The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced Friday morning that it will soon unseat an indictment charging Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) and his wife with corruption counts.
In a tweet, the office claims that upcoming corruption charges against the sitting senator and his wife, Nina Menendez, are “related to their corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen”:
A press conference will be held at 11:00 a.m. today to announce the unsealing of an indictment charging Robert Menendez, United States Senator from New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, with corruption offenses relating to their dealings corrupt with three New Jersey businessmen. . pic.twitter.com/CLTXnU0mAm
– U.S. Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) September 22, 2023
The office, led by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, is expected to hold a press conference at 11 a.m. ET to formally announce the unsealing.
Menendez is reportedly at the center of a separate but similar federal investigation, a 2015 investigation into Menedez and Democratic donor Salomon Melgen on corruption and conspiracy allegations, as noted by Breitbart News. Menendez was indicted that year “for corruption, following a months-long federal investigation into whether he used his power to promote the special interests of a friend and donor in exchange for gifts,” as the Guardian reported at the time.
“Menendez received cash, gold bars, mortgage payments, compensation for little or no work, a luxury vehicle and other valuables,” NBC News reported , citing a copy of the resulting file.
In May, the Wall Street Journal noted that in 2018, Menendez held a meeting with New Jersey businessman Wael Hana, who was reportedly at the center of the Southern District of New York’s corruption investigation against Menendez:
The meeting, which has not been previously reported, took place months before businessman Wael Hana secured a contract with Egyptian officials to certify halal meat exports. The contract is a key element of probe examining whether Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or his wife received gifts in exchange for political favors.
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That year, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and his military council decided they wanted a single company to control all halal meat imports, as part of a broader effort to increase military control on the Egyptian market. economy, according to senior Egyptian officials. Hana, an American and Egyptian citizen, had limited experience with halal certification before winning the contract with Cairo.
A few months later, in May 2019, Hana’s company became the sole certifier of halal meat exported from the United States to Egypt, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Menendez pushed back on the allegations while speaking with CNN.
“If anyone looks at my story on Egypt, they will know that by denying aid to Egypt, by denying arms sales to Egypt, and by criticizing its record on human rights man, I am in no position to help anyone regarding Egypt. ,” he said.
Notably, Matthew Boyle, Breitbart News’ Washington bureau chief, first reported while working at the Daily Caller that Menendez, while in the Dominican Republic, had solicited underage prostitutes.
“Faced with specific and substantiated allegations that defendants Menendez and Melgen had sexual relations with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic, the government responsibly and conscientiously investigated these serious allegations,” the Justice Department wrote in a 2015 file.
Breitbart
