The federal indictment describes a scheme based on discreet dinners, text messages and encrypted calls largely aimed at increasing U.S. aid to Egypt and helping New Jersey businessmen.
The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, is accused of acting as an intermediary and passing messages to AmericanEgyptian businessman Wael Hana, who had close ties to the Arab country’s military and intelligence officers, the indictment says.
In a text message to an Egyptian general, Hana referred to the senator, who had influence over military sales and financing, as “our man.”
On Friday afternoon, Menendez sent a letter to Senator Chuck Schumer, the House Majority Leader, informing him of his resignation as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
“Bob Menendez was a dedicated public servant and always fought hard for the people of New Jersey,” Schumer said in a statement. “He has the right to due process and fair trial.”
Democrat Philip Murphy, governor of New Jersey and a close ally of the senator, called on him to resign. Other politicians in the state where Menendez was elected echoed the call, but the senator said in a statement that “it’s not going anywhere.”
According to the indictment, the corruption scheme went beyond development aid. The senator is also accused of using his official position to influence criminal investigations into two other New Jersey businessmen, one of whom has long been a fundraiser for his campaigns.
According to prosecutors, with this goal in mind, the Democrat recommended that President Joe Biden appoint attorney Philip Sellinger as U.S. attorney in New Jersey. Menendez reportedly believed he could use the nomination to influence Sellinger’s behavior in a criminal complaint against one of his friends. The attorney was ultimately confirmed for the position but did not yield to the pressure, the indictment says.
Menendez is also accused of interfering in an investigation by the New Jersey attorney general by using “advice and pressure” to help the employee of a man who later gave Menendez’s wife a Mercedes convertible.
Menendez, 69, is a veteran of Washington politics. As a Democratic representative from New Jersey in the House of Representatives between 1993 and 2006 and later as a senator, he is one of the most influential voices on diplomatic issues in the American capital not always in line with the actions of the White House.
In 2022, he was one of the harshest critics of the rapprochement processes between the USA and Venezuela after the start of the Ukraine war. He also said he would request executive branch hearings to explain troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in 2021, which he called a “failure.”
The senator has previously had problems with the courts. He was charged with corruption in 2015, but his trial ended in a mistrial in 2017 when jury members were unable to reach a verdict.
The following year, the Justice Department asked a judge to drop all corruption charges against Menendez, who was then suspected of using his position to advance the interests of Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist, businessman and philanthropist who was a friend of the senator. Promote and donate money to your campaign by exchanging gifts.