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A sitting U.S. senator faces a weeks-long trial on charges of accepting bribes including gold bars, cash and a luxury car to, among other things, help send U.S. aid and weapons to a foreign government and thwart a case federal case against one of his co-defendants.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who faces 16 charges including conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to obstruct justice, has rejected calls to resign and, although he will not run in the state’s primary for his seat, has left open the possibility for an independent run after his trial.
The senator told CNN’s Manu Raju on Capitol Hill last week, “I look forward to proving my innocence,” when asked repeatedly whether he would resign in the face of possible conviction.
Prosecutors say Menendez and his wife, Nadine, helped several New Jersey businessmen — all accused of conspiracy — obtain lucrative contracts with Egyptian and Qatari authorities and tried to pressure authorities to halt investigations into the businessmen and their associates. .
Jury selection in the case began Monday. The jury will be chosen from more than 100 potential jurors in New York City federal court. The presiding judge has not yet commented on the questionnaires proposed to the jury. Defense attorneys suggested asking the jury a multitude of questions, including whether they think someone from New Jersey is “more likely to break the law.”
Menéndez will stand trial with two of his co-defendants, Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman, and Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer. His wife will be tried in July.
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According to the indictment, Hana and Nadine Menendez — who were friends for years before she began dating the senator in 2018 — worked together to connect the senator with several Egyptian officials to help secure U.S. military aid, as well as a exclusive contract with Hana’s company.
The contract, prosecutors say, made Hana’s company the only company capable of certifying U.S. food exports to Egypt as compliant with halal standards.
Menendez, who at the time held senior positions on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position with power over foreign military sales, met several times with Hana’s contacts in the Egyptian military and helped guide U.S. military sales and aid to the country, according to prosecutors. .
The indictment also alleges that Menéndez wrote a ghost letter on behalf of the Egyptian government trying to persuade other senators to lift the withholding of $300 million in aid.
In addition to his alleged agreement to use his position to facilitate military sales and financing to Egypt, Menendez also passed sensitive information to his wife about who was serving at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, prosecutors say. His wife, in turn, sent the information to Hana, who forwarded it to an Egyptian government official.
The senator also reportedly pressured an Agriculture Department official to protect the halal certification monopoly that Hana had secured with Egypt for his company, through which his wife was being paid for Menendez’s efforts.
Menendez’s involvements with foreign governments extended to Qatari authorities, prosecutors say.
In exchange for gold bars, the price of which Menendez researched several times online, and other items, Menendez helped his co-defendant, Daibes, secure a multimillion-dollar investment from Qatari authorities in a real estate project, according to prosecutors.
Using his power as a senator, prosecutors say Menéndez tried to influence several cases in New Jersey involving his co-defendants, including talking to a high-ranking prosecutor about one case and working to recommend a candidate for the position of U.S. attorney in New Jersey. Jersey, which Menéndez believed would help dismiss the case against Daibes.
Through Menéndez’s efforts to pressure an employee in a case, New Jersey businessman José Uribe and Hana bought Nadine a luxury car, prosecutors say.
In May, Uribe pleaded guilty to seven charges related to the bribery scheme involving Menendez and his co-defendants and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in the case, including testifying at trial.
Ultimately, according to the indictment, Menendez’s influence campaigns were unsuccessful. The New Jersey case against Daibes is ongoing.
According to prosecutors, after executing search warrants at the Menendezes’ home – where gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash were found – and elsewhere, the senator and his wife tried to cover up the bribes by reimbursing the businessmen for the money. . mortgages and luxury cars, claiming they were just loans.
The indictment claims that their lawyers told prosecutors – based on statements from the couple – that the bribe payments were, in fact, loans. Menendez allegedly had his attorney at the time say he was originally unaware of his mortgage and car payments, which prosecutors say is false.
The couple was charged with obstruction of justice.
Menendez’s lawyers have suggested several possible defenses they could present during the trial, including that the 13 gold bars and $480,000 in cash that investigators found in his home could be explained by intergenerational family trauma as well as a disorder resulting in part from his father’s suicide. .
Shortly after he was indicted on bribery charges last year, Menéndez told journalists that he had withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash over 30 years, citing “my family’s history facing confiscation in Cuba.”
Family trauma and the death of his father, defense lawyers say, led to a fear of scarcity, through which Menendez developed “seemingly unusual” coping mechanisms.
Menendez may also attempt to pin blame for the alleged conspiracy on his wife, Nadine, whose trial was delayed due to a medical issue.
“Senator Menendez intends to present a defense arguing (in part) that he did not have the requisite knowledge of much of the conduct and statements of his wife, Nadine, and therefore lacked knowledge of and did not agree to participate in any of the conspiracies defendants,” lawyers as Menendez wrote in a court filing.
This story has been updated with additional information.
