The Justice Department’s allegations that Sen. Bob Menendez for years abused his position as the Democratic leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to illicitly benefit the Egyptian government are putting heightened scrutiny on the circumstances surrounding recent U.S. actions taken toward Cairo.
The DOJ has accused Menendez, D-N.J., and his wife, Nadine Menendez, of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for the senator, with help from his wife, using his position from 2018 to 2022 to benefit the Egyptian government, including on foreign military financing and foreign military sales.
“It’s a devastating series of allegations and as a committee we now have a responsibility to understand what Egypt was doing and what Egypt thought it was getting,” Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., who chairs the Foreign Relations Middle East subcommittee and has called on Menendez to resign, told reporters Tuesday. “There are serious implications for U.S. policy towards Egypt if, as the indictment suggests, they were trying to use illicit means to curry favor on the committee.”
