Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was nailed with a second set of bribery allegations related to money he allegedly accepted from an investment fund in Qatar.
He is accused of making positive statements about the Muslim nation in order to help a developer in New Jersey obtain a multi-million-dollar investment from a company tied to Qatar. The developer was identified as Fred Daibes, and he was also indicted in the new allegations.
“Menendez provided Daibes with these statements so that Daibes could share them with the Qatari Investor and a Qatari government official associated with the Qatari Investment Company,” read the superseding indictment.
Daibes is alleged to have purchased luxury watches worth between $10,000 and $24,000 and given them to Menendez in exchange for the positive comments about Qatar. Among the evidence is a message Daibes sent to the senator with photos of the watches asking, “How about one of these.”
The new allegations also suggest that the Qataris offered tickets to the Formula One Grand Prix in Florida to the wife of the senator and that he continued to receive other “things of value” after Daibes obtained the joint venture.
Menendez was previously indicted on bribery charges related to alleged payments he received, including “cash, gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other items of value.”
He has pleaded not guilty to both sets of allegations.
His attorney, Adam Fee, responded to the new allegations by saying that they “stink of desperation.”
Menendez has vehemently denied the charges and refused to step down from his office. While he has been lambasted by Republican politicians and pundits on the right, some on the left, like Democrat Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.), have also ripped into the senator.
“We have a colleague in the Senate that’s actually done much more sinister kinds of things. He needs to go,” said Fetterman after a Republican was expelled from Congress. “Menendez is really a senator for Egypt, not New Jersey.”
Daibes has also pleaded not guilty to the allegations.
Here’s a news report about the new allegations:
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