 |
The six-figure gig Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife landed with an Egypt-linked COVID-19 lab, and the millions of dollars of testing business it did in their home state of New Jersey, were “a direct outgrowth” of the sprawling international bribery scheme engulfing the pair, according to court filings by the Department of Justice—filings that substantiate an investigation by The Daily Beast last October.
As The Daily Beast revealed six months ago, the senator’s wife and co-defendant worked for Fusion Diagnostics Laboratory during the 2020 through 2021 period in which it secured deals to run testing facilities across the northern Garden State turf that has long served as Menendez’s political base, allowing it to draw more than $10 million in federal funding. The new filings by prosecutors, who accuse the Menendezes of acting as agents of the Egyptian and Qatari governments in exchange for bribes from connected businessmen, exposed additional details about the deal, including how much Nadine Menendez got paid: “over $100,000,” according to the brief submitted Friday.
The documents also assert that Fusion, and the senator’s spouse, benefited from the tremendous power the once-mighty Menendezes wielded in the towns and cities controlled by New Jersey’s notorious Democratic Party machine.
“The relationship between the Menendezes and the laboratory company was a direct outgrowth of the charged bribe scheme,” the Justice Department wrote. “The Laboratory Company CEO paid Nadine Menendez in exchange for Menendez’s efforts to pressure and advise various New Jersey city officials to use the Laboratory Company to perform COVID-19 testing services in their municipalities, including providing government space and using government resources to publicize the Laboratory Company’s testing services.”
The feds also spelled out how exactly Nadine Menendez, who has a degree in French and no prior experience in the medical field, got her job: namely, an employee of Wael Hana—one of the three businessmen accused of bribing the senator and his bride—introduced the duo to Fusion’s co-owner and CEO Moataz Abdalla. As The Daily Beast reported previously, Hana and Abdalla are each natives of Egypt, and their companies both maintain ties to the country. --->READ MORE HERE
 |
| AP Photo/Jeenah Moon |
As New Jersey reeled from the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez was allegedly working a side deal and urging local mayors to use a testing laboratory that happened to be paying his wife.
That’s one of the latest — and more striking — accusations to come out of the federal indictments facing New Jersey’s senior senator, a Democrat, and one of the first affecting the everyday lives of his constituents.
According to the filing by New York federal prosecutors, Menendez in late 2020 and early 2021 contacted “certain New Jersey mayors seeking to convince them to authorize” the lab his wife was associated with to test for COVID-19 infections. It’s unclear how the senator contacted these mayors, and information in the filing is limited to a few sentences.
But the latest accusation is already being contested, part of the ongoing pretrial back-and-forth in this case, scheduled for trial in May.
The CEO of the laboratory — unnamed in the filing — denied Menendez “ever made calls on behalf” of the company, prosecutors said in a new court filing.
Separately, a public health official in one of the cities where Menendez allegedly pressed a mayor on the lab issue said the mayor had recommended the company to them, but they had not felt “any pressure to use” that particular lab, according to the court document. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
COVID test lab payments among new revelations in NJ Sen. Menendez court docs
Menendez’s Wife Got Mysterious Job at Egypt-Linked COVID Lab
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.
No comments:
Post a Comment