Foreign Agent or False Alarm? The Charges Against Senator Menendez

(Image c/o Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images) 

By Matthew Colvin
Visiting News Reporter

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New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez has pleaded not guilty to a double indictment on charges of bribery and conspiring as a foreign agent with the nation of Egypt. It is the second time he has been indicted for corruption-based offenses in the past decade.

According to the indictment, a federal search of the senator’s home turned up nearly $500,000 in cash, as well as gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible. Both the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, stand accused of having acquired all of these funds via a “corrupt relationship” with several other businessmen. Menendez has vehemently denied the charges, claiming that the indictment was “as outrageous as it was absurd.”

The accusations did not stop there, however. On October 12, Menendez was charged with taking actions within the Senate on behalf of the Egyptian government, which would qualify him as an unregistered foreign agent. Despite charges of Menendez’s corruption consolidating, he continued to fervently deny them, claiming that, “piling new charge upon new charge does not make the allegations true.” While many other Democrats have called for Menendez to simply resign, the New Jersey senator has stubbornly refused.

The senator previously faced a set of bribery charges completely unrelated to the current situation in 2017, but the ordeal ended in a simple mistrial. However, with both charges and evidence seemingly stacking up against the senator in this new case, the result may prove to be quite different.

On October 23, Menendez officially entered his not guilty plea before US District Judge Sidney Stein in a federal court, not budging from his established stance. As the official trial is commencing, should Menendez be found guilty, he may be facing up to 50 years of imprisonment.