U.S. Senator Bob Menendez pleaded not responsible to corruption fees Wednesday in a federal court docket in New York, the place he and his spouse appeared on bribery and racketeering fees involving the Egyptian authorities.
Menendez and his spouse Nadine Arslanian have been greeted exterior the Manhattan courthouse by not less than one protester holding up an indication demanding in block letters that the 69-year-old from New Jersey “STOP.”
To this point, Menendez has defied calls from his personal Democratic Celebration colleagues to go away workplace, though he “quickly” resigned as head of the Senate International Relations Committee after the indictment was unveiled Friday.
Prosecutors say the senator supplied delicate info to the Egyptian authorities to assist an Egyptian-American businessman defend his monopoly.
In line with U.S. Legal professional for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams, between 2018 and 2022, Menendez accepted tons of of hundreds of {dollars} from three New Jersey residents in alternate for utilizing “his energy and affect to guard and enrich these businessmen and profit the federal government. of Egypt.”
The indictment alleges that the bribes got here by means of money, gold bars and even a Mercedes-Benz convertible, all of which have been discovered throughout a search of the senator’s house.
Menendez, who has been a staunch supporter of the Democratic Congress for 30 years, refuted the claims at a information convention on Monday.
“I firmly imagine that when all of the details come to gentle, not solely will I be exonerated, however I’ll nonetheless be New Jersey’s senior senator,” he mentioned.
“I withdrew hundreds of {dollars} in money from my private financial savings account, which I saved for emergencies, and due to my household’s historical past of being seized in Cuba,” mentioned Menendez, whose mother and father have been immigrants.
He additionally pointed to his file on U.S. relations with Egypt, saying he had “immediately challenged President (Abdel Fattah) al-Sisi on human rights abuses, arbitrary detention (and) freedoms.”
Menendez, who’s up for re-election in 2024, was already the topic of a corruption case in 2015, which led to a mistrial.
