The top politician’s new love put him in touch with businessmen close to the Egyptian regime.
When the FBI swooped in, gold bars and wads of bills were found hidden in clothes in the couple’s home.
Now Senator Bob Menendez is accused, among other things, of having tried to influence Biden to choose the “right” judge.
The investigation has hit Washington like a bomb.
One of the most powerful democrats is accused of giving sensitive information to the regime in Egypt.
The top politician is said to have also helped a businessman in New Jersey escape prosecution more easily by getting Biden to appoint a federal judge whom he thought he could influence.
Had a stash of gold
In the crackdown on Senator Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine, gold bars worth more than one million kroner were found.
In the home there were also bundles of banknotes with a value of just over five million kroner.
Some of the cash was tucked into envelopes in windbreakers with the senator’s name on the chest. The jackets were hung in a wardrobe.
Now the couple is charged with bribery, federal prosecutors announce.
The investigation against Bob Menendez, senator from New Jersey and top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Policy Committee, has been handled by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Manhattan and has lasted a year.
Thousands of messages
In a 39-page indictment, a number of suspected crimes are reported.
Through his wife, the senator is said to have come into contact with representatives of the Egyptian regime through Wael Hana, an American businessman with Egyptian background.
Bob Menendez allegedly leaked sensitive information to the Egyptian regime.
Bob Menendez, 69, met Nadine, 58, in February 2018. They got engaged just over a year later.
Nadine Menendez and Hana were friends from a long time ago. Investigators have managed to recover thousands of text messages between them that the senator’s wife deleted from her phone.
Two more New Jersey businessmen with ties to Hana are implicated in the bribery charges against Bob Menendez.
The FBI found cash in windbreakers in the senator’s closet. Photo: AP “Betrayed his mission”
According to the indictment, Nadine Menedez allegedly told Hana in 2018 that she was dating the senator.
Immediately, the friends decided to let the top Democrat meet with Egyptian intelligence officers and military to “initiate a corrupt arrangement”.
Values worth millions in cash, gold, a luxury car and mortgage payments went to Bob and Nadine Menendez in exchange for the senator’s “defection to the Egyptian government” and the businessmen involved in the criminal conspiracy.
Menendez is said to have, among other things, with the help of a ghostwritten letter, persuaded the Senate to give Egypt a suspended aid of 300 million dollars.
According to the indictment, Nadine Menendez allegedly told Wael Hana that the couple’s efforts would make him “more powerful than the president of Egypt.”
Accused before
Even before Bob Menendez met his current wife, he was suspected of taking bribes.
He was first charged in New Jersey in 2015. He was suspected, among other things, of having received luxury vacations in Florida paid for by a wealthy ophthalmologist. However, the trial was declared invalid.
Menendez is running for re-election for his fourth term as senator next year. He calls the bribery allegations false.
During Friday evening, Chuck Schumer, the majority leader of the Democrats, stated that Menendez is temporarily leaving his position in the foreign policy committee.
Even representatives of the designated businessmen state that they deny any wrongdoing.