Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife Nadine were indicted on charges of accepting bribes to interfere with criminal cases, and corruption to benefit the government of Egypt.

In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. That Senator Menendez is a corrupt bag of slime is not news. After all, he managed to skate on the last round of corruption charges from 2015, and Donald Trump ended up commuting the sentence of the other man, Salomon Melgen, who had apparently bribed Menendez with money and services (per the indictment).

Apparently, all Menendez learned is that he could get away with bribery and corruption, and this time, he and his new wife (they married in 2020) allegedly did this on a much larger, international scale… right down to the gold bars they apparently took as payment and hid in their house.

Prosecutors say Menendez and his wife, Nadine, agreed to and accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes in exchange for using the senator’s “power and influence” to enrich the three — Wael “Will” Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibe — as well as benefit Egypt.

The bribes included “cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other things of value,” according to the indictment, which was first published by Politico.

Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Friday that Menendez’s own Senate website details actions he can’t engage in as a senator, such as compelling an agency to act in someone’s favor or involving himself in criminal matters.

“But we allege that, behind the scenes, Senator Menendez was doing those things for certain people — the people who were bribing him and his wife,” Williams said during a press conference.

Menendez faces three counts, including conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right, a charge for public officials who take bribes in return for official acts.

These charges look pretty solid on the surface, which is very bad news for Menendez and his wife.

Prosecutors say the senator provided sensitive U.S. government information to “secretly aid” Egypt while also pressuring a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a business monopoly Egypt granted to Hana, a longtime friend of Nadine Menendez. The monopoly was used to fund the bribes being paid to Menendez through his wife, the indictment says.

In one such instance detailed in the indictment, Menendez and his wife met with Hana in May 2018. The same day, Menendez requested nonpublic information from the State Department about people serving at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. The information was not classified but “deemed highly sensitive” due to security concerns.

Without informing his staff or the State Department, Menendez texted that information to Nadine, who was then his girlfriend. She forwarded the message to Hana, who then forwarded it to an Egyptian government official, according to the indictment.

The New Jersey senator also sought to disrupt a criminal investigation by the state’s attorney general’s office into Uribe, the second businessman, and his associates, according to the indictment. In exchange, Hana and Uribe helped buy a new Mercedes-Benz convertible for Menendez’s wife, the indictment says.

And Menendez recommended that the president nominate an individual as New Jersey attorney general under the belief that person could be influenced by Menendez regarding the criminal prosecution of Daibes, the third businessman, prosecutors claim. The Menendezes received cash, furniture and gold bars in return, according to the indictment.

“As we allege in the indictment, the senator agreed to do these things and use his power in this way because Hana was paying bribes, because Uribe was paying bribes and because Daibes was paying bribes,” Williams said.

When federal agents searched Menendez’s New Jersey home in June 2022, they said they found more than $480,000 in cash, much of it stuffed into envelopes or hidden in clothing, closets and a safe.

The agents also allegedly found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars. In March 2022, Menendez amended a federal disclosure report to indicate an asset of gold bars worth between $100,001 and $250,000, which he said belonged to his wife, according to The New York Times.

"The senator and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for Senator Menendez using his power and influence to protect and to enrich those businessmen and to benefit the government of Egypt." pic.twitter.com/WKhvg6Up5e

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 22, 2023

The indictment in its entirety can be read here. The case against Menendez looks extremely damning, especially considering the Egypt connection. This is much more complex than his previous corruption indictment, where only a single person was charged along with him. The more people involved, the better the chance someone turns on him.

Now, the charge of “conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right” is especially interesting, because this is essentially what Menendez claimed he was SUPER DUPER CONCERNED about when Donald Trump was president, and Menendez asked aloud if Trump was “compromised” by the Russian government.

My my my, how the tables have turned.

Menendez is currently denying the charges – he claims they are “baseless allegations” (even though he set up a legal defense fund back in April). Of course, many were having fun at Bob Menendez’s and Joe Biden’s expense.

Yeah, he needed a Hunter. pic.twitter.com/TYJmPwFHXA

— Lori Mills (@LoriMills4CA42) September 22, 2023

But then Hunter Biden himself came into the conversation. This doesn’t affect the current Menendez indictment at all – but it DOES tell us a whole lot about how everyone in Washington was in on the Hunter Biden corruption.
https://twitter.com/HouseGOP/status/1705257824169664577
Everyone apparently knew that in order to get to Joe, you had to go through Hunter and make it worth his while. Why else would a senator’s office contact Hunter Biden’s business partner to get JOE to host an event? This whole thing stinks more than a rotting potato.

Menendez is currently running for re-election in New Jersey. He was first elected in 2006 to the Senate, so he is aiming for a fourth six-year term. I think it’s safe to say that the strength of these charges are enough to introduce some chaos into not just the general election, but the Democrat primary in that race. Given his current statements, it is highly unlikely that Menendez resigns and makes things easier for Democrats. And given his past, there’s no guarantee of a conviction for Menendez, because he could easily throw his wife under the proverbial bus and blame her for everything. No one should be surprised if that happens. But how many times will Bob Menendez have to be indicted for corruption before the voters of New Jersey believe it?

Featured image: Senator Bob Menendez, official Congressional portrait, cropped, public domain