Sen. Menendez makes first court appearance on bribery charges

Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez is expected to address the Senate Democratic caucus on Thursday, in light of his arraignment today on bribery charges, according to Sens. Jeff Merkley and Mark Warner. 

Sen. Ben Cardin also said that he expects to be formally named as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee at their policy lunch. He declined to say if he’s comfortable with Menendez continuing to serve on the panel, given the charges against him and added that he’d like to speak with the rest of the caucus about Menendez. 

Cardin previously served as interim chair the last time that Menendez was under indictment.

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Arslanian Menendez have departed the courthouse after pleading not guilty to all counts as part of an alleged bribery conspiracy. 

They did not speak to reporters outside.

Amid a flurry of calls by fellow Senate Democrats to resign, Sen. Bob Menendez pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges relating to an alleged bribery conspiracy.

Still, other Senate Democrats are stopping short of calling for him to step down, saying that while the charges are shocking, the New Jersey lawmaker has a presumption of innocence.

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed said that he thinks "the court should play out."

“He has the presumption of innocence. the allegations are shocking particularly because they involved national security,” he said but did not say Menendez should resign.

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto also did not join with fellow Democrats in calling for Menendez's resignation, saying it's up to voters.

When pressed if Menendez should stay in the Senate while he fights the charges, she repeated, “it's up to the people of New Jersey to make that determination on their U.S. senator. I think these are serious allegations. I trust that he will get a fair trial because I trust the federal justice system.”

Delaware Sen. Tom Carper called the allegations “deeply disturbing,” but said he had not decided whether he believes Menendez should resign.

“These are deeply disturbing, deeply disturbing charges, and I’m mindful of that,” he said. “I’m also mindful of the ‘judge not that we be not judged,’” Carper added, quoting the Bible.

At least 30 Senate Democrats have called for New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez to resign after he was indicted on corruption-related charges. Menendez pleaded not guilty in court Wednesday morning.

Among those calling for him to step down was Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin.

“Leaders in New Jersey, including the Governor and my Senate colleague Cory Booker, have made it clear that Sen. Menendez can no longer serve. He should step down,” Durbin wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen called the criminal charges against Menendez "serious, specific, and deeply concerning." He said in a statement that while the New Jersey lawmaker is "entitled to the presumption of innocence and due process," is it best that he resign.

Another member of Democratic leadership — Washington State Sen. Patty Murray, the president pro tempore of the Senate — also emphasized the seriousness of the charges against Menendez, saying, "I believe he should step down and focus on his legal defense."

Murray said in a statement that if Menendez refuses to resign, the Senate Ethics Committee should open an investigation.

Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell argued Menendez's constituents and the body of the Senate "deserve the full attention of their elected Senator."

"I don’t believe anyone under such a damning indictment can effectively serve, and I urge Senator Menendez to step aside," Cantwell added in a post on X.

Three of Sen. Bob Menendez’s co-defendants also plead not guilty in federal court in New York Wednesday.

An attorney for Nadine Menendez entered a plea of not guilty, as did two New Jersey businessmen charged alongside the senator, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe.

 A fifth co-defendant, Wael Hana, appeared Tuesday to enter his not guilty plea.  

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez will be released on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond, per an order from the magistrate judge overseeing Menendez’s arraignment Wednesday.  

The senator and four co-defendants, including his wife, have all pleaded not guilty to the charges relating to an alleged bribery conspiracy. 

Menendez must surrender his personal passport and travel documents, according to the judge. The senator can keep any official passports, and foreign travel is still permitted for official business. The judge also ordered that Menendez cannot contact co-defendants and other witnesses outside the presence of counsel, except his wife. 

Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, will be released on a $250,000 personal recognizance bond secured by her personal residence in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

She has been ordered to surrender her passport and to limit her travel to parts of New York, New Jersey, Washington, DC, and Florida.

Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine have pleaded not guilty to all three counts they face as part of an alleged bribery conspiracy. 

More than half of the Senate Democratic caucus has called on Menendez to resign, but the New Jersey senator has so far refused and maintained he is innocent.  

Sen. Bob Menendez has entered the federal courtroom where he is set to make his initial appearance before magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang on charges related to an alleged bribery conspiracy involving multiple co-defendants, including his wife.  

Menendez has been accused of taking payments in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and a luxury car for using his political power to aid the government of Egypt and pressure prosecutors investigating New Jersey businessmen.

Menendez is in court with his wife, Nadine Menendez, as well as two other co-defendants.  

The indictment unveiled on Friday against Sen. Robert Menendez marks another chapter in a series of troubling allegations that have dogged the New Jersey Democrat for years, marking the second time in a decade that he has faced corruption charges. The question the indictment leaves unanswered is, did the Egyptian government target an influential United States senator to do its bidding on Capitol Hill?

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, are charged along with three businessmen in a complicated plot to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes including cash, gold bars, a Mercedes convertible, even mortgage payments. According to the indictment, Menendez accepted these payoffs in return for using his position as a United States senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because he agreed to use “his influence and power and breach his official duty in ways that benefited the Government of Egypt.”

It is alleged that Menendez used his political position to attempt to break a State Department “hold” on US aid to Egypt, push for the delivery of ammunition and weapons systems to the Egyptian military, and passed sensitive information about American and Egyptian personnel assigned to the US Embassy in Cairo. It should be noted that some of these actions are things that the senator could have done legally if they were not allegedly in return for cash and gold.

The Egyptian government has not commented on the indictment and Menendez and his wife, as well as the others charged, have strongly denied the charges.

Following a mistrial on previous corruption charges in 2017, Menendez was acquitted on several charges in 2018 with the Department of Justice dropping those that remained.

On the latest allegations, as someone who worked at the FBI, in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Bureau, I am struck by the elephant that seems to be missing from the room: Nothing in the indictment describes what investigators know, if anything, about the role of Egyptian officials and whether they had direction or knowledge over the bribery scheme. Why is this important? Because the possible subtext of this story is that Cairo may have used agents in the US to try and recruit the top elected legislative official with influence over foreign policy to be its puppet. Yes, when you say it out loud it is shocking.

Read the full analysis.