Opening statements are expected as early as Tuesday in Sen. Bob Menendez’s federal corruption trial in Manhattan, where the New Jersey Democrat stands accused of trading his influence to illegally help the governments of Egypt and Qatar in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, gold bars and a Mercedes Benz.
The case drew national headlines for a string of sensational details and improbable excuses and marked the second time in a decade that the senator has faced public corruption charges. He previously stood trial on unrelated corruption charges in 2017, when he was accused of participating in a bribery scheme with a doctor. That case ended when the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict.
The Department of Justice charged Menendez in September alongside his wife, Nadine Menendez, and three New Jersey businessmen with bribery, extortion and fraud. Less than a month later, prosecutors charged him with conspiring to act as a foreign agent on behalf of Egypt and then later Qatar.
The Best Political Cartoons on Congress
Menendez is on trial with two of the businessmen – real estate developer Fred Daibes and Wael Hana. All three pleaded not guilty. In March, the third businessman, trucking executive Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate fully with the DOJ investigation, provide evidence and testify against Menendez, Hana and Daibes. Nadine Menendez is being tried separately later this year.
Who Is Bob Menendez?
Menendez, 70, was elected to the Senate in 2006 and is the senior senator from New Jersey. He was chairperson of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee before stepping down in September after his indictment. Prior to the Senate, Menendez served in the House beginning in 1993.
Survey results from Monmouth University polls taken nearly a decade apart show that support for Menendez has slipped significantly since he first faced corruption charges. The results of a 2015 poll after his first indictment indicated that 28% of respondents in the senator’s home state of New Jersey said he should resign and 47% thought he was probably guilty. His approval figures rebounded in the intervening years. But a poll in March showed the percentage of those who believed he should resign rising to 63% and those who thought he was probably guilty at 75%.
That same March poll showed just 16% of New Jersey voters, and only 23% of Democrats, approve of Menendez – by far his lowest rating since Monmouth began tracking it in 2008 and an ominous sign for his chances of retaining his seat.
The loss of support is not just among his constituents. Several colleagues – most notably Sen. Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey – have withdrawn support from Menendez. Booker, who refused to condemn his colleague and even testified on his behalf at trial during the first corruption scandal, called on his one-time mentor to resign from the Senate last year. Some 30 Democratic senators have joined him in that call.
Menendez has announced he will not run in next month’s Democratic primary for his Senate seat, though he has not ruled out running as an independent. While Senate control will be on the line this fall, the seat is generally regarded as safe for Democrats.
What Is Menendez Charged With?
Menendez was charged in September with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.
A superseding indictment in October accused Menendez of acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. And in January, in a second superseding indictment in January, those charges were broadened to include Qatar. Menendez was indicted in March on a handful of new charges, including obstructing the investigation into the bribery scheme and working as an unregistered foreign agent.
What Led to the Charges?
According to the Department of Justice, Menendez’s wife introduced him to her friend Hana, who is originally from Egypt, shortly after she began dating Menendez in 2018. Hana is a close business associate of Daibes and Uribe.
Prosecutors said Menendez and his wife accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of bribes” from Hana, Daibes and Uribe, including gold, cash, a luxury convertible, payments toward a home mortgage, home furnishings and more to act on behalf of Egypt and Qatar in a manner that would advance his associates’ interests in business deals with the two countries among other things. During a June 2022 FBI search of the Menendez home, the FBI found over $480,000 in cash stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing and closets, and over $70,000 in cash in a safe deposit box. Some of the envelopes contained the fingerprints and/or DNA of Daibes or his driver.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in exchange, Menendez agreed “to use his power and influence to protect and enrich those businessmen and to benefit the Government of Egypt.” For example, Menendez is accused of providing Egyptian officials with non-public information about the staff at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and ghost writing a letter on behalf of Egypt to other U.S. senators advocating for them to release a hold on $300 million in aid to Egypt. Between 2018 and 2022, prosecutors said Menendez conveyed to Egyptian officials that he would approve or remove holds on foreign military financing and sales of military equipment to Egypt while chairperson of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Prosecutors say Daibes also paid Menendez to intervene with federal prosecutors to resolve bank fraud charges he faced in New Jersey. Those efforts were unsuccessful.
What is the Defense’s Plan?
The defense will likely argue that Menendez wasn’t doing anything outside of typical congressional duties.
He said after his indictment last year that the large amounts of cash were earned legally, drawn down from his personal savings and were “kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.” Menendez, who was born in New York, also lobbed allegations that some were “rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat.”
On the Senate floor in January, Menendez called the charges “sensationalized allegations” and said he was working as a senator in his dealings with Egypt and Qatar. Menendez warned that the charges could restrict how lawmakers work on behalf of their states.
“The United States attorneys’ office is engaged not in prosecution, but a persecution. They seek a victory, not justice,” he said. “They show a picture of watches, but not proof of receiving such gifts. … The suggestion that an introduction of a constituent to a Qatari investment company is illegal is not only wrong as a matter of law, it is dangerous to the important work all of us as senators do.”
One thing working in the senator’s favor is that the Supreme Court in 2016 dramatically narrowed the definition of bribery in public corruption cases when it overturned the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and unanimously ruled that gifts and payments given to the former governor by a wealthy donor were not made in exchange for “official actions.”
It’s also possible the senator might blame his wife – saying she kept him in the dark about her dealings with the businessmen. In court documents, Menendez’s attorneys wrote: “While these explanations, and the marital communications on which they rely, will tend to exonerate Senator Menendez by demonstrating the absence of any improper intent on Senator Menendez’s part, they may inculpate Nadine by demonstrating the ways in which she withheld information from Senator Menendez or otherwise led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place.”
What is the Trial Timeline?
Judge Sidney Stein told prospective jurors on Monday the trial could last up to seven weeks, according to the Associated Press. The trial takes place at a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan, across the street from the state courthouse where former President Donald Trump's hush money trial is underway.
If convicted, Menendez could face expulsion from the Senate and decades in prison.
