Sen. Bob Menendez is accused of working for a foreign government in new allegations

Sen. Bob Menendez is accused of working for a foreign government in new allegations
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A superseding indictment against Sen. Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, alleges that he accepted payments from a foreign government and worked as a foreign agent.

His alleged actions included “providing sensitive U.S. Government information and taking other actions that secretly aided the Government of Egypt,” according to the second indictment, which was brought by a federal grand jury in Manhattan.

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A law mentioned in the supplementary indictment states that Menendez may spend up to two years in jail for failing to register as a public official as a foreign power agent.

Last month, Menendez and his wife Nadine entered a not-guilty plea to allegations of corruption that claimed they had used his influence to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.

Last month, three additional defendants, businessmen from New Jersey Jose Uribe, Fred Daibes, and Wael Hana, also entered not guilty pleas to the corruption charges.

Federal prosecutors claimed in the indictment released on Thursday that Hana and Menendez’s wife “worked to introduce Egyptian intelligence & military officials to Menendez for the intent of establishing & solidifying a corrupt agreement.”

With the help of Daibes and Uribe, Hana entered into this agreement in which she “provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to Menendez as well as Nadine Menendez, in exchange for Menendez’s acts and breaches of duty which benefited the Government of Egypt, Hana, and other individuals, including with respect to foreign military sales as well as foreign military financing,” according to the prosecution.

Menendez was charged with serving as an unregistered “agent of foreign principle” for the Egyptian government from around January 2018 until roughly June 2022, according to the indictment.

The document on Thursday included further information on Menendez’s alleged actions on behalf of the Egyptian government, but the prosecution did not claim that he or his wife accepted any extra money or gifts not already mentioned in the indictments brought last month.

Menendez requested that an anonymous former member of Congress be looked into as a foreign agent in two letters he sent to the Justice Department in May 2022, one of which was sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland, according to the superseding indictment.

The letters, which were published on Menendez’s and/or the Senate Foreign Relations websites, according to the prosecution, listed the precise laws that forbid Americans from working for a foreign government without first registering with the Justice Department.

The indictment claimed that Menendez’s wife told Hana that she was dating the senator, and the incident allegedly took place when Hana’s outreach, which included promoting Egypt’s interests, started.

A request for comment regarding the superseding indictment did not immediately receive a response from Menendez’s office.

After being accused of collecting “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in exchange for using their influence to enrich three additional Jersey businesses and help the Egyptian government, Menendez and his wife are now facing additional accusations.

Menendez assisted in overseeing billions of dollars in American aid to Egypt while serving as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Soon after being charged last month, he resigned as the panel’s chair.

Conspiracy to conduct bribery, honest services fraud, and extortion under color of official right were among the accusations in the indictment from last month. In that indictment, the prosecution said that the couple had accepted bribes in the form of “cash, gold bars, payments for a home mortgage, compensation for their low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other items of value.”

According to sources familiar with the situation who spoke to NBC News last month, the FBI is also looking into whether Egypt’s intelligence services may have been involved in the alleged bribery plot detailed in the September indictment of Menendez and his wife.

After being charged with bribery last month, Menendez received calls from scores of his Democratic colleagues asking him to quit.

Menendez held a private meeting with his fellow Senate Democrats in the midst of those calls. After the discussion, he informed the media: “I will keep voting for the people of New Jersey as I have for the past 18 years. And I have no doubt that they’ll be looking for it when they need those votes, hoping I can get them.

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