New Menendez Indictment Reignites Calls That He Resign, as Prosecutors Accuse Senator of Being ‘Foreign Agent’ for Egypt While Leading Foreign Relations Committee

Critics of Senator Menendez are doubling down on calls for him to resign after a superseding indictment accused the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of acting as a foreign agent for Egypt while occupying the Senate’s premier foreign policy seat.Prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office at Manhattan have added new conspiracy charges alleging that Mr. Menendez, his wife, Nadine Menendez, and a New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana, worked to allow Mr. Menendez to act as a foreign agent.The new charges come nearly a month after prosecutors filed a blockbuster indictment against Mr. Menendez, his second wife, and their alleged accomplices claiming that Mr. Menedez received bribes in return for his helping a Halal certification company maintain a monopoly on foods sent to Egypt from America.Mr. Menedez was also accused of using his position on the Foreign Relations Committee to influence policy in ways that benefited the government of Egypt.In the original indictment, investigators released photos of alleged bribes, including gold bars, sums of cash stuffed in jacket pockets, and a luxury car. Mr. Menendez has denied the allegations.“I have been falsely accused before because I refused to back down to the powers that be, and the people of New Jersey were able to see through the smoke and mirrors and recognize that I was innocent,” Mr. Menendez said.In response to the new charges, one of the most outspoken critics of Mr. Menendez in the Senate, Senator Fetterman, has doubled down on calling for his resignation. “We cannot have an alleged foreign agent in the United States Senate,” Mr. Fetterman said. “This is not a close call.”“Senator Menendez should not be a U.S. senator. He should have been gone long ago,” Mr. Fetterman said. “It is time for every one of my colleagues in the Senate to join me in expelling Senator Menendez.”A Democrat who is running to unseat Mr. Menendez in the state’s 2024 Senate election, Congressman Andy Kim, said, “Given the severity of these charges, the US Senate should vote on expulsion.”“As a former national security official who swore an oath to defend our Constitution, I cannot stand by as the Senator representing my family and my state has been accused of acting as a foreign agent,” Mr. Kim said.While Democratic leadership, including President Biden and Senator Schumer, said that Mr. Menendez did the right thing in stepping down from committee leadership, they have not yet called on him to resign. Neither has commented on the new indictment.

New Menendez Indictment Reignites Calls That He Resign, as Prosecutors Accuse Senator of Being ‘Foreign Agent’ for Egypt While Leading Foreign Relations Committee

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