New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and His Wife Indicted on Bribery Charges

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and his wife have been indicted on charges of bribery.

Transcript

00:00 Today I'm announcing that my office has obtained a three-count indictment

00:03 charging Senator Robert Menendez, his wife Nadine Menendez, and three New Jersey businessmen,

00:10 while Hanna, Jose Uribe, and Fred Dabies for bribery offenses. The investigation that led

00:16 to these charges has been run out of the Southern District of New York. The indictment alleges that

00:22 between 2018 and 2022, Senator Menendez, the senior U.S. Senator from New Jersey and the chairman of

00:30 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his wife Nadine Menendez engaged in a corrupt relationship

00:37 with Hanna, Uribe, and Dabies. The indictment alleges that through that relationship,

00:43 the Senator and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for

00:49 Senator Menendez using his power and influence to protect and to enrich those businessmen and to

00:56 benefit the government of Egypt. The indictment alleges that Hanna, Uribe, and Dabies provided

01:01 bribes in the form of cash, gold, home mortgage payments, a low show or no show job for Nadine

01:09 Menendez, a Mercedes Benz, and other things of value to the Senator and his wife. First,

01:17 the indictment alleges that Senator Menendez used his power and influence, including his leadership

01:22 role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to benefit the government of Egypt in various ways.

01:27 Among other actions, Senator Menendez allegedly provided sensitive, non-public U.S. government

01:34 information to Egyptian officials and otherwise took steps to secretly aid the government of Egypt.

01:42 We also allege that Senator Menendez improperly pressured a senior official at the U.S. Department

01:48 of Agriculture to protect a lucrative monopoly that the government of Egypt had awarded to Hanna,

01:53 a lucrative monopoly that Hanna then used to fund certain bribe payments.

01:58 Second, the indictment alleges that Senator Menendez used his power and influence to try to

02:05 disrupt a criminal investigation and prosecution undertaken by the New Jersey Attorney General's

02:11 office related to an associate and a relative of Uribe. Third, the indictment alleges that

02:18 Senator Menendez used his power and influence to try to disrupt a federal prosecution of

02:24 Dabies in the District of New Jersey in two ways. First, by seeking to install a United States

02:32 attorney who he thought could be influenced with respect to Dabies. And second, by trying to

02:38 influence that office to act favorably in Dabies' case. And as we allege in the indictment, the

02:44 senator agreed to do these things and use his power in this way because Hanna was paying bribes,

02:50 because Uribe was paying bribes, and because Dabies was paying bribes. Fortunately, the public

02:57 officials the senator sought to influence did not bend to the pressure. That's a good thing.

03:04 Now as part of this investigation, special agents with the FBI executed search warrants on the

03:09 residence and safe deposit box of Senator Menendez and Nadine Menendez in New Jersey.

03:14 When they got there, they discovered approximately $500,000 of cash stuffed into envelopes and

03:21 closets. Some of the cash was stuffed in the senator's jacket pockets. Some of the cash,

03:28 some of the envelopes of cash contained Dabies' fingerprints, Dabies' DNA. That's not all.

03:34 Agents also discovered a lot of gold, gold that was provided by Dabies and Hanna. And the FBI,

03:42 of course, found the Mercedes-Benz that Uribe had provided them. First, my office remains

03:48 firmly committed to rooting out public corruption without fear or favor and without any regard to

03:54 partisan politics. That's in our DNA. Always has been, always will be. And second, this investigation

04:02 is very much ongoing. We are not done.