Former Democrat Senator and convicted criminal Bob Menendez has been accused of helping to cover up the murder of a journalist while he was secretly serving as a foreign agent of Egypt.
Before his downfall, Menendez was the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, a position he exploited to brazenly enrich himself by taking foreign bribes.
As Menendez was stuffing his pockets with gold bars, he secretly advised Egypt on responding to questioning about its role in the assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose grisly murder sparked an international outcry.
The shocking claim is detailed in a new book on Menendez's fall from grace, Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt U.S. Senator, by the New York Post's Isabel Vincent and Thomas James Anderson.
“What Menendez did was sinful,” said Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, the journalist’s wife. “It’s sinful when I hear that a US senator accepted a bribe from a dictator to cover up a murder.”
According to the book, Menendez and his wife Nadine helped Egypt's head of intelligence, Abbas Kamel, prepare for questioning by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee about the Khashoggi killing. Menendez was then the chair of the committee.
"I just thought it would be better to know ahead of time what is being talked about and this way you can prepare your rebuttals," Menendez’s wife wrote to Kamel.
Around the same time that Menendez was helping Egypt deflect questions about the assassination, Menendez accused President Trump of covering up Khashoggi's murder to protect Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“That President Trump refused to disclose this information for years and even went so far as to defend the heinous actions of a foreign leader over the integrity of his own intelligence agencies will be one of the many stains on his tenure," Menendez said at the time.
Menendez's ties to the Khashoggi affair came up during his corruption trial, which ended with him being found guilty of acting as a foreign agent of Egypt and taking bribes in the form of cash, gold bars, and even a luxury car.
“He also briefed the head of Egyptian intelligence on questions other US senators were preparing to ask regarding reports that Egypt had aided in a notorious human rights abuse, the murder and dismemberment of a US lawful permanent resident journalist,” court papers say.
“He did so in the explicit words of his co-defendant wife, so that the head of Egyptian intelligence could prepare his ‘rebuttals’ and ‘answers’ to Menendez’s fellow US senators’ questions," the documents added.
The disgraced senator also used his influence to steer millions of dollars in weapons to Egypt, among other seedy favors.
At trial, Menendez tried to shift blame onto his Lebanese wife, but both were found guilty. He is serving 11 years in prison, and his wife's sentencing is set for next month.
