Sen. Bob Menendez Indicted on Bribery Charges: Prosecutors

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) has been indicted for bribery, U.S. prosecutors announced on Sept. 22. Mr. Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, have both been indicted on bribery charges "in connection with their corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said. According to charging documents, Mr. Menendez and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. The bribes included cash, gold, and payments toward a home mortgage, officials said. Authorities seized some of the gold and cash while serving a search warrant at the Menendez home in June 2022. In exchange for the bribes, Mr. Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was said to have used his power and influence to "protect and enrich" the businessmen and Egypt, which receives more than $1 billion from the U.S. government per year in grants and military equipment sales. Those actions included providing non-public, sensitive information to the government of Egypt and pressuring a top official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect a monopoly that had been secured by one of the businessmen. Mr. Menendez also intervened in a New Jersey state criminal probe into an associate of one of the businessmen, after receiving a new Mercedes-Benz convertible worth more than $60,000 from the businessman, authorities said. The official who was contacted considered Mr. Menendez's actions inappropriate and declined to act on his recommendations. After Mr. Menendez contacted another official, the defendant pleaded guilty and received a more favorable agreement than the one he was initially offered. A spokeswoman for Mr. Menendez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.