Bob Menendez, Democratic Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has temporarily resigned after being accused of accepting bribes in exchange for aid to the Egyptian government. BBC writes.
According to US Justice Department prosecutors, Menendez and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars, gold and numerous luxury goods, including luxury cars, from businessmen linked to the Egyptian government. The couple denied these accusations.
The senator did not respond to the call of his party colleagues to resign from his state in New Jersey, and he did not answer their phones for days. However, he temporarily resigned from the presidency of the committee that he headed.
This is not the first time that 69-year-old Menendez, who has served as a senator since 2006, has been accused of committing a corruption crime. He also briefly resigned as commission chairman in 2015 after he was accused of accepting bribes from a Florida ophthalmologist. This charge against him was eventually dropped because the jury could not reach a consensus on the case.
Menendez and his partner Nadine Arslanian are now accused of accepting bribes from three New Jersey businessmen in cash, gold, and payments on home loans and luxury cars. In exchange for money, prosecutors say, the couple used their positions as senators and committee chairs to influence deals between New Jersey companies with the Egyptian government. Therefore, according to the indictment, he accepted bribes from three businessmen: Wael Hanna, Jose Uribe and Farid Daibes.
Federal agents also searched Menendez’s home in the summer of 2022, and found more evidence of bribery arrangements, including more than $480,000 in cash, most of which was “stuffed in envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe,” as well as a Mercedes. – A luxury Benz, which Uribe allegedly bought for Menendez, as well as $100,000 worth of gold bullion in the house. Photos of these were also attached to the 39-page indictment.
Evidence seized from Menendez’s home is displayed during a prosecutor’s press conference on September 22, 2023 in New York – Photo by Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images/AFP
Arslanian denied these accusations, and Menendez tried to accuse them of being politically motivated. “The forces behind the scenes have repeatedly tried to silence my voice and dig my political grave,” he wrote in a statement. “Since this investigation was leaked nearly a year ago, there has been an active smear campaign against me with the help of anonymous sources and empty insinuations. […] He added: “I am confident that this case will be successfully resolved, that all the facts will come to light, and that the citizens of New Jersey will see what all this is about.”
On the other hand, his party colleagues are not so optimistic, and four New Jersey Democratic congressmen have called on him to resign. Menendez issued another statement on Friday, saying: “I’m not going anywhere.”
The White House and the Egyptian Embassy in Washington have not yet commented on the matter.
Menendez, his wife and three other defendants are scheduled to appear in federal court in Manhattan on September 27.
The Democratic senator’s name may sound familiar to Hungarians because he sharply criticized the Hungarian government two years ago. “Around the world today, authoritarian governments are gaining more and more power, dismantling basic democratic institutions, and suppressing civil society and freedom of expression. Many emerging democracies have been plagued by scandal, corruption and citizen discontent. From Turkey through Hungary and Venezuela to the Philippines,” he said at the time. “Authoritarian governments systematically dismantle the constitutional checks and balances that control their power.”
