Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is being charged with bribery offenses in a federal indictment out of the Southern District of New York to be unsealed Friday, prosecutors announced.
“Today, I’m announcing that my office has obtained a three count indictment charging Senator Robert Menendez, his wife, Nadine Menendez, and three New Jersey businessmen, Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes for bribery offenses,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a press conference late Friday morning.
NBC News 4 reported Monday that the FBI and IRS criminal investigators are attempting to determine if Menendez or his wife had taken up to $400,000 worth of gold bars from Fred Daibes, a New Jersey developer and former bank chairman, or his associates in a swap for Menendez reaching out to the Justice Department to aid the “admitted felon” accused of banking crimes.
The couple is accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using Menendez’s power and influence as a senator to seek to protect and enrich Hana, Uribe, and Daibes and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt.”
The alleged 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.” Menendez disclosed that his family had accepted gold bars in 2020.
Prosecutors say that Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, provided sensitive U.S. government information to Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman, that “secretly aided the Government of Egypt.” The indictment states that Menendez improperly pressured an official at the Department of Agriculture to protect a business monopoly granted to Hana by the Egyptian government. Hana then allegedly kicked back profits from his monopoly to Menendez.
The senator is also accused of using his office to disrupt New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin’s investigation into Uribe and his associates. The indictment further alleges that Menendez influenced President Biden to nominate a U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey who Menendez believed could be swayed against prosecuting his associate Daibes.
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Article URL : https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democratic-sen-bob-menendez-facing-indictment-bribery-charges