OAN’s Abril Elfi
11:32 PM – Thursday, October 12, 2023
Senator Bob Menendez faces a new indictment in conspiracy to act as an Egyptian secret agent.
On Thursday, Menendez (D-N.J.), his wife Nadine Menendez, and an Egyptian businessman named Weal Hana have all been charged with an additional count of conspiracy for a public official to act as a foreign agent.
Manhattan prosecutors have previously accused the 69-year-old senator of accepting gold, cash, and luxury items in exchange for helping three Egyptian businessmen, using his senator influence.
According to the indictment, the alleged exchange took place between January 2018 and June 2022.
Prosecutors claimed that in May 2019, Menendez, his wife, and Hana, met with an Egyptian intelligence official in Menendez’s Washington Senate office.
According to the indictment, they discussed an American citizen who was critically injured in a 2015 Egyptian military bombing using a U.S.-made Apache chopper.
The New Jersey Democrat now faces four indictment charges against him.
The new charges accuse Menendez of secretly pressing his colleagues while he was leading the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to unfreeze $300 million in military funding earmarked for the Egyptian regime.
According to the prosecutor in both the old and new indictments, Menendez lobbied then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to increase American involvement in stalled negotiations involving Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to build a dam across the Nile River, a key foreign policy issue for Egypt.
The allegations stated that Menendez took multiple efforts to discreetly assist Egyptian officials while chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This includes authoring a letter to other senators where he urged them to ease a hold on $300 million in Egyptian funding.
According to the indictment records, when authorities searched Menendez’s home last year they reportedly found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars and over $480,000 in cash, much of it hidden in closets, clothing, and a safe.
Both Menendez and Hana have pleaded non-guilty to the previous charges.
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