It’s business as usual for Senator Robert Menendez, who boasted to a talk show host that he still attends top-secret briefings, despite being accused of working as a foreign agent for Egypt.
The embattled New Jersey Democrat who was indicted on federal corruption charges in September said on New Jersey’s PBS show Chatbox with David Cruz: “I still have all my intelligence credentials” and that he still attends regular briefings from the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“I was not banned from attending an intelligence briefing,” he said when Cruz asked if he had been sidelined after his most recent indictment last month. “I still have all my intelligence credentials.”
Menendez also said he had attended a classified Senate briefing on the war in Ukraine on Wednesday after a CNN reporter repeatedly asked him why he was addressing a classified briefing if he had been accused of working for a foreign government.
“The bottom line is that I am a United States senator, I have my security credentials and an indictment is just that. “It’s not proof of anything,” he told CNN.
New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez gave his first interview following his indictment of bribery and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government last week. He said he had not been denied security clearances by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. NJ Spotlight News/YouTube
He now faces an attempt by his fellow Democratic senator, John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), to be deprived of access to secrets.
Fetterman on Thursday introduced a resolution that would automatically ban any senator accused of violating national security from accessing classified briefings and remove them from all committees.
The resolution would also prohibit said senator from using public funds for foreign trips, NBC News reported. It does not name the accused Democrat, but it would apply only to him.
Menendez, 69, was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee until, under Senate Democratic rules, he was forced to resign from his position in September after being accused of serious crimes, including taking gold bars and money in cash in exchange for abusing his powers as a senator. He denies the charges.
But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did not remove him from the committee.
Menendez was photographed alongside an unnamed Egyptian official in his Senate office in the federal indictment against him. Also photographed were two of his co-defendants, his wife, Nadine Arslanian, and (left) Wael Hanna. United States Attorney’s Office
On Thursday he was seen on Capitol Hill addressing a reception hosted by the committee of leaders attending a White House summit on President Biden’s “Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity,” with the presidents of Peru, Ecuador and the Dominican Republican among the guests.
In October, federal prosecutors in Manhattan added charges that Menendez had acted as an agent of the Egyptian government in exchange for bribes, which he also denies.
The indicted Democrat can access the nation’s secrets because all members of Congress have automatic security clearances.
Authorities found nearly $500,000 in cash during a search of Senator Menendez’s home last year. He told a reporter that he had accumulated the cash by withdrawing $400 each week from his credit union account for the past 30 years. AP Robert Menendez and his wife allegedly received gold bars after Menendez allegedly intervened with federal authorities to help his co-defendants evade justice. .United States Attorney’s Office
Regarding Israel, Menendez told Chatbox that he is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee due to his decades of involvement in the Middle East.
“The reality is that for someone who has worked in foreign policy for 31 years and who knows intimately the relationship between the United States and Israel and the challenges that Israel faces, and particularly the horrible actions of Hamas, he did not need to go to an intelligence center . briefing to tell me what we should do to support Israel,” Menendez said.
Along with Menendez, his wife Nadine Arslanian and three others have been charged with four counts of bribery and acting as unregistered foreign agents for Egypt.
Prosecutors said authorities found nearly $500,000 in cash at his home in Englewood Cliffs, as well as gold bars, according to the federal indictment.
In his Chatbox interview, Menendez said he had records of withdrawing $400 in cash each week from his credit union for 30 years and keeping the cash in his home.Getty Images
In his Chatbox interview, Menendez said he had records of withdrawing $400 in cash each week from his credit union for 30 years and keeping the cash in his home.
He has claimed that he kept cash because his Cuban-born parents feared the government would seize their possessions, as happened on the island when Fidel Castro came to power. They were gone long before that.
“The government has those records,” he said. “They have accounts to prove it, but they chose not to use them.”
Federal prosecutors also allege that Nadine Arslanian received a Mercedes convertible from a co-defendant in exchange for the senator’s help in trying to quash a criminal investigation into insurance fraud.
He needed a car after his vehicle was totaled in a 2018 accident that killed a pedestrian in New Jersey. The 56-year-old man was never charged in connection with the death.
An attorney for Menendez did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. The Post has reached out to Schumer’s office for comment.
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