The Department of Justice has accused Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nancy Menendez, of allegedly plotting to act as foreign agents for Egypt.
The charges were revealed in a set of new court documents unsealed on Thursday against the lawmaker and his partner. The superseding indictment was filed in a federal district court in New York. It charges the senator with one count of conspiracy for a public official to act as an agent of a foreign principal, the Egyptian government, and its officials.
Bob Menendez as Foreign Agent
Under United States law, Menendez is prohibited from serving as a foreign agent because he is a public official. In a statement, prosecutors argued that the senator "further promised to take and took a series of acts on behalf of Egypt."
They said these included on behalf of Egyptian military and intelligence officials and conspiring to do so with Wael Hana, a New Jersey businessman from Egypt who runs a halal meat company, and his wife, as per CBS News.
The new indictment against Menendez claims that Hana and Nadine "communicated requests and directives from Egyptian officials to Menendez." The DOJ added that neither Hana nor Nadine registered as foreign agents or lobbyists.
Last month, the senator, his wife, Hana, and two other New Jersey businessmen were charged for allegedly engaging in a bribery scheme that prosecutors said involved the lawmaker accepting lavish bribes in exchange for official acts.
The Menendez couple was charged with three counts in the initial indictment, and the senator now faces four counts. During his arraignment on the three counts last month, he pleaded not guilty to all charges. Amid the issue, he temporarily stepped down from leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Charges Against the Senator
The indictment against the senator said that the conspiracy occurred from January 2018 to June 2022. It also alleges that during a meeting in 2019, Menendez, his wife, and Hana met with an Egyptian intelligence official in the lawmaker's Senate office in Washington, according to The Guardian.
The individuals allegedly discussed a U.S. citizen seriously injured in 2015 following an airstrike by the Egyptian military using a U.S.-made Apache helicopter. At the time, some members of Congress objected to awarding certain military aid to Egypt over the issue. The view was that the Egyptian government was unwilling to compensate the injured individual fairly.
Prosecutors alleged that in May 2019, in a Washington steakhouse, Menendez allegedly asked an Egyptian official, "What else can the love of my life do for you?" In a statement released by Menendez's office on Thursday, the senator said that he has been through a lot in his life and has decided long ago to be loyal to the United States alone.
He argued that adding more charges to the case against him does not make any of them more factual. Menendez called the situation an attempt to wear someone down, adding that he will not fall prey to the tactic, said the New York Times.
