According to multiple news sources, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey is facing new criminal charges for allegedly acting as a foreign agent of Egypt while serving as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The superseding indictment, filed by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office on Thursday, accuses Menendez, his wife Nadine, and a New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana, of conspiring to use the senator’s position to benefit the Egyptian government without registering as foreign agents.
The new charge adds to the previous accusations of bribery, honest services fraud and extortion that the Menendezes and their co-defendants are facing in a corruption scandal that has rocked the Democratic Party and jeopardized the senator’s reelection bid next year.
The indictment alleges that Menendez and his wife received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in cash, gold bars, a luxury car and home mortgage payments in exchange for providing sensitive U.S. government information and taking other steps that secretly aided Egypt’s government between 2018 and 2022.
Menendez has denied any wrongdoing and has refused to resign from the Senate, despite calls from some of his fellow Democrats and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. He has said he will announce whether he will run for another term when the time comes.
