Senator Robert Menendez charged with acting as a foreign agent

MANHATTAN (CN) — Federal prosecutors filed additional counts against Senator Robert Menendez Thursday charging the New Jersey Democrat with secretly feeding sensitive U.S. government information to officials in Egypt.

The new charges come weeks after Menendez, his wife Nadine Menendez and three New Jersey businessmen were hit with an indictment outlining a series schemes to exploit Menendez’s political power in exchange for bribes and lavish gifts. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Thursday’s 44-page superseding indictment filed in Manhattan federal court accuses the senator of violating a law that bans members of Congress from doing the bidding of a foreign country. Prosecutors say Menendez “provided sensitive U.S. government information and took other steps that secretly aided the government of Egypt.”

Menendez faced an expansive indictment in September that accused the 69-year-old senator of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of bribes in the form of gold bars, luxury goods and around $500,000 cash, all of which investigators found in the Menendez home.

According to charging papers, in exchange for the payments, Menendez participated in a number of corrupt schemes using his position as a U.S. senator and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Several plots described in the indictment centered on abetting the Egyptian government. Prosecutors accused Menendez of penning an anonymous letter to fellow lawmakers, urging them to give Egypt hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.

The longtime congressman is charged with conspiring as a public official to act as a foreign agent, while Nadine Menendez and Wael Hana, the co-defendant believed to be the senator’s link to Egypt, were charged with acting as unregistered foreign agents, a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Prosecutors claim that Hana, a friend of Nadine Menendez, served as a middleman who connected the senator to Egyptian officials. The indictment quotes from a text message chain the defendants are said to have used to get sensitive information from Senator Menendez to the Egyptian government.

“Tell Will [Hana] I am going to sign off this sale to Egypt today. Egypt: 46,000 120MM Target Practice Rounds and 10,000 Rounds Tank Ammunition: $99 Million,” Senator Menendez texted his wife, as cited in the indictment.

Prosecutors say Nadine Menendez then texted Wael Hana, who forwarded the information to Egyptian officials, who responded with a “thumbs up” emoji.

Thursday’s indictment also reveals new details of the senator and his wife’s in-person meetings with Hana and Egyptian officials, and includes photographs of the group in Menendez’s office at the Senate and a Washington steakhouse — meetings prosecutors claim were part of a “corrupt agreement” between the parties.

Through his attorney, Hana denied the accusations by the feds.

“The new allegation that Wael Hana was part of a plot concocted over dinner to enlist Senator Menendez as an agent of the Egyptian Government is as absurd as it is false," Hana’s attorney Larry Lustberg said in a statement. “As with the other charges in this indictment, Mr. Hana will vigorously defend against this baseless allegation.”

This is the second time Menendez has been charged with corruption. A 2015 indictment ended in a 2018 mistrial, after jurors couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on all counts.

Menendez has long maintained his innocence and ignored widespread calls to resign.

In his first public statement on the September indictment, Menendez defended his record in Egypt and denied ever taking bribes or gifts in exchange for influence.

“Throughout my time in Congress, I have remained steadfast on the side of civil society and human rights defenders in Egypt and everywhere else in the world,” Menendez said on Sept. 25.

“If you look at my actions related to Egypt during the period described in this indictment and throughout my whole career, my record is clear and consistent in holding Egypt accountable for its unjust detention of American citizens and others, its human rights abuses, its deepening relationship with Russia and efforts that have eroded the independence of the nation’s judiciary, among a myriad of concerns.”

But pressure is mounting for Menendez to step down, including within his own party. In September, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “it is in the best interest for Senator Menendez to resign in this moment.”

Democratic Senators John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin have echoed similar sentiments. Even fellow New Jersey Senator Cory Booker believes it’s time for his senior colleague to step aside.

“As Senator Menendez prepares to mount his legal defense, he has stated that he will not resign,” Booker said in a statement. “Senator Menendez fiercely asserts his innocence and it is therefore understandable that he believes stepping down is patently unfair. But I believe this is a mistake.”

Menendez is up for reelection next year after serving in the Senate since 2006.

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