Bob Menendez Charged With Appearing as an Unregistered Agent of Egypt as Dozens of His Personal Colleagues Name On Him to Resign

Bob Menendez’s vow to remain in workplace acquired much more ridiculous and Veep-esque on Thursday, when federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment in opposition to the New Jersey lawmaker, accusing him of appearing as an unregistered agent of Egypt. The brand new costs come on prime of ones already filed final month by which Menendez—alongside along with his spouse and a trio of New Jersey businessmen—was accused of collaborating in a bribery conspiracy that, amongst different issues, resulted in federal brokers discovering gold bars price greater than $100,000 and practically $500,000 in money hidden round his home.

The brand new indictment alleges that between January 2018 to June 2022, Menendez violated the Overseas Brokers Registration Act, which requires people to register with the US authorities if they’re appearing as “an agent of a overseas principal.” (Although even when Menendez has registered it wouldn’t have mattered, on condition that, as a member of Congress, he was barred from appearing as an agent of a overseas authorities.)

Per The Guardian:

The indictment says…that in Could 2019, Menendez, his spouse and a enterprise affiliate, Wael Hana, met an Egyptian intelligence official in Menendez’s Senate workplace in Washington. Through the assembly, they allegedly mentioned a US citizen who was severely injured in a 2015 airstrike by the Egyptian navy utilizing a US-made Apache helicopter, the indictment says. Some members of Congress objected to awarding sure navy support to Egypt over that episode and the notion that the Egyptian authorities was not keen to pretty compensate the injured American, based on the indictment.

Shortly after the assembly in Washington, the Egyptian official texted Hana that if Menendez helped resolve the matter, “he’ll sit very comfortably.” Hana, the indictment says, replied: “Orders, think about it accomplished.”

The indictment additionally alleges that whereas serving as chair of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee, Menendez ghostwrote a letter to his Senate colleagues telling them to raise a maintain on $300 million in support, and, per The Guardian, handed alongside “details about staff on the US embassy in Egypt and transmitting nonpublic data to Egyptian officers about navy support.”

Menendez, alongside along with his spouse and alleged coconspirators, pleaded not responsible to the unique costs final month. In accordance The Guardian, Menendez “has insisted that he did nothing uncommon to help Egypt and that prosecutors misunderstood the work of a senator concerned in overseas affairs.” Regardless of calls by dozens of his colleagues to resign, the senator has refused to take action and, one way or the other,* retains exhibiting as much as the workplace.

*Except he’s determined to take the chance to WFH, which might undoubtedly be lots much less awkward.

In the meantime, within the Home of Representatives