In a superseding indictment made public Thursday, letters from Sen. Bob Menendez about a GOP official are cited as a reason to charge Menendez’s wife.
In late January 2018, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was acquitted on 18 federal charges centered on corruption and bribery. At about the same time, prosecutors say he began a new cycle of alleged criminality, one culminating in his arrest last month for similar alleged acts.
On Thursday, those charges became more complex. The government released a superseding indictment that expanded the allegations against Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, who he started dating soon after his 2018 acquittal. The new charges include ones alleging that Menendez, his wife and an Egyptian-born man named Wael Hana had conspired for a public official — the senator — to act as a foreign agent, in this case on behalf of the Egyptian government.
The letters written while prosecutors say Menendez was engaged in similar behavior.
Menendez’s alleged actions on behalf of Egypt began with his new relationship. Nadine Menendez (then Nadine Arslanian) was friends with Hana before she began dating the senator. Soon after the relationship began, the indictment alleges, Hana and Nadine Menendez set up meetings between the senator — the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations — and Egyptian officials to discuss foreign and military aid. Hana allegedly then provided Nadine Menendez with a no-show job. It allegedly went on from there.
“From at least in or about January 2018 through at least in or about June 2022,” the Justice Department indictment alleges, “ … the defendants, and others known and unknown, willfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed together and with each other to have a public official, to wit, ROBERT MENENDEZ, act as an agent of a foreign principal, to wit, the Government of Egypt and Egyptian officials.
