WASHINGTON \u2014 The Justice Department\u2019s allegations that Sen. Bob Menendez for years abused his position as the Democratic leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to illicitly benefit the Egyptian government are putting heightened scrutiny on the circumstances surrounding recent U.S. actions taken toward Cairo.<\/p>\n
The DOJ has accused Menendez, D-N.J., and his wife, Nadine Menendez, of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for the senator, with help from his wife, using his position from 2018 to 2022 to benefit the Egyptian government, including on foreign military financing and foreign military sales.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a devastating series of allegations and as a committee we now have a responsibility to understand what Egypt was doing and what Egypt thought it was getting,\u201d Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., who chairs the Foreign Relations Middle East subcommittee and has called on Menendez to resign, told reporters Tuesday. \u201cThere are serious implications for U.S. policy towards Egypt if, as the indictment suggests, they were trying to use illicit means to curry favor on the committee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menendez, New Jersey\u2019s senior senator, relinquished his position as Senate Foreign Relations chairman last week and pleaded not guilty to the charges in court on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
He is accused of providing Egyptian officials sensitive information about U.S. embassy employees in Cairo; ghost-writing a letter for Egyptian officials to U.S. senators, asking them to support the release of $300 million in aid; and approving or removing holds on foreign military financing and exports of defense equipment to Egypt.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, there is the issue of Sen. Menendez being corrupt,\u201d said Nancy Okail, president of the liberal Center for International Policy think-tank, who studies Egyptian military corruption, noting he hasn\u2019t been found guilty. \u201cSeeing this as only an individual case of one corrupt person is a mistake. This is part of a corrupting relationship between the U.S. and Egypt in the way they think and deal and manage the foreign aid to Egypt. It is transactional. It is not strategic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate and House foreign affairs panels have the option to place holds on large foreign weapons sales and the transfer of Foreign Military Financing funds, which are grants the State Department provides to foreign governments to buy U.S. weapons.<\/p>\n
Menendez\u2019 declining to place holds in Egypt\u2019s case \u2014 he did do so on Turkey and Saudi Arabia over human rights abuses \u2014 took on added significance in recent years.<\/p>\n
As the authoritarian government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came under criticism for its crackdowns on political opposition and human rights activists, a growing number of Democrats, led by Murphy, called for holding back annual security assistance.<\/p>\n
Murphy protested the Biden administration\u2019s decision this month to give Egypt a national security waiver to receive $235 million. Lawmakers used the fiscal 2022 appropriations deal to make $320 million in aid contingent upon Cairo meeting certain human rights benchmarks, but Congress also allowed the administration to use a waiver for up to $235 million. The remaining $85 million was withheld.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe administration has provided a waiver on $235 million to Egypt,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI would hope that our committee would consider using any ability it has to put a pause on those dollars pending an inquiry into what Egypt was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Secretary of State Antony Blinken sidestepped a question last Friday on whether the release of the $235 million should be revisited in light of the DOJ\u2019s allegations about Egypt\u2019s corrupt influence operations campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is obviously an active and ongoing legal matter, so you\u2019ll understand that I have no comment on it,\u201d Blinken said.<\/p>\n
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., who became acting chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee this week, told reporters Thursday he was getting briefed by administration officials on plans for the $235 million but said he would place a hold if he deemed it necessary on disbursement of the funds before the fiscal year ends Saturday. Cardin, who signed a July letter led by Murphy opposing the release of the human rights-conditioned funds to Egypt, emphasized he hadn\u2019t made a decision one way or the other on a hold.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of the roughly $1.3 billion in U.S. foreign aid to Egypt is through FMF grants. Since fiscal 2012, Congress has placed democracy and human rights-related conditions on the release of differing amounts of that yearly largesse. Sisi came to power in 2013 in a military takeover that toppled the democratically elected Mohamed Morsi, though the U.S. didn\u2019t call it a coup.<\/p>\n