New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and His Wife Indicted on Bribery Charges
New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and His Wife Indicted on Bribery Charges
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00:00 while Hanna, Jose Uribe, and Fred Dabies for bribery offenses.
00:05 The investigation that led to these charges has been run out of the Southern District of New York.
00:10 The indictment alleges that between 2018 and 2022, Senator Menendez,
00:16 the senior US Senator from New Jersey and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
00:22 and his wife Nadine Menendez,
00:24 engaged in a corrupt relationship with Hanna, Uribe, and Dabies.
00:30 The indictment alleges that through that relationship,
00:33 the Senator and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes
00:38 in exchange for Senator Menendez using his power and influence
00:42 to protect and to enrich those businessmen and to benefit the government of Egypt.
00:48 The indictment alleges that Hanna, Uribe, and Dabies provided bribes
00:52 in the form of cash, gold, home mortgage payments,
00:56 a low show or no show job for Nadine Menendez,
01:00 a Mercedes Benz, and other things of value to the Senator and his wife.
01:06 First, the indictment alleges that Senator Menendez used his power and influence,
01:10 including his leadership role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
01:14 to benefit the government of Egypt in various ways.
01:18 Among other actions, Senator Menendez allegedly provided sensitive,
01:22 non-public U.S. government information to Egyptian officials
01:27 and otherwise took steps to secretly aid the government of Egypt.
01:32 We also allege that Senator Menendez improperly pressured a senior official
01:37 at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect a lucrative monopoly
01:41 that the government of Egypt had awarded to Hanna,
01:44 a lucrative monopoly that Hanna then used to fund certain bribe payments.
01:50 Second, the indictment alleges that Senator Menendez used his power and influence
01:54 to try to disrupt a criminal investigation and prosecution
01:59 undertaken by the New Jersey Attorney General's Office
02:02 related to an associate and a relative of Uribe.
02:07 Third, the indictment alleges that Senator Menendez used his power and influence
02:11 to try to disrupt a federal prosecution of Dabeyes in the District of New Jersey
02:17 in two ways.
02:18 First, by seeking to install a United States attorney
02:22 who he thought could be influenced with respect to Dabeyes.
02:26 And second, by trying to influence that office to act favorably in Dabeyes' case.
02:32 And as we allege in the indictment, the senator agreed to do these things
02:36 and use his power in this way because Hanna was paying bribes,
02:40 because Uribe was paying bribes, and because Dabeyes was paying bribes.
02:45 Fortunately, the public officials the senator sought to influence
02:49 did not bend to the pressure.
02:52 That's a good thing.
02:54 Now, as part of this investigation, special agents with the FBI
02:57 executed search warrants on the residence and safe deposit box
03:01 of Senator Menendez and Nadine Menendez in New Jersey.
03:05 When they got there, they discovered approximately $500,000 of cash
03:10 stuffed into envelopes and closets.
03:13 Some of the cash was stuffed in the senator's jacket pockets.
03:17 Some of the cash, some of the envelopes of cash,
03:19 contained Dabeyes' fingerprints, Dabeyes' DNA.
03:23 That's not all.
03:25 Agents also discovered a lot of gold, gold that was provided by Dabeyes and Hanna.
03:32 And the FBI, of course, found the Mercedes-Benz that Uribe had provided them.
03:37 First, my office remains firmly committed to rooting out public corruption
03:41 without fear or favor and without any regard to partisan politics.
03:45 That's in our DNA.
03:47 Always has been, always will be.
03:50 And second, this investigation is very much ongoing.
03:54 We are not done.