Gold Bars, a Mercedes Benz, and Egyptian Food: The Menendez Corruption Indictment Must Be Read to Be Believed

Senator Robert Menendez has been indicted on federal corruption charges for the second time in a decade, making him the first U.S. senator in history to be the subject of two separate criminal indictments while in office.

The story told by the 39-page indictment, unsealed Friday, is one of naked corruption. Far from the relatively staid world of insider trading and Biden family shell companies, this looks like down and dirty, old-school graft.

When investigators raided Menendez’s New Jersey home in June of last year, they found $100,000 worth of gold bars, nearly half a million dollars in cash, “much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe,” and a brand new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible. Photos included in the indictment show the cash laying atop personalized jackets bearing Menendez’s own name.

Menendez allegedly received the payments from three New Jersey businessmen: Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.

According to the indictment, Menedez and his wife Nadine entered into a “corrupt agreement” with the businessmen in which the senator used his juice as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to provide the Egyptian government with military sales and financing in exchange for cash. Menendez is also accused of using his influence with the Egyptian government to secure a monopoly over the Egyptian Halal certification business for Wael Hana’s business.

The honorable gentleman from New Jersey allegedly “earned” his $60,000 Mercedes by leaning on a New Jersey prosecutor to let one of Uribe’s friends off the hook in a criminal case. (The prosecutor declined to help out.)

After Menendez was indicted on unrelated bribery charges in 2015, he vowed: “This is not how my career is going to end.”

It looks like he was right after all.