OAN’s Abril Elfi
4:57 PM – Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Senator Bob Menendez is facing new allegations that he has received gifts from Qatar officials.
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On Tuesday, a superseding indictment was made public that showed how federal prosecutors claimed that Menendez (D-N.Y.) accepted race car tickets and other gifts from Qatar as a part of a corruption scheme.
In the inducement, they also alleged that Menendez’s scheme continued into 2023, a year longer than initially claimed.
According to the indictment, a new accusation against Menendez is that he took payments from his accomplice, Fred Daibes, a real estate developer in New Jersey, in exchange for using his connections to assist Daibes in obtaining millions of dollars from a Qatar-related investment fund.
Prosecutors claim that the senator went above and beyond to assist Qatar.
As a part of a bribery scheme, Menendez, his wife Nadine Menendez, Daibes, and two other unnamed New Jersey businessmen were charged with crimes last year.
They have all entered non-guilty plea deals to the charges.
Menendez is accused of functioning as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government in addition to the bribery charges. It is claimed that he assisted Egypt in exchange for one of the defendants gaining a monopoly on the halal export industry.
According to the most recent indictment, Menendez put Daibes in touch with a principal of the Qatari Investment Company and a member of the royal family of Qatar when he was looking for an investment. The indictment also stated that Menendez expressed his support for the Qatari government in several public statements while the Qatari investment fund was considering an investment.
“Menendez provided Daibes with these statements so that Daibes could share them with the Qatari Investor and a Qatari government officials associated with the Qatari Investment Company,” prosecutors alleged.
The indictment alleged that in August of 2021, Menendez sent a press release in which he praised the Qatari government, sending the text message: “You might want to send to them. I am just about to release.”
The following month, Daibes texted Menendez pictures of expensive watches that reportedly cost up to $23,990, after he had attended a private event in Manhattan hosted by the Qatari government.
Two days later, Menendez texted Daibes with a website link that tracked a resolution in the Senate that supported Qatar.
According to the indictment, in January of 2022, the senator messaged the Qatari investor ahead of his meeting with Diabes to discuss potential investments, saying: “I understand my friend is going to visit with you on the 15th of the month. I hope that this will result in the favorable and mutually beneficial agreement that you have been both engaged in discussing.”
Reportedly, in May, the Qatari official then provided tickets to the 2022 Formula One Grand Prix to a close relative of Nadine Menendez at the senator’s request.
The Qatari investment fund signed a letter of intent to form a joint venture with Daibes’ company that same month, after a meeting between the senator, Daibes, and the two Qatari officials. After that, the indictment stated that Daibes “gave Menendez a gold bar.”
The Qatari Investment Company officially joined Daibes last year by investing tens of millions of dollars.
The indictment also claimed that Menendez continued to receive benefits from the Qataris, including four tickets to the Formula One Grand Prix that year.
Menendez is accused of failing to disclose on his financial disclosure forms the gifts, gold bars, and race tickets that he received from Qatar and Daibes.
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