Senator Accused Of Accepting Bribes From Qatar

https://nytimes.com/nyregion/robert-menendez-qatar-influence

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey — already accused of using his political influence to benefit Egypt — was newly charged on Tuesday with using his power to help the government of Qatar.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said that Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, exploited his Senate office to aid a prominent New Jersey developer in securing financial backing from an investment fund run by a Qatari sheikh in exchange for lucrative bribes. The alleged payoffs included cash, gold bars, Formula 1 tickets for a relative and an offer of a designer watch.

The new accusations are certain to renew scrutiny not just of Mr. Menendez but also of Qatar. Investigators in Europe and the United States have spent years trying to combat sophisticated influence operations by wealthy Persian Gulf nations, including Qatar, on both sides of the Atlantic.

In September 2021, Mr. Menendez and Mr. Daibes attended a private event in Manhattan held by the Qatari government. A few days later, Mr. Daibes sent Mr. Menendez photographs of wristwatches with prices ranging from $9,990 to $23,990. “How about one of these,” Mr. Daibes wrote, prosecutors said.

Specifically, prosecutors said that in December 2022 the Menendezes attempted to repay tens of thousands of dollars worth of bribes that had come in the forms of payments for a home mortgage and toward a Mercedes-Benz convertible. In both cases, the couple created documentation describing the original bribes as loans they were repaying, the indictment said.