Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife Nadine have been indicted on bribery charges, according to the Department of Justice.
The indictment comes after U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams opened a corruption investigation last October into Menendez, who has been in the Senate since 2006 and is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “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,” the DOJ said in a statement.
The indictment says that Menendez and his wife had a corrupt relationship with New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes who allegedly gave the senator bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to the DOJ, the bribes were intended to protect the businessmen and to benefit 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,” the indictment said. Federal authorities reportedly found cash stuffed throughout the senator’s home that they traced back to the businessmen. “Over $480,000 in cash — much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe — was discovered in the home,” the indictment said.
The criminal investigation into Menendez, which first made news last October, originally centered around how IS EG Halal, a New Jersey-based halal meat business, won “an exclusive worldwide contract with Egypt to certify halal exports — as numerous other firms’ contracts were suddenly canceled in 2019,” NBC News reported at the time.
Numerous sources told the publication that the U.S. Agriculture Department was suspicious over how the large contract was awarded to the company, which had “little experience.” Menendez’s wife is friends with the company’s owners, the report said, and the senator’s position as chairman on the Foreign Relations Committee puts him in charge of billions of dollars in aid to Egypt.
Other aspects of the investigation included questions about whether Menendez and his wife were bribed with gold bars worth up to $400,000, cash, jewelry, and a luxury apartment.
Menendez has faced multiple scandals during his time in the Senate, and has previously been indicted over bribery accusations.