Federal prosecutors this week slapped another charge on U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), alleging he illegally acted as an unregistered foreign agent of the Egyptian government, and they have added some disturbing new details to the case.

The latest charge contends that Menendez and his wife, Nadine, accepted cash, gold bars and a luxury car in return for the senator’s influence as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“It’s plain law that public officials like Senator Menendez are not allowed to be registered on behalf of a foreign principal — they can’t conduct business in that fashion,” former Monmouth County Prosecutor Chris Gramiccioni in an interview with NJ Spotlight News

Central in the new count is a description of how Menendez met with Egyptian officials in 2019 to discuss an extremely sensitive case at the time. An American citizen had been badly injured when her tourist group in Egypt got mistakenly hit by an airstrike involving American-made Apache helicopters flown by the Egyptian military. Eleven people died, and Congress retaliated by blocking millions in military aid to Egypt.

Gramiccioni said prosecutors may argue Menendez’s actions in the case went beyond the senator’s regular job. “Look at the level of the abuse of public trust to personally enrich themselves. It knew no bounds. It didn’t matter that this was adverse to an American citizen,” Gramiccioni said.

Menendez has defiantly resisted a chorus of calls for his resignation. At his news conference following last month’s indictment, he said, “I have always worked to hold accountable those countries including Egypt for human rights abuses, repression of citizenry, civil society and more.”

He added yesterday after the new charge: “The facts haven’t changed, only a new charge. It is an attempt to wear someone down, and I will not succumb to this tactic.”

Some former supporters, looking at the evidence uncovered by FBI agents, feel betrayed. “And at the end of the day, I saw money, gold, cars. Oh, I am very sad,” commented Ahmed Mohammed, who fled political persecution in Egypt to settle in New Jersey.

“But Menendez did a very hard thing — he helped them to take money and to oppress people. So this is against American values. This is against American law, this is against American principle,” Mohammed said.

With his Senate colleagues now discussing whether Menendez should be expelled, New Jersey’s senior senator seems grimly determined to hang on.