By United States Senator Bob Menendez hit with a new indictment Thursday. Accusing him of accepting bribes from foreign governments and conspiring to act as a foreign agent.
The new indictment accuses Bob Menendez of “providing sensitive information to the U.S. Government and taking other steps to covertly assist the Egyptian Government.”
The new indictment, presented by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, alleges that the Senate Democrat . “Provided sensitive information to the U.S. Government and took other steps to covertly assist the Government of Egypt.”
Menendez could face up to two years in prison for failing. As a public official to register as an agent of a foreign country. According to a law cited in the superseding indictment.
In a statement Thursday, Menendez dismissed the new allegations.
“Picking up new indictment after new indictment does not make the accusations true. “The facts have not changed, only new charges,” he said. “I once again ask those who know me and my record to give me. The opportunity to present my defense and show my innocence.”
Menendez and his wife, Nadine, pleaded not guilty last month to corruption charges alleging. They used their influence to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. Three other defendants – New Jersey businessmen Jose Uribe, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana – also pleaded not guilty to corruption charges last month.
Sen. John Fetterman, who was the first Senate Democrat to call for Menendez’s resignation after the initial criminal charges, said Thursday that senators should hold a vote to fire him. “It is time for all my colleagues in the Senate to join me in removing Senator Menendez.”
The removal would require two-thirds of the Senate to vote in favor of removing Menendez.
Fetterman’s call was support by Rep. Andy Kim, who announce after allegations last month that he was running for Menendez’s seat. “Given the gravity of these allegations, the US Senate should vote on expulsion,” Kim wrote in X.
In Thursday’s indictment, federal prosecutors accused Menendez’s wife and Wael Hana of “working to introduce Egyptian intelligence and military officials to Menendez with the aim of establishing and strengthening corrupt agreements.”
“act as an agent of a foreign principal, namely, the Egyptian Government and Egyptian officials.” The report cited an open-air dinner that Menendez, his now wife, and Hana had together at a restaurant in 2018. A second dinner that Menendez had with Hana and an unnamed Egyptian official was in 2019.
Hana’s attorney, Larry Lustberg, mocked the charges in a statement Thursday.
“The new allegation that Wael Hana was part of a plan hatched over dinner to recruit Senator Menendez as an agent of the Egyptian Government is absurd and false. Hana will vigorously defend himself against these baseless allegations,” Lustberg said.
Although additional details about Menendez’s alleged actions on behalf of the Egyptian government were included in Thursday’s filing, prosecutors did not allege that the senator or his wife received additional cash or gifts as in the indictment issued last month.
The new indictment noted that Menendez had sent two letters to the Department of Justice in May 2022
including one to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting that they subject an unnamed former member of Congress to investigation as a foreign agent.
Prosecutors said the letters, which were posted on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s website and/or Menendez’s website, included specific laws prohibiting Americans from working on behalf of a foreign government without registering with the Department of Justice.
The indictment alleges that Menendez’s wife was the one who told Hana that he was dating the senator and that this allegedly occurred when Hana’s efforts, aimed in part at advancing Egyptian interests, began.
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