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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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      in Elections

      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

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      Cory Booker joins calls for Menendez to resign after bribery charges

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      In a significant blow to Bob Menendez’s hopes of staying in the US Senate while under indictment for corruption, Cory Booker – his fellow New Jersey Democrat – joined calls for the senator to resign.“The details of the allegations against Senator Menendez are of such a nature that the faith and trust of New Jerseyans as well as those he must work with in order to be effective have been shaken to the core,” Booker said on Tuesday.Booker, who has been in the US Senate since 2013, added: “I believe stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving.”By early afternoon, more than a dozen Democratic senators had called for Menendez to quit.Menendez, 69, was elected to the Senate in 2006. He survived a previous corruption investigation, which was dropped in 2017 after a jury failed to reach a verdict.Last week, Menendez was charged with using his position as chair of the Senate foreign relations committee to profit by assisting the government of Egypt, through three businessmen in his home state.The senator and his wife are alleged to have taken bribes including gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz car and more than $500,000 in cash.On Monday, speaking to reporters in Union City, Menendez said the cash was from his savings.“For 30 years,” he said, “I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings accounts, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.“Now this may seem old-fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings accounts based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years. I look forward to addressing other issues in trial.”He did not mention the gold bars or the car or say if he planned to seek re-election. He ignored questions from reporters.“Everything I’ve accomplished, I’ve worked for despite the naysayers and everyone who has underestimated me,” Menendez said.“I recognise this will be the biggest fight yet, but as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jersey’s senior senator.”To those calling for his resignation, he said: “The court of public opinion is no substitute for our revered justice system. Those who rushed to judgment, you have done so based on a limited set of facts framed by the prosecution to be as salacious as possible. Remember, prosecutors get it wrong.”Then, only one Democratic senator, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, had joined influential Democrats including the governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, and the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in calling for Menendez to quit.Many observers turned their gaze to Booker, a Menendez ally and high-profile Democrat who ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPolitico observed: “Menendez might stick around no matter what Booker says, but if Booker calls for Menendez’s resignation it will make it safer and easier for every other Democrat who has remained mum to do the same. On the other hand, a supportive statement from Booker will be worth its weight in gold.”On Tuesday, Booker followed other Democratic senators – Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Peter Welch of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jacky Rosen of Nevada – in saying Menendez should go.“For nearly a decade,” Booker said, “I’ve worked in the Senate alongside Senator Menendez … I’ve witnessed his extraordinary work and boundless work ethic. I’ve consistently found Senator Menendez to be intellectually gifted, tough, passionate and deeply empathic. We have developed a working relationship and a friendship.”Saying the new indictment “contains shocking allegations of corruption and specific, disturbing details of wrongdoing”, Booker said he found that “hard to reconcile with the person I know”. He expected Menendez to mount “a vigorous defence”, he said.But, he said, “there is [a] higher standard for public officials, one not of criminal law but of common ideals. As senators, we operate in the public trust … The allegations against Senator Menendez are of such a nature that the faith and trust of New Jerseyans as well as those he must work with … have been shaken to the core.“… Stepping down is not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgment that holding public office often demands tremendous sacrifices at great personal cost. Senator Menendez has made these sacrifices in the past to serve. And in this case he must do so again.”Other Democratic senators followed in Booker’s footsteps.They included Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.Jon Tester of Montana, a senator widely seen as vulnerable in his re-election fight next year, said: “I’ve read the detailed charges against Senator Menendez and find them deeply disturbing.“While he deserves a fair trial like every other American, I believe Senator Menendez should resign for the sake of the public’s faith in the US Senate.” More

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      AOC joins calls for Bob Menendez to resign from Senate over corruption charges

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined the calls for Bob Menendez to resign, after the Democratic US senator from New Jersey was charged with accepting gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz and other gifts as bribes.Speaking on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez said the charges against Menendez were “extremely serious” and he should step down.A growing number of Democrats are calling for Menendez, who has represented New Jersey in the Senate since 2006, to resign.Menendez is accused of using his position to aid Egypt’s authoritarian government and pressuring federal prosecutors to drop a case against a friend.Over the weekend, John Fetterman became the first US Senate Democrat to suggest Menendez should quit, while a Democratic New Jersey congressman announced he would run against Menendez in next year’s primary election.Asked about Menendez on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ocasio-Cortez said:“The situation is quite unfortunate, but I do believe that it is in the best interest for Senator Menendez to resign in this moment.“Consistency matters. It shouldn’t matter if it’s a Republican or a Democrat. The details in this indictment are extremely serious. They involve the nature of not just his but all of our seats in Congress.”Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks on Menendez come after she has previously called for a federal investigation into Clarence Thomas, the conservative supreme court justice, over his acceptance of undeclared gifts from wealthy rightwing donors.In August, ProPublica reported that Thomas had taken “at least 38” undeclared vacations funded by billionaires and accepted gifts including expensive sports tickets.Ocasio-Cortez had also previously called on Republican congressman George Santos to step down after he was indicted earlier this year for fraud, money laundering and other federal charges.Fetterman was another high-profile progressive who had called for Menendez’s resignation.“He’s entitled to the presumption of innocence under our system, but he is not entitled to continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations,” Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, said in a statement on Saturday.“I hope he chooses an honorable exit and focuses on his trial.”Menendez denies the charges against him. In a statement on Friday he said: “I am not going anywhere.”But that has not stopped a burgeoning movement calling for his departure.Since then, Phil Murphy, the Democratic governor of New Jersey, has joined the calls for Menendez to resign.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMurphy would be in charge of appointing a replacement for Menendez if the senator leaves office. The replacement would be in office until a special election is held.Also on Sunday, Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic New Jersey congressman, repeated his previous call for Menendez to quit.“I called on him, given the gravity of the charges, to step aside,” Gottheimer told CNN.“Given how we’ve got elections coming up, there’s a lot of distractions; obviously giving the senator time to defend himself, I think what’s best is that he step aside and we focus on issues.”Menendez has been charged with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, in connection with alleged intervention on behalf of Egypt, and in allegedly pressuring federal prosecutors to drop a case against a friend.The indictment against Menendez alleged that he and his wife were paid a series of bribes by three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for corrupt acts. FBI agents investigating Menendez discovered “a lot of gold”, allegedly provided by businessman Fred Daibes, in the senator’s home, as well as about $500,000 in cash.Some of the money was “stuffed into envelopes and closets”, and some was “stuffed in the senator’s jacket pockets”, the FBI said.On Saturday, the Democratic New Jersey congressman Andy Kim said he would run against Menendez in the 2024 primary election.“After calls to resign, Senator Menendez said: ‘I am not going anywhere,’” Kim said in a statement.“As a result, I feel compelled to run against him. This is not something I expected to do, but I believe New Jersey deserves better. We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our country’s integrity.“I believe it’s time we restore faith in our democracy, and that’s why I am stepping up and running for Senate.” More

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      Does Robert Menendez Have Enough Teflon to Survive Again?

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      Senator Menendez, who has defeated prosecutors and political challengers, faces his sternest test yet in his federal indictment in Manhattan.In a state long attuned to the drumbeat of political corruption — salacious charges, furious denials, explosive trials — Senator Robert Menendez has often registered as the quintessential New Jersey politician.He successfully avoided charges in one case, and after federal prosecutors indicted him in another, he got off after a mistrial in 2017. “To those who were digging my political grave,” Mr. Menendez warned then with characteristic bravado, “I know who you are and I won’t forget you.”Six years later, he is once again on the brink, battling for his political life after federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed a jarring new indictment on Friday charging the powerful Democratic senator and his wife in a garish bribery scheme involving a foreign power, piles of cash and gold bars.A defiant Mr. Menendez, 69, immediately vowed to clear his name from what he cast as just more smears by vengeful prosecutors. A top adviser said that he would also continue running for re-election in 2024, when he is trying to secure a fourth full term.But as details of the case quickly spread through Trenton and Washington — including images of an allegedly ill-begotten Mercedes-Benz convertible and cash bribes hidden in closets — it was clear Mr. Menendez may be confronting the gravest political challenge in a career that started 49 years ago in the shadow of New York City.Calls for his resignation mounted from ethics groups, Republicans and even longtime Democratic allies who stood by him last time, including the governor, state party chairman and the leaders of the legislature. And party strategists and elected officials were already openly speculating that one or more of a group of ambitious, young Democrats representing the state in Congress could mount a primary campaign against him.“The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state,” said Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat. “Therefore, I am calling for his immediate resignation.”Representatives Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell, two of the state’s longest serving Democrats who have served alongside Mr. Menendez for decades, joined them later. So did Representatives Mikie Sherrill and Andy Kim, two of the younger representatives considered possible primary challengers or replacements should the senator step down.For now, Mr. Menendez appeared to be on firmer footing among his colleagues in the Senate, including party leaders who could force his hand. They accepted his temporary resignation as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, but did not ask him to leave office.In a statement, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, called Mr. Menendez “a dedicated public servant” and said that his colleague had “a right to due process and a fair trial.”The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, right, urged against a rash judgment, saying Mr. Menendez had a “right to due process and a fair trial.”Erin Schaff/The New York TimesCalls for his ouster seemed to only embolden Mr. Menendez, who spent part of Friday afternoon trying to rally allies by phone. “It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat,” he wrote in a fiery retort to Democrats who broke with him. “I am not going anywhere.”The electoral stakes were high, and not just for Mr. Menendez.Though he had yet to formally answer the charges in court, some party strategists were already gauging the possibility that Mr. Menendez could be scheduled to stand trial in the middle of the campaign — an unwelcome distraction for Democratic candidates across the nation.Republicans were already using the indictment to attack the party. “Democrats covered for Menendez the first time he got indicted for corruption,” said Philip Letsou, a spokesman for the Senate Republican campaign committee. “It would be a shame if they did so again.”Democrats have not lost a Senate race in New Jersey since the 1970s. But allowing Mr. Menendez to stay in office could at the least force the party to spend heavily to defend the seat at a time when it already faces daunting odds of retaining a razor-thin majority.“I understand personal loyalty, and I understand the depths of friendships, but somebody needs to take a stand here,” said Robert Torricelli, the former Democratic senator from New Jersey. “This is not about him — it’s about holding the majority.”Mr. Torricelli speaks from experience. He retired rather than seek re-election in 2002 after his own ethics scandal ended without charges. He was also widely believed to be a target of Mr. Menendez’s ire after the former senator put his hand up to succeed Mr. Menendez had he been convicted in 2017.“In the history of the United States Congress, it is doubtful there has ever been a corruption allegation of this depth and seriousness,” Mr. Torricelli added. “The degree of the evidence. The gold bars and the hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash. It’s incomprehensible.”The details laid out in the 39-page indictment were nothing short of tawdry. Prosecutors said that Mr. Menendez had used his position to provide sensitive government information to Egypt, browbeat the Department of Agriculture and tamper with a criminal investigation. In exchange, associates rewarded him with the gold bullion, car and cash, along with home mortgage payments and other benefits, they said.Prosecutors referred to a text between an Egyptian general and an Egyptian American businessman in which Mr. Menendez was referred to as “our man.” At one point, prosecutors said, the senator searched in a web browser “how much is one kilo of gold worth.”Damien Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, laid out details of a 39-page indictment against Mr. Menendez.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesMr. Menendez is far from the first elected official in New Jersey to face serious criminal allegations. With a long tradition of one-party rule, a bare-knuckle political culture and an unusual patchwork of governmental fiefs, the state has been a hotbed for corruption that has felled city councilors, mayors, state legislators and members of Congress.The Washington Post tried to quantify the criminality in 2015 and found that New Jersey’s rate of crime per politician easily led any other state. Mr. Menendez already has a Democratic primary opponent, Kyle Jasey, a real estate lender and first-time candidate who called the indictment an “embarrassment for our state.” But political strategists and elected Democrats said Mr. Jasey may not have the lane to himself for long.New Jersey has a glut of ambitious Democratic members of Congress with outsize national profiles; it took barely minutes on Friday for the state’s political class to begin speculating about who might step forward.Among the most prominent were Ms. Sherrill, 51, and Josh Gottheimer, 48, moderates known for their fund-raising prowess who have proven they can win difficult suburban districts and were already said to be looking at statewide campaigns for governor in 2025, when Mr. Murphy cannot run because of term limits. Other names included Mr. Kim and Tom Malinowski, a two-term congressman who lost his seat last year.National Republicans cast their focus on Christine Serrano Glassner, the two-term mayor of a small community roughly 25 miles west of Newark, N.J., who announced this week she would run.Mr. Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, was elected to his first local office at age 20. At 28, he donned a bulletproof vest as he testified in a corruption trial against his former mentor. He won the mayoralty of Union City, before moving onto the State Assembly, the Senate, the House of Representatives and, in 2006, an appointment to the Senate.It was only a matter of months before he was in the sights of the U.S. attorney’s office of New Jersey. The senator was never charged, but the investigation became campaign fodder after the U.S. attorney, then Chris Christie, issued a subpoena to a community agency that paid rent to Mr. Menendez while getting lucrative federal grants.Almost a decade later, federal prosecutors went further, making Mr. Menendez the first sitting senator in a generation to face federal bribery charges in 2015. They accused him of exchanging political favors with a wealthy Florida eye surgeon for luxury vacations, expensive flights and campaign donations.A jury heard the case two years later and could not reach a verdict; the Justice Department later dropped the prosecution, but the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee “severely admonished” him for accepting gifts while promoting the surgeon’s interests.Even so, Mr. Menendez handily won his party’s nomination and re-election in 2018.To longtime analysts of the state politics, though, Friday’s case crossed a new threshold.“Even by New Jersey standards, this one stands out — how graphic it is, how raw it is,” said Micah Rasmussen, a seasoned Democratic political hand who now leads Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.“There is a world of difference between not reporting a plane ride and having half a million in hundreds stashed around your house,” Mr. Rasmussen added. “By all rights, this should be the end of the line.”Tracey Tully More

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      New Jersey senator Menendez rejects calls from fellow Democrats to resign

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      Several Democrats including his own state governor are calling on their fellow party member Robert Menendez to resign after federal authorities charged the New Jersey US senator and his wife with accepting bribes. However, the defiant senator has rejected those claims and is refusing to step down.Authorities on Friday revealed charges alleging that Robert and Nadine Menendez illegally accepted gold bars, cash, a luxurious Mercedes-Benz car and other gifts in exchange for favors benefiting three businessmen as well as influencing the Egyptian government.In response, the Democratic congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota told CNN he was deeply disappointed in Menendez and that the senator needed to resign. Phillips said that was his position despite his belief that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.“Yes, I am a Democrat and so is Senator Menendez, but based on what I have seen, I am disappointed and yes, I think he should resign,” Phillips said.He continued: “I’m appalled. Anybody who pays attention – I don’t care [about] your politics, Democrat or Republican, you should be appalled.“A member of Congress who appears to have broken the law is someone who I should believe should resign.”Phillips went on to invoke the case of George Santos, the Republican congressman who has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds.“I think George Santos should have resigned already,” he said. “Sadly, our House ethics process, and I would argue the Senate as well, is not as proficient as it needs to be so we have to rely on the judicial system, but I’m really disappointed.”Menendez rejected calls to resign and plans to refute the claims of bribery and corruption, according to NBC News. “Those who believe in justice believe in innocence until proven guilty. I intend to continue to fight for the people of New Jersey with the same success I’ve had for the past five decades,” Menendez said in the statement.“This is the same record of success these very same leaders have lauded all along. It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere,” he added.In response to a question on whether Democratic leaders in Congress should lean on Menendez to resign and push him out, Phillips replied: “Look, I am trying to restore faith in government.“That’s one of my missions. It’s a lot of my colleagues’ missions, and sometimes we have to walk that talk, even if it’s uncomfortable. And I would argue that this time, yes, the answer is absolutely.”The New Jersey representative Andy Kim, a Democrat, also called on Menendez to resign. The New Jersey Globe quoted Kim as saying: “These allegations are serious and alarming. It doesn’t matter what your job title is or your politics – no one in America is above the law.“The people of New Jersey absolutely need to know the truth of what happened, and I hope the judicial system works thoroughly and quickly to bring this truth to light.”He added: “In the meantime, I don’t have confidence that the senator has the ability to properly focus on our state and its people while addressing such a significant legal matter. He should step down.”Unsurprisingly, New Jersey’s Republican state committee joined Phillips and Kim in calling for Menendez to step down. The statement said Menendez’s “legal woes [were] an embarrassing distraction”.“For the good of the people of this state, who deserve full and devoted representation, we call on … Robert Menendez to resign,” the statement added.In New Jersey, if there is a vacancy in the US Senate, that seat gets filled by a gubernatorial appointment before a special election is held to replace the appointee. Should Menendez leave office, his vacancy would be filled by the state’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, a reality that perhaps makes it less uncomfortable for Phillips and Kim to insist on their fellow party member’s resignation.Murphy himself also called for Menendez to resign in a statement issued on Friday.“The allegations in the indictment … are deeply disturbing,” the statement said. “These are serious charges that implicate national security and the integrity of our criminal justice system.”In recent months, Democrats have not only called on Santos to be removed from Congress – they have also demanded that Donald Trump not run for a second term as president as he grapples with more than 90 criminal charges across four separate indictments.House Democrats introduced a resolution to expel the indicted Santos from Congress in May, but Republicans successfully sidestepped the maneuver.Meanwhile, Virginia’s Democratic US senator Tim Kaine said earlier this month that he believed there was a “powerful argument” to be made that Trump could be disqualified from running in the 2024 presidential election under the 14th amendment of the constitution. That amendment bars anyone who has taken an oath to support the constitution and has “engaged in insurrection” against the US from holding any civil, military or elected office without approval from two-thirds of both the House and Senate.Trump’s charges include ones in connection with the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress staged by his supporters after he lost the previous year’s presidential election to Joe Biden.Other liberals as well as prominent legal scholars across the country have echoed that argument. More

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      US senator Robert Menendez and wife charged with bribery offenses

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      The US senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, and his wife have been charged with bribery offenses in connection with accepting gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz, among other gifts, in exchange for protecting three businessmen and influencing the government of Egypt.FBI special agents discovered “a lot of gold” provided by Fred Daibes – a builder, and one of the three businessmen – during a search of the Menendez couple’s home in New Jersey, according to Damian Williams, US attorney for the southern district of New York.In a press conference on Friday, he said agents discovered approximately $500,000 of cash “stuffed into envelopes and closets”, some of which was “stuffed in the senator’s jacket pockets”.The FBI also found the Mercedes-Benz car that Jose Uribe, another of the three businessmen and a former insurance agent, had provided the couple, he said.“We are not done,” said Williams. “And I want to encourage anyone with information to come forward and to come forward quickly.”Menendez, who has been in the Senate since 2006, and his wife face three criminal counts each, including: conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. The senator’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Menendez, the chair of the US Senate committee on foreign relations, had previously been charged in New Jersey with accepting private flights, campaign contributions and other bribes from a wealthy patron in exchange for official favors, but a 2017 trial ended in a jury deadlock.The federal government now seeks the forfeiture of assets including the Menendezes’ New Jersey home, a 2019 Mercedez-Benz vehicle, about $566,000 in cash, gold bars and funds from a bank account.The businessmen in the case – Wael Hana, Uribe and Daibes – were also charged in the scheme.Prosecutors said Hana, who is originally from Egypt, arranged dinners and meetings between Menendez and Egyptian officials in 2018 at which the officials pressed Menendez on the status of US military aid. In exchange, Hana put Nadine Menendez on his company’s payroll, prosecutors said.The New Jersey senator is also alleged to have “improperly pressured” a senior official at the Department of Agriculture to “protect a lucrative monopoly that the government of Egypt had awarded to [Wael] Hana” and that Hana used to “fund certain bribe payments”, Williams said.The indictment also alleges that Menendez used his power and influence to try to disrupt a criminal investigation and prosecution undertaken by the New Jersey attorney general’s office related to “an associate and relative of [Jose] Uribe”.Egypt at the time was one of the largest recipients of US military aid, but the state department had withheld $195m in 2017 and canceled an additional $65.7m until the country could demonstrate improvements on human rights and democracy.Menendez at a meeting in 2018 told Hana non-public information about the status of the aid, prosecutors said. Hana then texted an Egyptian official: “The ban on small arms and ammunition to Egypt has been lifted,” according to an indictment made public on Friday.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More