Liam Conner
washington — For the second time in his career, New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez is on trial on corruption charges. This time, he is fighting accusations that he traded his political influence for cash, gold bars and a new Mercedes-Benz convertible.
The accusations date back to 2018, when the Democratic senator began dating the woman who is now his wife, Nadine Menendez, who was also indicted in the corruption investigation. Prosecutors say Menéndez provided political favors to three New Jersey businessmen and secretly helped the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
Menéndez, who resigned his powerful chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being charged, has pleaded not guilty and did not rule out testifying.
Recent court documents have revealed Menendez’s potential defense strategies, including framing your wife and claim that accumulating money was a “coping mechanism” after “two significant traumatic events” in his life.
Menéndez will be tried with two New Jersey businessmen, who have also pleaded not guilty.
Here’s what you should know.
What are Menéndez and his wife accused of?
Menendez and his wife were initially charged with three criminal charges in September 2023 — conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under the guise of official law.
The initial indictment detailed a years-long corruption scheme in which Menéndez allegedly used his influence as then-chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee to secretly benefit Egypt; he pressured a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a trade monopoly that Egypt granted to a New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana; interfering with a criminal investigation and prosecution by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office relating to a second New Jersey businessman, José Uribe, and his associates; and attempted to influence a federal prosecution against a third New Jersey businessman, Fred Daibes.
A substitute indictment in October 2023, it added a fourth count, alleging that the couple conspired to act as foreign agents for Egypt. Prosecutors say Menendez and his wife provided Egyptian authorities, through Hana, with “highly sensitive” and nonpublic information about the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and U.S. military aid to Egypt. The senator also allegedly wrote a letter on behalf of Egypt that attempted to convince his Senate colleagues to release $300 million in aid to Egypt.
“If you need anything, have my number and we will make it all happen,” Nadine Menendez reportedly texted an Egyptian intelligence official in March 2020, days before setting up one of several meetings between her husband and the official.
In January, a second superseding indictment included allegations that Menéndez made favorable comments about the Qatari government as Daibes sought a multimillion-dollar investment from a government-linked company.
Menendez was indicted on a dozen new criminal charges in March, a third substitute indictment, bringing the total charges to 16. Additional charges include obstruction of justice, public official acting as a foreign agent, bribery, extortion and honest services wire fraud. Nadine Menendez, whose trial was separated from her husband’s due to a “serious medical condition”, faces 15 charges. She also pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors allege that in exchange for the senator’s use of his power and influence to enrich businessmen, they provided the Menendezes with lavish gifts, including cash, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, furniture and payments on a home mortgage, as Nadine Menendez was facing foreclosure on her home.
When investigators executed a search warrant at the couple’s home in June 2022, they found more than $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes and coats and 13 gold bars worth more than $100,000. They discovered nearly $80,000 in a nearby bank safe.
After the initial accusation, Menéndez said that for 30 years he withdrew thousands of dollars every month from his personal savings account in case of emergencies. The “old-fashioned” habit, he said, has roots in his family’s experience in Cuba.
Who are the other defendants?
Hana met Nadine Menendez years before she started dating the senator. Originally from Egypt, Hana lived in New Jersey and operated IS EG Halal, a start-up that soon became the only company to certify halal products imported into Egypt, despite Hana having no prior experience in the halal industry.
Hana and Nadine Menendez were often intermediaries between the senator and Egyptian officials, arranging dinners at expensive restaurants and meetings in their Senate office, according to court documents. Prosecutors say Hana placed Nadine Menendez on his company’s payroll “in a little-to-no visible job” after the senator promised to use his power to facilitate foreign military sales to Egypt.
When an accident left Nadine Menendez without a car in December 2018, she turned to Hana, who connected her with Uribe, her business partner who had been implicated in an insurance fraud case. The following month, the couple and the two businessmen agreed that Menéndez would intervene in the insurance fraud case, the charges say. In exchange, the charges allege, Uribe helped buy Nadine Menéndez a black Mercedes-Benz convertible, meeting her in a restaurant parking lot to hand over more than $15,000 in cash that she used for the down payment and , subsequently arranging payment for the car.
Around the same time, Egypt granted a monopoly to Hana’s company in a deal that provided a “source of revenue” for Hana to pay the Menendezes, the charges say. But the monopoly also increased costs for other U.S. meat suppliers, and after U.S. officials raised objections to Egypt, Hana requested the senator’s help in pressuring the Department of Agriculture to back down.
In the summer of 2019, prosecutors say Nadine Menendez, who was tens of thousands of dollars behind on her mortgage and facing foreclosure, again sought help from Hana and Uribe. Hana’s company, they say, paid $23,000 to catch up on mortgage payments while Menendez tried to pressure New Jersey authorities to close the fraud investigation linked to Uribe.
It was not the first case in which Menendez interfered, according to the charges. In late 2020, the senator met with a person who would later be appointed U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, criticizing the office’s prosecution of Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer and Hana associate. Daibes was accused in 2018 of obtaining loans under false pretenses. But when the person suggested he might have to recuse himself from the prosecution, Menendez informed him that he would recommend someone else to the White House for appointment as U.S. attorney, prosecutors alleged.
Throughout 2021 and 2022, after Menendez publicly praised the Qatari government, which prosecutors suggested helped Daibes reach a deal with a Qatari investor, and as the senator attempted to continue interfering in Daibes’ federal prosecution, the real estate developer allegedly gave Menendez gold bars, cash and a recliner.
“The price of a kilo of gold,” Menendez reportedly searched online, hours after having dinner with his wife and Daibes in May 2022.
Less than a month later, federal agents executed search warrants at the Menendezes’ home and safe.
According to prosecutors, Uribe stopped making payments on Nadine Menendez’s Mercedes after that and told her he would say the payments were a loan if investigators asked. Menéndez and his wife allegedly tried to cover up their mortgage and car payments by writing checks to Hana and Uribe that were characterized as loan payments, prosecutors said. This caused lawyers for Menendez and his wife to make “false and misleading statements” to investigators in 2023, the indictment said.
Uribe pleaded guilty to seven charges, including conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice and tax evasion, and agreed to cooperate with investigators earlier this year.
