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      Tammy Murphy Is Running for NJ Senate, in Hopes of Replacing Menendez

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      Ms. Murphy is likely to face at least three Democratic primary challengers — and possibly Senator Bob Menendez, who is accused of accepting bribes.Tammy Murphy, the wife of Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, announced on Wednesday that she was running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat now held by the state’s embattled senior senator, Robert Menendez, who has been charged with accepting bribes.Ms. Murphy, 58, is a first-time candidate for public office who describes herself on tax forms as a homemaker. During her husband’s six years as governor, she has been an active first lady who has worked to improve the state’s high rates of maternal and infant mortality and to expand instruction about climate change in public schools.Before she and Mr. Murphy married, 30 years ago, Ms. Murphy worked as a financial analyst, and she has since volunteered on nonprofit and philanthropic boards.Ms. Murphy has been preparing for more than a month to run for the Senate, and she announced her candidacy on Wednesday with the release of a nearly four-minute video.“We owe it to our kids to do better,” she says, speaking directly to the camera and presenting herself primarily as a mother of four who, when given the chance, used her platform as first lady to advocate for improved pregnancy outcomes.“Right now, Washington is filled with too many people more interested in getting rich or getting on camera,” she says as a photo of Mr. Menendez flashes in the background, “than getting things done for you.”Ms. Murphy already has at least two Democratic primary opponents: Representative Andy Kim, who has represented South Jersey in Congress since 2019, and Larry Hamm, a political activist and second-time Senate candidate who leads the People’s Organization for Progress. Patricia Campos-Medina, a left-leaning labor leader who runs the Worker Institute at Cornell University, said on Tuesday that she was also preparing to enter the race.Mr. Menendez has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of bribery and plotting to be an agent of Egypt, and he has said that he will not resign from the Senate.He has not ruled out seeking re-election, but if he does compete for the Democratic nomination, he will face several practical challenges.A federal judge has scheduled his trial to start a month before the June primary, and he has been abandoned by nearly every leading Democrat in the state, including Mr. Murphy, leaving him an extremely difficult path to victory.Mr. Menendez said Ms. Murphy’s entry into the race proved that the governor, who was among the first officials to call for his resignation, had a “personal, vested interest” in doing so.“They believe they have to answer to nobody,” Mr. Menendez said about the Murphys in a written statement. “But I am confident that the people of New Jersey will push back against this blatant maneuver at disenfranchisement.”Ms. Murphy, in Wednesday’s video, called her role as New Jersey’s first lady the “honor of my life.” But she has also earned a reputation as an aggressive campaign fund-raiser and now has seven months to introduce herself to voters as a candidate in her own right.She is running as a Democrat for one of the most coveted political prizes in the country, yet she is a relative newcomer to the party. Voting records show she regularly voted in Republican primaries until 2014, three years before her husband was elected governor of a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly one million voters.Ms. Murphy continued to vote in Republican primaries even while Mr. Murphy served as finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee and as the ambassador to Germany, appointed by former President Barack Obama.She declined an interview request, and her aides have refused to discuss her reasons for changing parties as a 49-year-old.But Mr. Kim said Ms. Murphy’s voting history raised valid questions, particularly in a Democratic primary.“I think she needs to explain that,” Mr. Kim, 41, said Monday in an interview.Mr. Menendez also took a swipe at the first lady’s changed party affiliation.“While Tammy Murphy was a card-carrying Republican for years,” he said, “I was working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”Mr. Kim, a national security adviser during the Obama administration, entered the Senate race a day after Mr. Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, were accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for the senator’s efforts to steer aid and weapons to Egypt and help allies avoid criminal prosecution.Mr. Kim also released a campaign video this week, in which he is shown talking to a group of disenchanted voters.“I believe that the opposite of democracy is apathy,” Mr. Kim, the father of 6- and 8-year-old boys, said to explain his motivation for running.“I look at all the craziness in the world,” he said, adding, “I don’t want my kids to grow up in a broken America.”Mr. Kim, who gained national prominence after being photographed clearing debris from the floor of the Capitol after the Jan. 6 attack, raised nearly $1 million in a single week after announcing his candidacy, and he said he was continuing to raise money at a brisk clip.To win, he will most likely need to capture the imaginations of voters without significant help from New Jersey’s Democratic Party leaders, who hold sway over the so-called county line — ballot placement that is often considered tantamount to victory.New Jersey has a unique election system that enables Democratic and Republican county leaders to anoint favored candidates in each race on a primary ballot and bracket them together in a vertical or horizontal column.Studies have shown that being chosen increases a candidate’s likelihood of victory by as much as 38 percentage points.“It’s a rigged game,” said Julia Sass Rubin, an associate dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University who has researched the influence of the county line in federal and legislative races. New Jersey’s Working Families Alliance and several former candidates have filed a federal lawsuit that they hope will lead a court to overturn the practice. “The election is almost over before it starts,” Brett Pugach, a lawyer who brought the federal suit, said about the ballot system, which he believes is unconstitutional.But in the meantime, the governor and Ms. Murphy have been busily courting Democratic leaders in the state’s heavily populated counties nearest New York City and Philadelphia, according to three people familiar with the conversations who did not want to be identified saying anything that could be considered critical of the governor.Several of those chairmen work as lobbyists with significant business before the state or hold lucrative state jobs, limiting the likelihood that they might openly oppose a governor with two years left in his term — and control over the next two multibillion-dollar state budgets.Ms. Campos-Medina, who emigrated from El Salvador as a 14-year-old, said it was these “back-room deals among political elites” that had pushed her to run.“The line disenfranchises women and, in particular, women of color and doesn’t encourage voter participation,” Ms. Campos-Medina, 50, said.After Ms. Murphy’s announcement, a coalition of 26 left-leaning organizations in New Jersey signed a letter criticizing the first lady’s candidacy.“We are offended that the corruption from Senator Menendez, who is under indictment and who has still refused to resign, is going to be replaced with nepotism,” the coalition, Fair Vote Alliance, wrote.Whoever wins the Democratic primary will square off next November against a Republican hoping to break the Democrats’ four-decade Senate winning streak. There are at least two Republicans interested in vying for the nomination: Christine Serrano Glassner, the mayor of Mendham Borough, and Shirley Maia-Cusick, a member of the Federated Republican Women of Hunterdon County.If one of the women is successful, she would make history as the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from New Jersey.Ms. Murphy would also be the first spouse of a sitting governor to be elected to the Senate in the United States. And she would also be likely to become the fifth member of New Jersey’s congressional delegation with relatives who have held prominent political positions, joining Representatives Tom Kean Jr., Rob Menendez Jr., Donald Norcross and Donald M. Payne Jr., all of whom are Democrats.Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University professor who has studied Congress for 50 years, said New Jersey’s county-line system contributed to what he called “political dynasties.”“It’s fundamentally undemocratic,” Professor Baker said. “Politics shouldn’t be a family business.” More

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      N.J. Legislative Races on the Ballot

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      Despite being outnumbered by nearly a million voters, Republicans hope to cut into Democratic majorities in the state Legislature on Election Day.The news landed like a bombshell a week before New Jersey’s pivotal legislative races: Orsted, a Danish company that had been hired to build two wind farms off the South Jersey coast, was abruptly abandoning the project.Overnight, a linchpin of Gov. Philip D. Murphy’s clean energy plan vanished, unleashing finger-pointing among his fellow Democrats, who are fighting to retain control of the Legislature, and I-told-you-sos from Republicans, who had opposed the offshore-wind projects.Orsted cited broad economic forces, including higher building costs, as the reason for pulling out, but it retained the rights to the seabed lease, preventing New Jersey from immediately bringing in another company to develop the site. “The Republicans are going to do a victory lap,” said Jeff Tittel, a longtime New Jersey environmental advocate who supports the development of offshore wind farms, “while the Democrats have egg on their face.”In 2021, with Mr. Murphy at the top of the ticket, Republicans gained seven seats in the Legislature, which Democrats control, when voters, angry about the state’s Covid-19 mandates, turned out in droves. Stephen M. Sweeney, a Democrat who was State Senate president at the time, lost to Edward Durr Jr., a conservative, first-time candidate.Republicans hope to tally further gains when voters go to the polls on Tuesday, as Democrats try to recover lost ground. Some Republicans have speculated about the possibility of flipping either the Assembly or the Senate, something that has not occurred in two decades and that would require virtually every competitive race to cut their way.All 120 legislative seats are on the ballot. Democrats hold a 46-34 majority in the Assembly and a 25-15 advantage in the Senate.“We’re close enough to the target,” Alexandra Wilkes, a New Jersey Republican Party spokeswoman, said about winning a majority, “but we have to hit the darts right every time.”There are highly competitive races in South Jersey, in legislative Districts 3 and 4; along the Jersey Shore, in District 11; near Princeton, in District 16; and in Bergen County’s District 38.A lawsuit filed on Thursday, and the accusations that underpin it, illustrate how high each party considers the stakes.In the suit, filed in Atlantic County, Republicans asked a judge to take steps to blunt what they said was a dirty-tricks campaign by Democrats in the fourth legislative district. The complaint cited “phantom candidates,” whom the plaintiffs argued were on the ballot solely to siphon off Republican votes.On Friday, a judge blocked future spending by a group funding the Democratic candidates. Ms. Wilkes said Republicans were pleased the court had recognized the “egregious violation of the public trust.”Much of the campaign rhetoric has involved cultural wedge issues, including abortion rights and whether schools should be required to tell parents about how students express their gender. State policies meant to make residents less dependent on gas-powered stoves and vehicles have also been used by Republicans to energize their base. Orsted’s announcement added force to that rallying cry.Assembly Republicans produced a mocking video. Senator Michael Testa, a South Jersey Republican who represents shore communities where opposition to wind energy is strongest, called the Orsted deal a “boondoggle.”Voting by mail began over a month ago, and early machine voting has taken place over the past two weeks. With no statewide office on the ballot, though, Election Day turnout is expected to be low.LeRoy J. Jones Jr., the New Jersey Democratic State Committee chairman, said the party’s focus this cycle had been on expanding its base by adding “younger and less consistent voters.”“It’s all about get-out-the-vote now,” Mr. Jones said on Tuesday.During the legislative elections in 2021, Mr. Murphy, who governed as a steadfast liberal in his first term, became New Jersey’s first Democratic governor to win re-election in 44 years. But he won by just three percentage points. Since then, he has governed as more of a moderate, talking regularly about affordability. In June, he signed a bill geared toward cutting property taxes for most older homeowners by 50 percent beginning in 2026. Democrats have featured the tax cut prominently in their campaigns.A loss or significant erosion of the Democratic majority in either house could be politically damaging to Mr. Murphy in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a million voters. It might also dim the political prospects of his wife, Tammy Murphy, who is expected to enter the race for Senator Robert Menendez’s seat as early as next week. Ms. Murphy, who has championed reproductive rights, joined her husband last week at an event where he promoted a new website where residents can get information about abortion services. Several Democratic lawmakers in tight races attended the event, a sign of how potent they believe reproductive rights may be as an issue this year. Senator Joseph Lagana, a Democrat, said voters appeared concerned that abortion rights could be curtailed in New Jersey, where the procedure remains legal, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.“It’s a very real issue,” Mr. Lagana said. “It’s a driving factor.” More

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      The Blind Ambition of Chris Christie

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      Chris Christie’s presidential announcement at a June town hall at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire may not have had the drama of, say, a “West Wing” episode, but it did help clarify our current political moment and its most intriguing character. For over two hours — you could turn it into a mini-series — Mr. Christie, a former New Jersey governor and federal prosecutor, built a case against Donald Trump. To nominate him for the presidency again, Mr. Christie said, would be a moral and political disaster. “Trump made us smaller,” Mr. Christie told his audience as he prowled the stage, explaining that he wanted to go after Mr. Trump for two reasons: “One, he deserves it. And two, it’s the way to win.”It’s a bold premise, but more sound than it might seem. Almost any pollster will tell you that Mr. Trump’s support is soft once you look beyond the MAGA base. A CNN poll conducted in late August found that 44 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning independents said they were seriously worried that Mr. Trump’s legal issues could impair his ability to win the general election. Mr. Christie is the only candidate speaking directly, specifically to this fear. A separate poll found that almost a third of Republican voters who intend to support Mr. Trump said they might still change their minds based on what happens in the months leading up to the first votes being cast.But in national surveys, Mr. Christie is still polling in the low single digits. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, looks increasingly inevitable as the Republican nominee. Even in New Hampshire, a state where moderate voters hold outsize influence, Mr. Christie is languishing in fourth place, at just 9 percent in the polls. Why isn’t his message resonating?There are the obvious explanations: Mr. Trump has advantages as a former president, and his legal troubles have given him an excuse to present himself as an outsider, persecuted by the powers that be; Mr. Christie, meanwhile, is competing in a crowded field, packed with other candidates desperate for the same voters. But there is something deeper at work here, and it holds clues about what it would take to attack Mr. Trump successfully. Because while Mr. Christie may sound like the perfect Trump nemesis — pugnacious, outspoken, loud — he is a uniquely flawed foil for the former president, compromised in ways that blunt his most effective attacks. And though Mr. Christie’s journey through Republican politics is especially colorful — he is from New Jersey, after all — most of the other candidates are running up against similar problems as they struggle to maneuver through a political landscape forever changed by Mr. Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please 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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      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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      Groundswell of Democrats Builds Calling on Menendez to Resign

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      The New Jersey Democrat’s indictment last week initially prompted only a handful of calls from within his party for his exit. But on Tuesday, the dam broke, led by colleagues facing re-election next year.A stampede of Senate Democrats led by some of the party’s most endangered incumbents rushed forward on Tuesday calling for Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey to resign, a day after he defiantly vowed to fight federal corruption charges and predicted he would be exonerated.Even as Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, defended Mr. Menendez as a “dedicated public servant” and refused to publicly move to push him out, the drumbeat for Mr. Menendez to step down grew from within his ranks. That left Mr. Schumer in a difficult position, caught between his role as the leader and defender of all Senate Democrats and the political imperative of cutting loose a member of his caucus who had become a political liability in an already difficult slog to keep the party’s Senate majority.The most notable call for Mr. Menendez to go came from Senator Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey who has long been a close friend and fierce defender of Mr. Menendez. Mr. Booker, who testified as a character witness for Mr. Menendez during his first corruption trial, said the “shocking allegations of corruption” were “hard to reconcile with the person I know.”He added: “I believe stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving.”His statement came amid a flood of calls by Democrats running for re-election next year in politically competitive states, who appeared eager to distance themselves from Mr. Menendez. The third-term senator was indicted last week on bribery charges in what prosecutors alleged was a sordid scheme that included abusing his power as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit Egypt.The most notable call from Mr. Menendez to go came from Senator Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey who has long been a close friend of Mr. Menendez.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesSenator Jon Tester of Montana, who is running in a state that former President Donald J. Trump won by more than 16 points in 2020, said Mr. Menendez needed to go “for the sake of the public’s faith in the U.S. Senate.” Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a onetime bellwether state that has shifted sharply to the right over the past two presidential election cycles, said Mr. Menendez had “broken the public trust and should resign from the U.S. Senate.”And Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who launched her re-election bid in a battleground state by predicting that her race would decide control of the Senate, said the corruption charges were a “distraction that undermines the bipartisan work we need to do in the Senate for the American people.”Democrats view the fact that they were able to get all of their vulnerable senators to run for re-election in 2024 as their biggest source of strength in their quest to hold onto their slim majority next year.By noon, those vulnerable Democrats had helped open the floodgates, with more than a dozen Democratic senators from across the country joining them and rushing to release statements calling for Mr. Menendez’s resignation ahead of their weekly lunch in the Capitol. By the end of the day, at least 24 Democratic senators — almost half the caucus — had reached the conclusion that their colleague needed to go.Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the head of the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm who is leading the effort to keep the party’s hold on the majority, was among those calling on him to quit. And New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, said on Tuesday that she agreed with Mr. Booker that Mr. Menendez should step down.Those voices weighing in raised questions about what path Mr. Schumer might take down the line.Mr. Booker often described Mr. Menendez, the senior senator, as a friend, ally and mentor. But the nature of the charges, along with the political landscape of the state, appeared to have played a role in changing his mind.Even before the latest indictment was announced, opinion polls indicated that public support for Mr. Menendez was waning, said Patrick Murray, director of the Polling Institute at Monmouth University in New Jersey.During Mr. Menendez’s first criminal indictment, “New Jersey voters, and particularly Democrats, were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Mr. Murray said. “This time, public opinion is different.”The floodgates may have opened on Tuesday, but it took Democrats in the Senate days to get around to condemning their colleague.On Friday, Mr. Menendez stepped down temporarily as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, under the rules put in place by his own party, but Mr. Schumer defended his right to remain in office. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said any decision about Mr. Menendez’s future in the Senate was “going to be up to him and the Senate leadership.”A lone Democratic voice over the weekend adding to calls for Mr. Menendez to go was Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who hails from another battleground state. He vowed to return campaign donations from Mr. Menendez’s leadership PAC in envelopes stuffed with $100 bills — an apparent reference to the indictment against Mr. Menendez, which said investigators found jackets and envelopes stuffed with cash at his home, allegedly containing the fruits of the senator’s corrupt dealings.Mr. Fetterman, who has come under criticism from his colleagues for pressing for a dress code change in the fusty Senate to accommodate his shorts-and-hoodie uniform, on Tuesday said he hoped his Democratic colleagues would “fully address the alleged systematic corruption of Senator Menendez with the same vigor and velocity they brought to concerns about our dress code.”Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker from California, on Monday night also weighed in on the Menendez scandal, helping wedge open the door for detractors, saying on MSNBC that it would “probably be a good idea” for him to resign.Some Republicans, on the other hand, jumped to Mr. Menendez’s defense, arguing that Democrats should have to weather the political consequences of his conduct.“He should be judged by jurors and New Jersey’s voters, not by Democratic politicians who now view him as inconvenient to their hold on power,” Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, wrote on X, previously Twitter.Speaker Kevin McCarthy, however, said on Saturday that Mr. Menendez should go, arguing that the case laid out by prosecutors was “pretty black and white.” In contrast, Mr. McCarthy, a California Republican, has defended one of his own indicted members, Representative George Santos of New York, saying that it was not up to him to decide whether he should represent his district.“You know why I’m standing by him? Because his constituents voted for him,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Santos in January. Mr. Menendez won re-election in 2018 by a 12-point margin.On Tuesday, Mr. McCarthy appeared to change his position on Mr. Menendez, telling reporters that “it could be his choice with what he wants to do.”Christopher Maag More