U.S. lawmakers are being urged to withhold military aid to Egypt in light of allegations that Sen. Bob Menendez used his power on Capitol Hill to benefit the dictatorship in Egypt. Menendez (D-NJ) stepped down from his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after he was indicted last week on corruption charges. Menendez is alleged to have helped approve military aid and arms sales to Egypt in exchange for bribes.
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-7th), who served as assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Obama administration, calls Egypt a “brutal, corrupt” dictatorship. In an interview with NJ Spotlight News, Malinowski, said, “Senator Menendez as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee would have had the ability single-handedly to block aid to Egypt and to other countries and, of course, tremendous influence on other decisions on legislation that would have been moving or not moving.”
Malinowski, who noted the U.S. sends $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt annually, said, “I always felt that we don’t get a great deal from this relationship that … we have with the generals who run Egypt, and when I was in the House, with a lot of other of my colleagues we tried to put restrictions on that money and otherwise hold the Egyptian government accountable.”
