U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez has been charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the Egyptian government in a new superseding indictment filed by federal prosecutors on Thursday.

The filing has new details about the relationship between Menendez, his wife Nadine Menendez and high-level Egyptian officials. According to the filing, Menendez agreed to act in the Egyptian government’s interest to push American foreign aid and military sales to the Arab nation.

The arrangement allegedly dates back to 2018, when Nadine Menendez told businessman Wael Hana, a businessman and co-defendant in the case, that she had been dating the senator. The two then arranged for Egyptian intelligence and military officials to meet the senator for the purposes of creating a corrupt deal that would see Menendez and Nadine Menendez receive hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes in exchange advancing Egyptian priorities.

Prosecutors note in the indictment that prior to 2018, increasing concerns in Congress over the Egyptian government’s record of human rights violations had led to foreign aid to the country being blocked. Those blocks began to lift after Menendez was introduced to the Egyptian officials. The filing relies on text exchanges between Nadine Menendez and Hana as evidence that the change in Congressional position was because of the senator’s actions.

Menendez served as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee until he resigned the post following last month’s indictment. The new filing notes that the State Department typically does not carry out arms sales or military financing to foreign governments without the signoff of that committee’s chairman, which mean Sen. Menendez was in a position to exert great influence over the deals with Egypt.

The new indictment also notes that Menendez made multiple requests for the Department of Justice between 2020 and 2022 to open an investigation into David Rivera, a former Republican Congressman from Florida, who the senator publicly accused of acting as a foreign agent on Venezuela’s behalf.

Members of Congress are explicitly prohibited by federal law from acting as foreign agents. Nadine Menendez and Hana are also being accused of acting as unregistered foreign agents for Egypt.

Thursday’s filing adds a charge of conspiracy for a public official to act as a foreign agent against Menendez, Nadine Menendez and Hana. The senator also faces three additional bribery and corruption charges from the original indictment.

Brian Whisler, an attorney for Baker & McKenzie and a former federal prosecutor, told NJ Spotlight News on Thursday that the superseding indictment’s additional information is meant to strengthen a case that Sen. Menendez has already met with fierce public defiance.

“It plays into the Justice Department’s theme of the senator’s corrupt intent with the conduct that is alleged,” Whisler said.

Menendez has refused the many calls for his resignations, pleas that came from top Democrats including Gov. Phil Murphy and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker. Several now plan to challenge Menendez for his seat which is up for election next year.

Bribery, corruption indictment

The original indictment that was filed last month detailed what prosecutors allege was a sweeping pattern of corruption on the part of Menendez, New Jersey’s senior U.S. senator and a potent leader in Democratic politics.

According to the September indictment, Menendez and his wife “agreed to and did accept hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using MENENDEZ’s power and influence as a Senator to seek to protect and enrich HANA, URIBE, and DAIBES and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt. Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value.”

The indictment describes a June 2022 search that agents conducted at Menendez’s New Jersey home that revealed “fruits” of the couple’s “corrupt bribery agreement” with Hana, Uribe and Diabes, including: “Over $480,000 in cash — much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe — was discovered in the home, along with over $70,000 in NADINE MENENDEZ’s safe deposit box.”

The news that Menendez was under federal scrutiny had been known for some time; he had said he was willing to assist investigators and was confident the investigation would be “successfully closed,” The New York Times reports.

The indictment comes almost six years after Menendez’s trial on unrelated corruption claims led to a hung jury and a judge dismissed some of the counts. The Senate Ethics Committee later rebuked Menendez, saying that he had improperly accepted gifts that he failed to disclose and that he had used his influence to advance the interests of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a friend, in a major Medicare billing dispute.

Menendez faces reelection next year. If he were to step down before the end of his current term, Gov. Murphy, a fellow Democrat, would be responsible for appointing a successor.

Menendez began his political career in Hudson County. A member of the Union City school board by the age of 20, he later served as mayor before going onto the state Assembly (1988-1991) and state Senate (1991-1993). He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1993, and then the U.S. Senate in 2006.

This is a developing story and will be updated.