Government

Not Great, Bob

The New Jersey senator's indictment is a whole journey.

By Liz Dye on September 22, 2023 3:15 pm
Robert Menendez

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Is Bob Menendez under the impression that double jeopardy means that if you beat a bribery rap once, you can never be charged with it again?

It’s the only logical explanation for the New Jersey Democrat embarking on such an astonishingly brazen campaign of corruption just minutes after the DOJ dropped bribery charges against him in 2018. It also happened to coincide with the senator’s resumption of his position as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), where he had an ability to put a hold on US transfers of military financing other countries.

Gotta make hay while the sun’s shining!

The indictment unsealed this morning in the Southern District of New York charges Sen. Menendez, his wife Nadine Menendez, and New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes with conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. The Menendezes are also charged with conspiracy to commit extortion as a public official. The evidence includes gold bars with traceable serial numbers, automatic loan payments on a Mercedes convertible, thousands of texts referring to their criminal schemes, and half a million dollars of cash in the couple’s home and safe deposit box, some of it in envelopes bearing their co-defendants’ fingerprints, DNA, and return address.

Menendez

The man was not subtle.

The most brazen scheme involved Menendez monetizing his position on the SFRC to benefit the Egyptian government, which faced Senate-backed holds on military aid in 2018 due to its abysmal human rights record. Beginning in the spring of 2018, Menendez and his then-girlfriend Nadine began meeting with Egyptian officials and providing them with non-public information about the US government’s position with respect to the country.

In July, Menendez texted his wife:

Tell Will [HANA] I am going to sign off this sale to Egypt today. Egypt: 46,000 120MM Target Practice Rounds and 10,000 Rounds Tank Ammunition: $99 million NOTE: These tank rounds are for tanks they have had for many years. They are using these in the Sinai for the counter-terrorism campaign.

Mrs. Menendez forwarded the text to Hana, who in turn sent it on to multiple Egyptian officials. Apparently, none of these people have ever heard of Signal, although they did delete iMessages off their phones!

The payment for this apparently official act involved a creative scheme to monetize the halal certification process for meat consumed by religious Muslims. The Egyptian government granted an exclusive concession to IS EG Halal, a company owned by Hana which had no experience with halal certification, allowing it to certify meat exported from the US to Egypt.

“Seems like halal went through. It might be a fantastic 2019 all the way around,” Mrs. Menendez texted her husband. And apparently, it was! Mrs. Menendez  started to receive “consulting payments” from IS EG Halal through a company called Strategic International Business Consultants, LLC, and Hana paid some $23,000 to bring her mortgage current. He also threw in some exercise equipment, to help the family keep fit during COVID!

The scheme raised the price of certification for US meat exporters, while putting companies which had previously performed the certification out of business. But when the USDA tried to push back, Menendez berated the agency and told them to leave the monopoly in place. And all the while, Menendez was meeting with Egyptian officials to discuss US military aid and arms sales and pocketing envelopes of cash and hunks of gold.

Menendez also had a profitable side hustle disrupting criminal investigations. In 2019, Hana enlisted Menendez to intercede with New Jersey officials investigating Uribe for insurance fraud. Hana repaid the favor by giving Mrs. Menendez $15,000 for a downpayment on the Mercedes, and then making making monthly transfers to cover the car loan.

The next year Hana called on Menendez to intervene in a sprawling federal investigation into real estate developer Fred Daibes. Menendez pressed attorney Phil Sellinger, then being considered as a nominee for US Attorney in New Jersey, on Daibes’s case. When Sellinger said that he was likely conflicted out of participating in Daibes’s prosecution, Menendez withdrew his support. But when Sellinger reconsidered his position, Menendez reversed himself, and Sellinger was eventually confirmed.

During that time period, in or about the spring of 2021, an individual (the “Advisor”) associated with ROBERT MENENDEZ, the defendant, spoke to the Candidate and discussed, among other things, the possibility of the Candidate recusing from the prosecution of FRED DAIBES, the defendant. Subsequently, the Advisor informed MENENDEZ that the Advisor believed that the Candidate would likely not have to recuse from the prosecution of DAIBES. On or about May 2, 2021, in connection with MENENDEZ’s potential recommendation of the Candidate, the Advisor texted MENENDEZ, “I think if you call [the Candidate], you’ll be comfortable with what he says.”

Sellinger did eventually recuse from the case, although Menendez continued to pressure him through intermediaries on Daibes’s behalf. But in the meantime, Daibes reportedly showered the Mendendezes with cash and gold.

“Thank you. Christmas in January,” Mrs. Menendez texted Daibes on January 24, 2022. Four months later, the feds showed up and raided their house, after which Menendez wrote his wife a check for $23,000. She then turned around and wrote a $21,000 check to Uribe with a memo line reading “personal loan.”

Who’d have thought that romance which blossomed at a New Jersey IHOP could go so wrong.

US v. Menendez [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.