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Federal prosecutors on Oct. 12 accused the New Jersey Democrat -
until recently the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee - of taking actions from 2018 to 2022 on behalf of
Egyptian military and intelligence officials.
Menendez entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Sidney
Stein in Manhattan.
In an Oct. 12 statement, Menendez had said "piling new charge
upon new charge does not make the allegations true."
The senator and his wife Nadine Menendez had previously been
charged with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
cash and gold bars from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange
for using his influence to benefit Egypt's government and
interfere with law enforcement probes into the businessmen.
All defendants on Sept. 27 pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Nadine Menendez and one of the businessmen, Wael Hana, pleaded
not guilty to the foreign agent charge on Oct. 18.
Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, individuals must
register with the department if they act as "an agent of a
foreign principle."
Prosecutors said Hana arranged meetings between the senator and
Egyptian officials, who pressed him to sign off on military aid.
In return, the businessman put Nadine Menendez on the payroll of
a company he controlled, prosecutors said.
The new indictment said both Hana and Nadine Menendez
communicated requests and directives from Egyptian officials to
the senator.
Bob Menendez has resisted calls from fellow Democrats to resign.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; additional reporting by Dan
Whitcomb; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Jonathan Oatis)
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