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      Santos duped by Democratic senator to troll disgraced colleague Menendez

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      Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman enlisted a Cameo video from disgraced lawmaker George Santos in “support” of the also-disgraced New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, with Santos telling Menendez to “stay strong” amid his legal woes.In a rare example of bipartisan financial support, Fetterman paid Santos, a Republican, $200 for the personalized video as a prank. Santos did not know the “Bobby” he was recording the video for was Menendez.Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives on Friday following a scathing ethics report that detailed his misuse of campaign funds. Ever since he has been selling videos on Cameo, a website that allows users to buy short, personalized videos from celebrities.On X, Fetterman said he wanted to provide Menendez with “encouragement” amid the “substantial legal problems” the New Jersey senator faces.“So, I approached a seasoned expert on the matter to give ‘Bobby from Jersey’ some advice,” Fetterman wrote on X.Menendez and his wife both face federal bribery and extortion charges, as the senator also faces calls to resign. Fetterman has been one of Menendez’s fiercest critics, questioning during a CNN appearance on Monday why Menendez should remain in office if Santos is expelled.In the Cameo video to Menendez, Santos begins with “Hey Bobby!”He continues: “I don’t think I need to tell you, but these people who want to make you get in trouble and want to kick you out and make you run away, you make them put up or shut up. You stand your ground, sir, and don’t get bogged down by all the haters out there.”Santos ends with “Stay strong” before wishing Menendez a “Merry Christmas”.Santos reportedly made the Cameo video just 16 minutes after receiving the request from Fetterman’s camp. “We did not expect to get it back so fast,” an unnamed Fetterman spokesperson told Business Insider.After Fetterman posted the Santos video online, Santos responded on X that he did not know which “Bobby” he was making the video for: “I love this! I wish I knew the Bobby in question! LOL.”Santos then publicly called for Menendez’s removal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMenendez, for his part, responded to Fetterman’s prank by telling NBC News: “I don’t think Mr Clickbait’s donors would appreciate him enriching George Santos.”Fetterman wasn’t the only one to cash in on Santos’s new career.Ohio Democrats also bought a Cameo from Santos in order to troll Senator Bernie Moreno for his donations to the Santos campaign.“A little message from [Santos] to his number one supporter in Ohio, [Moreno],” the group posted on X, along with the video in which Santos expressed his gratitude to “Bernie Moreno from Ohio” for “maxing out to my campaign”.“Unfortunately, you know, it ended, it’s over, but I want to say thank you very much for that donation and for all the support and I hope that in the future I can come back and be part of the game again,” Santos added. More

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      I was a political prisoner in Egypt. The Bob Menendez allegations are appalling | Solafa Magdy

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      On Friday, 22 September, as Washington geared up for the weekend, a storm erupted. The US attorney general released a 39-page indictment accusing Senator Bob Menendez, his wife Nadine, and three others of involvement in a bribery scheme. The charges allege that they allowed Egyptian officials to gain illegitimate access to key figures in US foreign policy. On Thursday, federal prosecutors in New York accused Menendez of “conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government”.Menendez is accused of using his influence as the Senate foreign relations committee chairman to favor Egypt, facilitating US military aid and advocating for issues like the Ethiopian Renaissance dam. He’s also accused of pressuring officials to ignore anti-competitive practices by the firm ISEG Halal, the sole company authorized by Egypt to review American beef exporters, and of providing sensitive information about employees at the US embassy in Cairo that could endanger their lives.Following the indictment, key members of Congress have been weighing whether to delay $235m in military aid to Cairo as punishment for Egypt’s alleged involvement in this corruption and for Egypt’s failure to demonstrate consistent progress in releasing detainees and improving its human rights record. This has placed renewed strain on Egyptian-American relations. US law requires that military deals be approved by the president or a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, underscoring the regime’s strategic aim to influence Congress through Menendez.Yet Egyptian regime loyalists do not seem daunted by Menendez’s indictment or by US threats to withhold military aid. This is cause for grave concern to the international human rights community. The US already has a long history of providing assistance to Egypt despite documented human rights abuses. Egypt, sometimes dubbed “the Big Prison”, now has at least 169 prisons and detention centers. These prisons hold thousands of political detainees, including journalists and activists held in pretrial detention for years on frivolous terrorism charges.In Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index, Egypt is the 166th-ranked country, out of 188. In addition, human rights organizations estimate over 60,000 prisoners of conscience remain in Egyptian jails.In 2021, Egypt’s interior ministry inaugurated a massive new prison complex in the Wadi al-Natrun region, accompanied by a song titled Opportunity for Life. Constructed on Egyptian soil but on US terms, as described by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, it appeared to be an attempt to court the west and ease international human rights scrutiny. Situated in a desert area about 100km from Cairo, the complex was intended to isolate detainees from their families as a form of persecution.The US has repeatedly threatened to withhold a portion of its military aid to Egypt, but these threats are not consistently implemented. In 2013, for example, after the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, the US announced the withholding of aid, but it reversed the decision in early 2014 after President Sisi assumed power.About $320m of this aid is supposedly tied to improving Egypt’s human rights record, raising questions about the sincerity of the US commitment to combating corruption and autocracy. In this context, the Egyptian regime has become proficient in speaking the disingenuous language of western countries, which use human rights issues to exert pressure on dictatorial governments in pursuit of their interests, spanning arms deals, economic issues, and global migration.Journalists and advocates like me have long sought accountability for Egyptian officials involved in human rights violations and the torture of political prisoners. I was once one of those political prisoners. For nearly two years, I was confined to a dark cell with nearly 150 other women. I endured physical abuse, harassment including degrading strip searches, sleepless nights, and the denial of basic healthcare needs.My personal experience is merely one among many. Countless individuals have endured the consequences of corruption, violence, and lack of accountability in Egypt.If the charges against Senator Menendez are substantiated, it may partly explain why the Egyptian regime seemed so indifferent to America’s previous threats: there were people working to get Egypt assistance without it needing to adhere to human rights commitments. That’s a sad message to the many Egyptian political prisoners hoping to be freed.
      Solafa Magdy is an Egyptian journalist and former political prisoner More

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      Senator Bob Menendez charged with acting as foreign agent of Egypt

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      Federal prosecutors on Thursday filed a superseding indictment against the Democratic senator Bob Menendez, charging him with being an unregistered agent of the Egyptian government, a court filing showed.The New Jersey senator has thus far resisted calls for his resignation. His trial on corruption charges will begin next May.The superseding indictment, filed in Manhattan federal court, accuses Menendez of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people to register with the US government if they are acting as “an agent of a foreign principal”. As a member of Congress, Menendez was prohibited from being an agent of a foreign government, even if he did register as one.Messages left with Menendez’s Senate staff and attorney were not immediately answered.The indictment says the conspiracy occurred from January 2018 to June 2022. It alleges that in May 2019, Menendez, his wife and a business associate, Wael Hana, met an Egyptian intelligence official in Menendez’s Senate office in Washington.During the meeting, they allegedly discussed a US citizen who was seriously injured in a 2015 airstrike by the Egyptian military using a US-made Apache helicopter, the indictment says.Some members of Congress objected to awarding certain military aid to Egypt over that episode and the perception that the Egyptian government was not willing to fairly compensate the injured American, according to the indictment.Shortly after the meeting in Washington, the Egyptian official texted Hana that if Menendez helped resolve the matter, “he will sit very comfortably”.Hana, the indictment says, replied: “Orders, consider it done.”The new charge comes weeks after Menendez and his wife were accused of accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury car from three New Jersey businessmen who wanted the senator to help and influence over foreign affairs. The couple have pleaded not guilty.Hana, the business associate, pleaded not guilty last month to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery.The indictments said that while Menendez was chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, he took several steps to secretly aid Egyptian officials. They included ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on $300m in aid. He was also accused of passing along information about employees at the US embassy in Egypt and transmitting nonpublic information to Egyptian officials about military aid.Menendez, 69, has insisted that he did nothing unusual to assist Egypt and that prosecutors misunderstood the work of a senator involved in foreign affairs.Authorities who searched Menendez’s home last year said they 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.More than 30 Senate Democrats – including his home state colleague, Cory Booker – have called on Menendez to resign. Menendez has remained defiant, telling his colleagues in a closed-door luncheon two weeks ago he will not leave the Senate.Menendez has not said if he will run for reelection next year. The congressman Andy Kim has jumped into the primary, and the head of Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, Gary Peters of Michigan, has called on Menendez to resign, signaling that he may not receive campaign assistance. More

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      The McCarthy debacle barely scrapes the surface of how dysfunctional Congress is | Osita Nwanevu

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      While those who follow politics closely are busy parsing what the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker might mean for Congress, those who don’t ⁠– meaning the bulk of the American people ⁠– could be forgiven for tuning much of the drama of the last few weeks out. Ordinary Americans have little faith in Congress as it stands: as substantively or strategically consequential as they might be, the battles between members of our most reviled class, politicians, seem to most like juvenile squabbles.Here’s a detail that might incense them further. For generations, members of the US Senate have carved and scrawled their names into their desks. This rite, the stuff of summer camp and grade school, is, to the peculiar mind of a US senator, something more profound ⁠– yet another tradition, as though they needed another, signifying their membership in an august and noble fraternity.The same can be said of the Senate’s dress code, which was unanimously rescued and formalized this past week after Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer relaxed the chamber’s rules, seemingly to accommodate the defiantly casual Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman. Men will be asked to wear full business attire from now on ⁠– a requirement that has its practical advantages. As Robert Menendez, the New Jersey senator, may allegedly know, a suit jacket is a fine place to stow wads of cash in a pinch and useful, in the abstract, for another reason ⁠– disguising, through costumes of respectability, how grubby, venal and unremarkable many of our politicians are.A group letter written in the defense of the dress code described the Senate as “a place of honor and tradition”. “The world watches us on that floor,” it reads, “and we must protect the sanctity of that place at all costs.” Of course, the world usually has better things to do than keep up with congressional proceedings on C-SPAN, but there are embarrassing exceptions, the latest dramas among Republicans in the House among them, though the fact that they’re taking place in the opposite chamber shouldn’t flatter the Senate and its defenders ⁠– “the world’s greatest deliberative body” is nothing more than the geriatric wing of one of the world’s most unserious legislatures.And while much due attention is given to the problem of money in politics and more and more conversations are being had about Congress’s structural defects ⁠– once the late Dianne Feinstein is replaced and California regains its full complement of senators, each of the state’s voters will still have just over one-sixtieth the representation in the chamber of a voter in Wyoming ⁠– we ought to have a conversation, too, about the culture of the place.The inescapable fact uniting so much that grates about Congress right now ⁠– Republican shenanigans in the House, the Democratic party’s sluggishness in handling an obviously corrupt, compromised and distracted Menendez, gerontocracy within both parties ⁠– is that we ask very little of our representatives. Being a member of Congress simply isn’t substantively demanding enough.The irony of all the talk about how elderly our leaders are, and the reality that, in fact, has allowed obviously infirm politicians like Feinstein and Mitch McConnell to retain their positions even as they go catatonic in public view, is that the halls and offices of the Capitol are absolutely teeming with unelected and invisible young staffers ⁠– many of whom are in their 20s and 30s, some of whom are constitutionally incapable of occupying the offices they serve ⁠– who do much of the actual work Americans believe our elected officials do themselves.Policy research, drafting and reviewing legislative language, authoring speeches, drawing up the questions senators and congressmen ask at hearings, writing tweets and statements that go out under their bosses’ names, preparing talking points for media appearances, relaying directives from party leaders about how to vote and why ⁠– as a practical matter, the average politician in Washington today needn’t be more than a warm body with a pulse ready to cast a given vote.Of course, the late Senator Feinstein did her level best to test even that. But the fact that she, as one New York Times headline put it, “[Relied] Heavily on Staff to Function” was only partially a function of her age ⁠– the same is true of all but a relatively small and wonky contingent of unusually hard-working legislators.That’s not to say the rest don’t have concrete and vital responsibilities of their own ⁠– in 2013, the Huffington Post obtained documents from Democratic congressional campaign committee recommending that freshmen members of the caucus spend at least four hours every day calling donors for campaign contributions, more than the total amount of time recommended for visits with constituents and working in committees or voting on the House floor combined, a figure probably comparable to the number of hours spent dialing for dollars on the other side of the aisle.“After votes in the House, a stream of congressmen and women can be seen filing out of the Capitol and, rather than returning to their offices, heading to rowhouses nearby on First Street for call time, or directly to the parties’ headquarters,” Ryan Grim and Sabrina Siddiqui wrote. “The rowhouses […] are typically owned by lobbyists, fundraisers or members themselves, and are used for call time because it’s illegal to solicit campaign cash from the official congressional office.”Once call time is done, we might find our representatives making canned speeches prepared by dutiful staffers before a mostly empty chamber, some of which might find their way into campaign ads and materials later.It can’t really be a surprise, given this, that Congress attracts so many who have little fundamental interest in doing the work of governing themselves ⁠– or that it sustains the careers of even those who do well after they’re personally capable of doing it. In either case, the legislator is little more than a cog in a vast machine influenced variously by donors, interest groups, major leaders and figures in both parties, the media, primary voters, and, yes, somewhere in the mix voters in the general electorate, though it should be said that most legislators don’t have to sweat much for their approval come election time.In the 2022 midterms, 84% of House seats were either uncontested or decided in races where the victor won by more than 10 points, with the average margin of victory in all races working out to about 28 points. Nearly 95% of incumbents won reelection. On the Senate side, Cook Political Reports rated nine of the 35 races as potentially competitive; ultimately, all incumbents won their seats back.Congress, all told, isn’t a place most are ultimately forced to leave either by elections or as a matter of their age. Term limits and age limits have been floated as solutions to all this, but another complementary remedy, if we dare to dream, might be party leaders taking it upon themselves to work our representatives harder.The tasks of legislating are now well beyond the capacities of individual legislators alone, yes, but setting the expectation that they should shoulder more of the burdens now foisted upon their staffers would discourage older legislators and incumbents from sticking around too long ⁠– Feinstein might have retired long ago if she’d actually had to do more of her job herself ⁠– and help dissuade layabouts and grifters from seeking office.We’ll never be fully rid of them, of course, and we’d scarcely recognize Congress without them. But making the work of politics feel like work seems worth a try.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Bob Menendez’s wife struck and killed pedestrian in New Jersey in 2018

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      The wife and co-defendant of the indicted US senator Bob Menendez struck and killed a pedestrian in 2018, according to newly released police records.Nadine Arslanian Menendez was behind the steering wheel of a car at the center of a fatal crash which took place on 12 December 2018, the New York Times and the Record newspaper of Bergen, New Jersey, first reported.Arslanian, as she went by before her marriage, never faced charges for the deadly crash in Bogota, New Jersey. In fact, shortly after the wreck, Arslanian and Bob Menendez were given a brand-new luxury car as a gift.Arslanian struck and killed 49-year-old Richard Koop.According to police records, Koop was killed almost instantly after being hit by Arslanian.He was found lying in the road with a number of serious injuries, including “severe head trauma” and “possible fractured legs and arms”, NBC News reported.Arslanian reportedly hit a parked car after hitting Koop and was “bleeding from her hands”, police records said.“Why was the guy in the middle of the street? I didn’t do anything wrong, you know?” Arslanian said to police, according to the dashboard camera video obtained by NBC News.A police report on the crash stated that Arslanian was “not at fault” for the accident because Koop was “jaywalking and did not cross the street at an intersection or in a marked crosswalk,” NBC reported.But witnesses of the exchange between Arslanian and police said officers appeared to recognize her, and treated her differently, the Times reported.There is no record showing whether police asked Arslanian if she had consumed drugs or alcohol. Arslanian also reportedly did not receive a sobriety test.Arslanian did not face any charges in connection with Koop’s death.Four months after the crash, Arslanian and Menendez received a brand-new Mercedes-Benz convertible from Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman who was charged by federal authorities alongside the senator and his wife in September.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionArslanian Menendez had been complaining to Hana about the whereabouts of her car after the crash. The vehicle gift is valued at $60,000, the Times reported.The crash is part of a larger inquiry into Nadine and Bob Menendez over bribery and corruption allegations.Bob Menendez is accused of using his position in the US Senate and as chairperson of the foreign relations committee to benefit the government of Egypt.An indictment obtained by federal prosecutors in New York City alleges that between 2018 and 2022, Bob Menendez accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Egyptian-American businessmen in exchange for helping them grow their businesses while avoiding legal issues.Arslanian and Menendez began dating in 2018 and married in October 2020.They have both pleaded not guilty to the bribery charges filed against them. More

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      Gold bars and stacks of cash: how Bob Menendez ended up charged with bribery

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      When federal prosecutors raided Bob Menendez’s home in the summer of 2022, they found a staggering haul.The US senator for New Jersey, one of the most influential and powerful Democrats in the country, had almost $500,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1kg in weight.In the garage was a gleaming Mercedes-Benz, allegedly bought for Menendez and his wife, who has been charged along with her husband with accepting bribes in return for political favors.“Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes,” Nadine Mendendez texted her husband on taking possession of the black convertible in April 2019. A day earlier, prosecutors say, a New Jersey businessman, who has a previous conviction for fraud, gave her $15,000 in cash towards the car, and would eventually pay for its entire cost.Menendez was last week accused, with his wife and three Jersey-based businessmen, of a staggering range of offenses. The story has struck a blow to the heart of Democratic politics, especially when the party is busy trying to convince an increasingly cynical electorate it is a safe pair of hands for honest American governance.According to the charging document, Menendez used his position as chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee to benefit Egypt in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.Menendez also used his “power and influence”, according to the indictment, to secure and maintain a lucrative contract with Egypt for a business associate. Closer to home, Menendez allegedly attempted to disrupt a New Jersey criminal prosecution on behalf of another businessman friend.Menendez, 69, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.Wednesday’s appearance at a federal courtroom in Manhattan marked an ignominious moment for Menendez, who said he will not step down and is still planning to run for re-election next year. But it was far from the first.In 2015, he was charged in connection with a bribery scheme, after allegedly accepting gifts from a businessman friend, in exchange for intervening in a dispute with the government of the Dominican Republic. The case went to court in 2017, but ended in a mistrial after the jury was deadlocked.Menendez grew up in a tenement building in Union City, New Jersey, the bilingual son of Cuban immigrants. His was the “quintessential American story”, according to his website: elected to the Union City board of education when he was 19, he then graduated from St Peter’s University in New Jersey with a law degree.He became mayor of Jersey City in 1986, aged 32, and was a congressman by the time he was 39. In 2006, Menendez was elected to the Senate, where he became a key figure on the foreign relations committee.The latest charges are likely to bring an end to that illustrious career. At least 18 Senate Democrats have called for Menendez to resign, along with New Jersey’s governor and most of the state’s congressmen and women.But Menendez is fighting and says he has been “falsely accused” because he is Latino. He insists he will not step down.Menendez told reporters he had saved the nearly $500,000 found at his home over the course of 30 years, and kept it in cash “because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba”. But he has not addressed questions about why some of the money bore the fingerprints and DNA of Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer accused of paying Menendez bribes.The story of Menendez’s alleged corruption cannot be separated from the story of his marriage.Menendez met Nadine Arslanian in late 2017, at an iHop – a popular chain of pancake restaurants – in Jersey City.Menendez, a diminutive gray-haired man, was in his mid-60s at the time. That February, he and Arslanian were dating, and Menendez proposed in October 2019 at the Taj Mahal.A video of the proposal, posted to a YouTube account called Robert&Nadine, showed Menendez singing a snippet from the song Never Enough, from the movie The Greatest Showman, before asking Arslanian to marry him. She said yes, and they married in October 2020.At the time they met, Nadine Menendez had been friends with Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman, for many years – exchanging “thousands of text messages” – according to the indictment. Born in Egypt, Hana “maintained close connections with Egyptian officials”, prosecutors said.In early 2018, Nadine told Hana she was dating Menendez, and by March 2018, Hana was organizing meetings between Menendez and Egyptian military officials.Those meetings, at Menendez’s Senate office and at upscale restaurants, came as Egypt was anxious to secure American cash.For several years prior to 2018, Egypt “had often faced resistance in obtaining foreign military financing and foreign military sales” from the US, according to the indictment, and in August 2017 the US state department said it was withholding $195m from Egypt until it could “demonstrate improvements on human rights and democracy”.For Egypt, Menendez’s position as chair of the foreign relations committee made him a lucrative contact. A longstanding convention in the US government held that the state department would not proceed with a transfer of money to Egypt, or with the sale of military equipment, without sign-off from the chairman or ranking member of the committee.As such, according to the indictment, “Robert Mendendez […] possessed substantial influence over the foreign military sales and foreign military financing to Egypt.”At the meetings, organized by Hana, Egyptian officials repeatedly raised the issue of foreign military sales and foreign financing, prosecutors say. Menendez promised to “use his power and authority to facilitate such sales and financing to Egypt”, according to the indictment, in exchange for Hana putting Nadine Menendez on his company’s payroll.Reading the indictment, one of most striking themes is how the Menendezes failed to cover their tracks. Prosecutors found a flood of text messages and emails between the pair, some of which seem to directly reference actions and payments.On 6 May 2018, according to the indictment, Bob and Nadine Menendez met with Hana. That afternoon, Menendez asked the state department for staffing information regarding the US embassy in Cairo. The information was not formally classified, but was “deemed highly sensitive”, the indictment says, because it could pose “significant operational security concerns if disclosed to a foreign government”.Having obtained the information, Menendez texted Nadine a full breakdown of the people who worked in the embassy, including the number of US diplomats, and the number of locally employed Egyptian staff. Nadine Menendez forwarded the message to Hana, who forwarded it to an Egyptian government official, according to the indictment.Later that month, Menendez was again asked for his services, prosecutors say. An Egyptian official requested help in editing and drafting an email lobbying US senators to release a hold on $300m of US aid to Egypt.Menendez “edited and ghost-wrote” the requested letter, according to the indictment, and sent the letter to Nadine Menendez from his personal email account. She sent the letter to Hana, who gave the draft to Egyptian officials.The money did not immediately flow.The plan, according to prosecutors, was that Hana pay money to Nadine Menendez through his company, IS EG Halal. But several months after Bob Menendez had met, and allegedly worked on behalf of, the Egyptian officials, no money had emerged.“I have been so upset all morning,” Nadine Menendez texted her husband one day, complaining that Hana was yet to pay her any money.In the spring of 2019, things began to look up for the Menendezes. Egypt granted Hana’s company, IS EG Halal, an “exclusive monopoly” on the certification of US food exports to Egypt over halal standards.IS EG Halal had no experience in halal certification, but the deal provided a revenue stream from which, prosecutors allege, bribes were paid to the Menendezes – through a “consultant” company set up by Nadine Menendez in June 2019.“Seems like halal went through. It might be a fantastic 2019 all the way around,” Nadine Menendez texted her husband on 8 April 2019, the day after IS EG Halal was awarded the Egypt deal.With IS EG Halal now in business, money started flowing to the Menendezes.In July of that year, IS EG Halal paid about $23,000 to Nadine Menendez’s mortgage, according to the indictment. Menendez received further checks for $10,000 in August, September and November of the same year – which Daibes allegedly helped to facilitate.The relationship continued, according to the indictment, and the Menendezes continued to benefit, to the tune of “hundreds of thousands of dollars in checks, cash and gold”, prosecutors say.Along the way, the Mercedes-Benz was purchased for the delighted Nadine Menendez with money allegedly provided by Hana and Jose Uribe, one of the co-defendants and a businessman who has a previous conviction for fraud.The Mercedes was acquired after Menendez allegedly promised to intervene to disrupt the New Jersey prosecution of a friend of Uribe, in an example of how Menendez’s services were available both home and abroad.Sometimes the alleged bribes were more prosaic – expensive furniture, two exercise machines and an air purifier were bought for the couple by IS EG Halal – but still amounted to thousands of dollars.In the indictment, prosecutors have asked that the couple be required to forfeit to the government their home, the Mercedes, and the $480,000 in cash, plus $79,760 found in a safe deposit box, and all their gold bars.As for Menendez’s political career, it may now be forever associated with the photos released by investigators from his home: the almost parody-of-corruption images showing money stuffed into pockets, and gold bars laid out on paper towels.One of the jackets Menendez used to store his cash had his political title emblazoned on the chest: Senator Menendez. If prosecutors – and many of his colleagues – have their way, the New Jerseyite will be called that no more. More

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      Chuck Schumer says he is ‘disturbed’ by Bob Menendez bribery charges

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      The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on Wednesday he was “disturbed” by the fraud indictment against his fellow Democratic Senator, Bob Menendez, and that the New Jersey lawmaker has fallen “way short” of senatorial standards.Menendez pleaded not guilty earlier in the day to charges of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen, as calls for his resignation from his fellow Democrats escalated.He was released on a $100,000 bond and then left federal court in New York without speaking to reporters.Federal prosecutors in Manhattan last week accused Menendez, 69, and his wife, Nadine, of accepting gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for the senator using his influence to aid Egypt’s government and interfere with law enforcement investigations of the businessmen.Schumer was the most senior Democrat yet to comment on Menendez’s alleged crimes, though he stopped short of calling for the senator to resign, as almost 30 of his colleagues in the congressional upper chamber have done.However, Schumer, from New York, said: “Tomorrow, he will address the Democratic caucus and we’ll see what happens after that.”The majority leader said he was disappointed and disturbed by the indictment.“We all know that … for senators, there’s a much, much higher standard. And clearly when you read the indictment, Senator Menendez fell way, way below that standard,” Schumer said.Menendez entered the plea at a hearing before the US magistrate judge Ona Wang in Manhattan. Wang said Menendez could be released on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond.The Democratic senator will be required to surrender his personal passport, but may retain his official passport and travel abroad on official business. His wife, Nadine Menendez, 56, and businessmen Jose Uribe, 56, and Fred Daibes, 66, also pleaded not guilty. A third businessman, Wael Hana, 40, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.Menendez, one of two senators representing New Jersey, stepped down from his role as chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, as required under his party’s rules.But on Monday he said he would stay in the Senate and fight the charges. More than half of all US Democratic senators – including Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey and historically a close ally – have called on Menendez, a powerful voice on foreign policy who has at times bucked his own party, to resign since the charges were announced on Friday.Dick Durbin of Illinois, the number two Democrat in the Senate, on Wednesday joined his colleagues in urging Menendez to step down, saying on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he believed he could no longer serve.Democrats narrowly control the Senate with 51 seats, including three independents who normally vote with them, to the Republicans’ 49. The Democratic New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, who would appoint a temporary replacement should Menendez step aside, has also called for him to resign.The indictment contained images of gold bars and cash investigators seized from Menendez’s home. Prosecutors say Hana arranged meetings between Menendez and Egyptian officials – who pressed him to sign off on military aid – and in return put his wife on the payroll of a company he controlled.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe investigation marks the third time Menendez has been under investigation by federal prosecutors. He has never been convicted.Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic caucus, called for Menendez to resign during a news conference with House Democratic leadership.Menendez has had “an incredible track record” of service to the people of New Jersey and of having “lifted up issues that the Latino community cares about”, Aguilar said.“It doesn’t bring me or any of us joy to say that he should resign. But he should for the betterment of the Democratic party. For the people of New Jersey. It’s better that he fights this trial outside of the halls of Congress.”Almost 30 Democratic senators had called on Menendez to resign by mid-morning on Wednesday.On Wednesday, the judge ordered him not to have contact outside of the presence of lawyers with his co-defendants except for his wife.He also cannot have contact outside of the presence of lawyers with members of his Senate staff, foreign relations committee staff or political advisers who have personal knowledge about the facts of the case, though it is unclear how those restrictions would impact his work.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      New York judge finds Trump committed fraud by overvaluing business assets and net worth – live

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      From 13m agoThe Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, reached an agreement on a stopgap spending plan that would keep the government open past Saturday.A bipartisan Senate draft measure would fund the government through 17 November and include around $6bn in new aid to Ukraine and roughly $6bn in disaster funding, Reuters reported.Speaking earlier today, Schumer said:
      We will continue to fund the government at present levels while maintaining our commitment to Ukraine’s security and humanitarian needs, while also ensuring those impacted by natural disasters across the country begin to get the resources they need.
      The 79-page stopgap spending bill, unveiled by the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, would not include any border security measures, a major sticking point for House Republicans, Reuters reported.The short-term bill would avert a government shutdown on Sunday while also providing billions in disaster relief and aid to Ukraine.The bill includes $4.5bn from an operations and maintenance fund for the defense department “to remain available until Sept. 30, 2024 to respond to the situation in Ukraine,” according to the measure’s text.The bill also includes another $1.65bn in state department funding for additional assistance to Ukraine that would be available until 30 September 2025.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, reached an agreement on a stopgap spending plan that would keep the government open past Saturday.A bipartisan Senate draft measure would fund the government through 17 November and include around $6bn in new aid to Ukraine and roughly $6bn in disaster funding, Reuters reported.Speaking earlier today, Schumer said:
      We will continue to fund the government at present levels while maintaining our commitment to Ukraine’s security and humanitarian needs, while also ensuring those impacted by natural disasters across the country begin to get the resources they need.
      Joe Biden’s dog, Commander, bit another Secret Service agent at the White House on Monday.In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, said:
      Yesterday around 8pm, a Secret Service Uniformed Division police officer came in contact with a First Family pet and was bitten. The officer was treated by medical personnel on complex.
      Commander has been involved in at least 11 biting incidents at the White House and at the Biden family home in Delaware. One such incident in November 2022 left an officer hospitalized after being bitten on the arms and thighs.Another of the president’s dogs, Major, was removed from the White House and relocated to Delaware following several reported biting incidents.Ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general Letitia James, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered that some of Donald Trump’s business licenses be rescinded as punishment after finding the former president committed fraud by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth.The judge also said he would continue to have an independent monitor oversee the Trump Organization’s operations.James sued Trump and his adult sons last year, alleging widespread fraud connected to the Trump Organization and seeking $250m and professional sanctions. She has said Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $2.23bn, and by one measure as much as $3.6bn, on annual financial statements given to banks and insurers.Assets whose values were inflated included Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his penthouse apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, and various office buildings and golf courses, she said.In his ruling, Judge Engoron said James had established liability for false valuations of several properties, Mar-a-Lago and the penthouse. He wrote:
      In defendants’ world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies. That is a is a fantasy world, not the real world.
      Judge Arthur F Engoron’s ruling marks a major victory for New York attorney general Letitia James’s civil case against Donald Trump.In the civil fraud suit, James is suing Trump, his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization for $250m.Today’s ruling, in a phase of the case known as summary judgment, resolves the key claim in James’s lawsuit, but six others remain.Trump has repeatedly sought to delay or throw out the case, and has repeatedly been rejected. He has also sued the judge, with an appeals court expected to rule this week on his lawsuit.A New York state judge has granted partial summary judgment to the New York attorney general, Letitia James, in the civil case against Donald Trump.Judge Arthur F Engoron found that Trump committed fraud for years while building his real estate empire, and that the former president and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing, AP reports:
      Beyond mere bragging about his riches, Trump, his company and key executives repeatedly lied about them on his annual financial statements, reaping rewards such as favorable loan terms and lower insurance premiums, Engoron found.
      Those tactics crossed a line and violated the law, the judge said in his ruling on Tuesday.The decision by Judge Engoron precedes a trial that is scheduled to begin on Monday. James, a Democrat, sued Trump and his adult sons last year, alleging widespread fraud connected to the Trump Organization and seeking $250m and professional sanctions.Joe Biden has warned that Americans could be “forced to pay the price” because House Republicans “refuse to stand up to the extremists in their party”.As the House standoff stretches on, the White House has accused Republicans of playing politics at the expense of the American people.Biden tweeted:For an idea of the state of play in the House, consider what Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy said to CNN when asked how he would pass a short-term funding measure through the chamber, despite opposition from his own party.McCarthy has not said if he will put the bill expected to pass the Senate today up for a vote in the House, but if he does, it’s possible it won’t win enough votes from Republicans to pass, assuming Democrats also vote against it.Asked to comment on how he’d get around this opposition, McCarthy deflected, and accused Republican detractors of, bizarrely, aligning themselves with Joe Biden. Here’s more from CNN, on why he said that:In a marked contrast to the rancor and dysfunction gripping the House, the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, also endorsed the short-term government funding bill up for a vote today, Politico reports:McConnell’s comments are yet another positive sign it’ll pass the chamber, and head to an uncertain fate in the House.The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, says he expects a short-term government funding measure to pass his chamber with bipartisan support, Politico reports:The question is: what reception will it get in the House? If speaker Kevin McCarthy puts the bill up for a vote, it may attract enough Democratic votes to offset any defections from rightwing Republicans. But those insurgents have made clear that any collaboration between McCarthy and Democrats will result in them holding a vote to remove him as speaker.The House and Senate will in a few hours hold votes that will be crucial to the broader effort to stop the government from shutting down at the end of the week.The federal fiscal year ends on 30 September, after which many federal agencies will have exhausted their funding and have to curtail services or shut down entirely until Congress reauthorizes their spending. But lawmakers have failed to pass bills authorizing the government’s spending into October due to a range of disagreements between them, with the most pronounced split being between House Republicans who back speaker Kevin McCarthy and a small group of rightwing insurgents who have blocked the chamber from considering a measure to fund the government for a short period beyond the end of the month.At 5.30pm, the Democratic-dominated Senate will vote on a bill that extends funding for a short period of time, but lacks any new money for Ukraine or disaster relief that Joe Biden’s allies have requested. Those exclusions are seen as a bid to win support in the Republican-led House.The House is meanwhile taking procedural votes on four long-term spending bills. If the votes succeed, it could be a sign that McCarthy has won over some of his detractors – but that alone won’t be enough to keep the government open.As GOP House speaker Kevin McCarthy mulls a meeting with Joe Biden to resolve the possibility that the federal government will shut down at the end of this week, here’s the Guardian’s Joan E Greve with the latest on the chaotic negotiations between Republicans and Democrats in both chambers of Congress on preventing it:With just five days left to avert a federal shutdown, the House and the Senate return on Tuesday to resume their tense budget negotiations in the hope of cobbling together a last-minute agreement to keep the government open.The House will take action on four appropriations bills, which would address longer-term government funding needs but would not specifically help avoid a shutdown on 1 October.The four bills include further funding cuts demanded by the hard-right House members who have refused to back a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, that would prevent a shutdown.The House is expected to take a procedural vote on those four bills on Tuesday. If that vote is successful, the House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, may attempt to use the victory as leverage with the hard-right members of his conference to convince them to back a continuing resolution.But it remains unclear whether those four appropriations bills can win enough support to clear the procedural vote, given that one of the holdout Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has said she will not back the spending package because it includes funding for Ukraine.Donald Trump has launched a lengthy and largely baseless attack on wind turbines for causing large numbers of whales to die, claiming that “windmills” are making the cetaceans “crazy” and “a little batty”.Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, used a rally in South Carolina to assert that while there was only a small chance of killing a whale by hitting it with a boat, “their windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before. No one does anything about that.”“They are washing up ashore,” said Trump, the twice-impeached former US president and gameshow host who is facing multiple criminal indictments.
      You wouldn’t see that once a year – now they are coming up on a weekly basis. The windmills are driving them crazy. They are driving the whales, I think, a little batty.
      Trump has a history of making false or exaggerated claims about renewable energy, previously asserting that the noise from wind turbines can cause cancer, and that the structures “kill all the birds”. In that case, experts say there is no proven link to ill health from wind turbines, and that there are far greater causes of avian deaths, such as cats or fossil fuel infrastructure. There is also little to support Trump’s foray into whale science.The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, said it would be “very important” to meet with Joe Biden to avert a government shutdown, and suggested the president could solve the crisis at the southern border unilaterally.Asked why he was not willing to strike a deal with congressional Democrats on a short-term funding bill to keep the government open, NBC reports that McCarthy replied:
      Why don’t we just cut a deal with the president?
      He added:
      The president, all he has to do … it’s only actions that he has to take. He can do it like that. He changed all the policies on the border. He can change those. We can keep government open and finish out the work that we have done.
      Asked if he was requesting a meeting with Biden, McCarthy said:
      I think it would be very important to have a meeting with the president to solve that issue.
      Here’s a clip of Joe Biden’s remarks as he joined striking United Auto Workers members (UAW) outside a plant in Michigan.Addressing the picketing workers, the president said they had made a lot of sacrifices when their companies were in trouble. He added:
      Now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too.
      Asked if the UAW should get a 40% increase, Biden said yes.Joe Biden became the first sitting US president in modern memory to visit a union picket line, traveling to Van Buren township, Michigan, to address United Auto Workers members who have walked off the job at the big three automakers. The president argued that the workers deserve higher wages, and appeared alongside the union’s leader, Shawn Fain – who has yet to endorse Biden’s re-election bid. Back in Washington DC, Congress is as troubled as ever. The leaders of the House and Senate are trying to avoid a government shutdown, but there’s no telling if their plans will work. Meanwhile, more and more Democratic senators say Bob Menendez should resign his seat after being indicted on corruption charges, including his fellow Jerseyman, Cory Booker.Here’s what else is going on:Here was the scene in Van Buren township, Michigan, as Joe Biden visited striking United Auto Workers members, in the first visit to a picket line by a US president: More