After many years as one of many world’s largest recipients of United States overseas assist, the Egyptian authorities was nervous about how lengthy the largess would proceed at that degree. However when the USA lower a sliver of the help in 2017 over Egypt’s grim human rights report, beautiful Cairo, Egyptian officers discovered an ally in Senator Robert J. Menendez of New Jersey.
He occurred to be the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate International Relations Committee, a place that Egypt evidently felt may assist its footing in Washington. And at the same time as he accused the Trump administration of being lax when it got here to Egypt, prosecutors say he was doing favors for Egyptian officers who had gotten to know him by way of his then-girlfriend — signing off on arms gross sales and secretly serving to it foyer Washington to launch funding.
In return, in keeping with a federal indictment of Mr. Menendez unsealed on Friday, Mr. Menendez and his spouse, Nadine Menendez, acquired lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} in money, checks and bars of gold.
It was a value that Egyptian officers clearly felt was price paying.
Because the late Nineteen Seventies, Washington has despatched Cairo as much as $1.3 billion annually as a legacy of Egypt’s peace settlement with Israel within the Camp David Accords — cash that Egypt treasures as an indication of its strategic significance and which has paid for its ever-growing navy arsenal.
For Egypt, the USA is an indispensable patron, one which it always tries to persuade of its worth on points like terrorism, safety for Israel and migration to Europe. Sitting within the southeastern Mediterranean on Israel’s western border, it paints itself as an island of stability in a turbulent area that features Sudan and Libya.
Egypt’s strategic hand additionally contains the Suez Canal, which is essential to world commerce, and liquid-natural-gas services that ship vitality to Europe. And in a mirrored image of Egyptian recognition that American assist will not be assured, Egypt has efficiently performed the USA in opposition to its rivals by pursuing arms or enterprise offers with Russia and China.
Successive administrations in Washington have purchased Egypt’s argument, approving all however $85 million of its $1.3 billion package deal this 12 months. Though Egypt will not be the one undemocratic state that receives American assist, the package deal has particularly incensed rights advocates, members of Congress and different critics who query why the USA is supporting an authoritarian, corruption-riddled authorities.
After the indictment, critics urged Congress to place extra of the help on maintain. About $300 million a 12 months is topic to human rights circumstances, and the Biden administration has launched $235 million to Egypt this 12 months.
Since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took energy in 2013 by deposing the nation’s first democratically elected chief, Egypt has arrested tens of 1000’s of activists, opposition politicians, researchers, journalists and different perceived political opponents, together with some Egyptians whose solely obvious offense is re-sharing Fb posts crucial of the federal government. It has additionally muzzled the information media and quashed all protest.
On a sensible degree, critics point out that Egypt usually spends the help on gear that makes little sense for its safety wants, which largely heart on combating scattered bands of radical Islamist insurgents in North Sinai Province, close to Israel. A lot of the help goes towards air protection, massive ships and fighter jets.
And regardless of receiving the second-highest quantity of American navy assist, after Israel, Cairo has an uneven relationship with Washington. Individuals in Cairo who work with the Egyptian navy describe Egyptian officers’ perspective towards their American counterparts as cautious at greatest. Egypt additionally has thought-about sending arms to Russia for its struggle in Ukraine, leaked Pentagon paperwork present.
Throughout the years when prosecutors say Mr. Menendez was doing favors for Egypt, different members of Congress have been clamoring for extra restrictions to be placed on the navy help, or for tranches of it to be frozen, till Egypt improved its human rights report.
To all appearances, Mr. Menendez was a kind of calling for change. He was certainly one of 17 senators who signed a 2018 letter urgent the Trump administration to boost “the erosion of political and human rights” in Egypt when Mr. el-Sisi visited Washington.
Egypt had cause to worry about his objections. Because the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate International Relations Committee, Mr. Menendez has a capability, shared with solely three different members of Congress, to stymie Washington’s weapons gross sales.
Earlier than approving arms gross sales to most nations, the State Division’s longstanding follow is to first informally notify the chairs and rating members of the Home and Senate panels that oversee overseas affairs. If these lawmakers don’t log off on the proposed transfers, the method is paused till the administration addresses their considerations.
Mr. Menendez has used this authority lately to dam shipments of matériel to nations like Saudi Arabia and Turkey over human rights considerations. However the indictment signifies that Mr. Menendez, regardless of making repeated statements and even introducing legislative proposals denouncing Egypt over its rights report, was not utilizing his energy to pressure a reckoning over Egypt’s navy assist.
Though different high Democrats and Republicans on the Senate committee additionally declined to dam arms gross sales to Egypt, prosecutors keep that Mr. Menendez did so as a result of he was in Egypt’s pocket.
Egypt’s authorities has declined to remark.
The indictment lists a number of situations wherein Mr. Menendez is alleged to have instructed his spouse that he meant to approve arms gross sales, data that she then handed on to a pal, Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman in New Jersey who owned an organization that licensed halal meat, and who then handed that data to Egyptian officers.
Mr. Hana rewarded the Menendezes with money, gold and different bribes, prosecutors say. The offers additionally helped enrich him, and served as a means for Cairo to get cash to Mr. Menendez, in keeping with the indictment.
In Could 2019, Egypt awarded Mr. Hana’s firm, IS EG Halal Licensed, the multimillion-dollar enterprise of certifying all meat imported from the USA into the nation — despite the fact that he had no prior expertise in halal meat, and despite the fact that the USA Division of Agriculture argued that his monopoly would elevate costs and disrupt the market.
One among Egypt’s few remaining unbiased media shops, Mada Masr, has reported that IS EG Halal Certified worked in tandem with an organization linked to Egypt’s intelligence companies. And a United States government report at the time discovered that the corporate’s monopoly elevated the worth of American beef liver in Egypt 32.1 p.c.
In one other indication of the significance Mr. Menendez held for Egypt, the senator met with somebody whom the indictment describes as a senior Egyptian intelligence official at a Washington resort in June 2021, the day earlier than the official was to fulfill with different senators who have been anticipated to emphasise human rights.
Mr. Menendez despatched his spouse an article that outlined the anticipated questions, which she then forwarded to a different Egyptian official, in keeping with the indictment, including in a message, “This manner you possibly can put together your rebuttals.”
Information studies from the time present that Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s intelligence chief, who’s broadly thought to be the nation’s second-most highly effective man, was visiting Washington that week, when he was scheduled to fulfill with members of Congress.
Two days after Mr. Menendez’s assembly with the senior official, Mr. Hana, the Egyptian-American go-between, went purchasing for 22 one-ounce gold bars, in keeping with the indictment. Federal brokers later discovered them on the Menendezes’ house.