By LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was charged Thursday with conspiring for years to behave as an agent of the Egyptian authorities whereas he held a robust function in shaping U.S. international coverage, placing the Democrat in deeper authorized hassle as he continues to reject calls to resign.
The superseding indictment in Manhattan federal courtroom accuses Menendez of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires folks to register with the U.S. authorities in the event that they act as “an agent of a foreign principal.” As a member of Congress, Menendez was prohibited from being an agent of a international authorities.
The new cost comes weeks after Menendez and his spouse have been accused of accepting bribes of money, gold bars and a luxurious automobile from three New Jersey businessmen who needed the senator’s assist and affect over international affairs.
The new indictment says a conspiracy occurred from January 2018 to June 2022, alleging that Menendez “promised to take and took a series of acts on behalf of Egypt, including on behalf of Egyptian military and intelligence officials.” It mentioned he conspired to take action along with his spouse, Nadine, and a enterprise affiliate and fellow defendant, Wael Hana.
According to the indictment, Hana and Nadine Menendez additionally communicated requests and directives from Egyptian officers to Menendez.
Hours after the newest cost was revealed, Menendez issued a press release, saying it “flies in the face of my long record of standing up for human rights and democracy in Egypt and in challenging leaders of that country, including President (Fattah) El-Sisi on these issues.”
“I have been, throughout my life, loyal to only one country — the United States of America, the land my family chose to live in democracy and freedom,” he added. ”Piling new cost upon new cost doesn’t make the allegations true. … I once more ask individuals who know me and my file to provide me the prospect to current my protection and present my innocence.”
The new cost introduced recent requires Menendez to resign. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania mentioned in a press release that senators ought to vote to expel Menendez as a result of “we cannot have an alleged foreign agent in the United States Senate.”
But a vote to expel was unlikely earlier than trial. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has not known as on Menendez to resign and has not commented on the brand new cost.
The cost comes as greater than 30 Senate Democrats — together with his residence state colleague, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker — have known as on him to resign. Menendez has remained defiant, telling colleagues in a closed-door luncheon two weeks in the past that he won’t depart the Senate.
Menendez has not mentioned whether or not he’ll run for reelection subsequent 12 months. At least one Democrat, New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim, has already jumped into the first, and the pinnacle of Senate Democrats’ marketing campaign arm, Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, has known as on Menendez to resign, signaling that he could not obtain marketing campaign help historically obtainable to incumbents. Kim on Thursday urged the Senate to expel Menendez.
The indictment alleged that in May 2019, Menendez, his spouse and Hana met with an Egyptian intelligence official in Menendez’s Senate workplace in Washington. During the assembly, they mentioned an American citizen who was significantly injured in a 2015 airstrike by the Egyptian navy utilizing a U.S.-made Apache helicopter, the indictment mentioned.
Some members of Congress objected to awarding sure navy support to Egypt over that episode and the notion by sure lawmakers that the Egyptian authorities was unwilling to pretty compensate the injured American, based on the indictment.
Shortly after the assembly in Washington, the Egyptian official texted Hana that if Menendez helped resolve the matter, “he will sit very comfortably.” Hana replied, “Orders, consider it done,” the indictment mentioned.
Prosecutors famous {that a} search of Hana’s cellphone had “revealed thousands of text messages, many via an encrypted application, with Egyptian military and intelligence officials, pertaining to various topics, including Menendez, and including requests and directives for Hana to act upon.”
And they mentioned for the primary time that Nadine Menendez started at the very least in 2018, the identical 12 months she began courting the senator, to have “meetings and direct communications with multiple Egyptian officials, at least some of whom she understood were intelligence officials, and received requests from them, and conveyed information and requests from them to Menendez.”
Attorney Danny Onorato, who represents Nadine Menendez, mentioned in a press release that she denies all allegations within the superseding indictment, “including the claim that she acted as an agent of any foreign government. We will fight all these charges, as appropriate, in court.”
In an e-mail, Hana’s lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, mentioned the “new allegation that Wael Hana was part of a plot concocted over dinner to enlist Senator Menendez as an agent of the Egyptian Government is as absurd as it is false.”
Menendez and his spouse have pleaded not responsible to the costs lodged in opposition to them final month. Hana pleaded not responsible final month to costs together with conspiracy to commit bribery.
After Hana’s firm was granted a profitable monopoly by the Egyptian authorities to certify that every one meat imported into that nation met spiritual necessities, prosecutors mentioned, Menendez urged U.S. agriculture officers to cease questioning the deal.
Menendez was accused of attempting to intervene in two felony instances, pushing prosecutors to both drop an investigation or give leniency to mates of his associates. In return, prosecutors mentioned, one businessman, Jose Uribe, purchased Nadine Menendez a $60,000 luxurious automobile. Uribe has pleaded not responsible.
In each the outdated and new indictments, prosecutors mentioned Menendez, after assembly with an Egyptian official, lobbied then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to extend American engagement in stalled negotiations involving Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to construct a dam over the Nile River, a key international coverage subject for Egypt.
The indictments mentioned that whereas Menendez was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he took a number of steps to secretly support Egyptian officers. That included ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to raise a maintain on $300 million in support to Egypt. He relinquished the chairmanship of the committee after the sooner indictment in opposition to him was unsealed final month.
He was additionally accused of passing alongside details about workers on the U.S. Embassy in Egypt and transmitting nonpublic data to Egyptian officers about navy support.
Menendez, 69, has insisted that he did nothing uncommon to help Egypt and that prosecutors had misunderstood the work of a senator concerned in international affairs.
Authorities who searched Menendez’s residence final 12 months mentioned they discovered greater than $100,000 value of gold bars and over $480,000 in money — a lot of it hidden in closets, clothes and a protected.
The Justice Department lately has stepped up its felony enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a legislation enacted in 1938 to unmask Nazi propaganda within the United States that requires folks to confide in the Justice Department after they advocate, foyer or carry out public relations work within the U.S. on behalf of a international authorities or political entity.
According to the brand new indictment, Menendez himself made a number of requests from 2020 to 2022 for the U.S. to analyze a former member of Congress for allegedly failing to register as a international agent, saying in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland that it was “imperative that the Justice Department ensure he is held to account.”
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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston, Michael Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, and Eric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this story.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”