Corrupt Sen. Bob Menendez acted against Americans – Latest News
Until now, the story of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s homicide was easy: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was solely chargeable for the October 2018 killing and dismemberment within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
But the true story is way more difficult.
It includes the machinations of a corrupt senator who obtained a cache of gold bars to cowl up the Egyptian authorities’s position within the homicide.
The recent revelations are highlighted in “Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt U.S. Senator,” the new e book I wrote with New York Post reporter Isabel Vincent.
We show how Democrat Bob Menendez acted as a mob boss from New Jersey and performed a central position in concealing the reality about one of probably the most horrific murders of a journalist — a everlasting US resident who had championed the Arab Spring, a sequence of standard uprisings that started in 2010 and unfold all through the Middle East.
No one else has reported the position of Menendez — who’s serving an 11-year jail sentence for bribery and different felonies — with the Egyptians within the months main up to the homicide and for years after as head of the highly effective Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Bob Menendez is between his spouse, Nadine, and Egyptian Major General Khaled Ahmed Shawky, whom he secretly briefed earlier than the intelligence head testified earlier than Congress on Egyptian involvement in Jamal Khashoggi’s homicide. Courtesy U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York
Even the best assessments the Office of the Director of National Intelligence supplied have did not show proof MbS definitively ordered the homicide.
The Biden administration’s ODNI report was meant to undercut the earlier Trump administration’s ambiguity over his position within the homicide: “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi” (emphasis mine).
The US intelligence group knew Egyptian officers, who have been bribing Menendez, had supplied the medication that killed Khashoggi within the consulate.
The revelation the previous senator was concerned in protecting up the crime got here to mild nearly as an afterthought in a sentencing memo at his trial this yr.
Menendez labored to facilitate his Egyptian paymasters’ position and ultimately conceal it.
The world was prevented from studying about that position as a result of Menendez primarily ran a spy operation against his fellow senators that thwarted any probability of a severe investigation.
The writer recounts how Menendez (entrance left speaking to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi) protected Egypt from fallout over its connections to Khashoggi’s homicide. Presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt
The little we all know pertains to the Saudi Arabian kill squad given key intel and coaching in Egypt earlier than stopping in Cairo to choose up the medication they’d use to kill Khashoggi in Istanbul.
Did the Egyptians flip an abduction into a homicide they may leverage via their paid senator, Bob Menendez?
They had vital motive: Khashoggi supported the Muslim Brotherhood, who have been being persecuted by the Egyptian authorities. Khashoggi used his platform to reveal what he alleged have been the regime’s human-rights abuses against the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt was continuously flirting with being sanctioned during this period as earlier Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairmen stored restrictions on weapons gross sales to the nation as a result of its long and storied historical past of alleged human-rights violations.
Until now, the story of Jamal Khashoggi’s (proper) homicide was easy: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) was solely accountable. AP
Menendez sat squarely at odds with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and different Trump officers who argued the CIA had no “smoking gun” exhibiting MbS ordered the killing.
The senator accused the Trump administration of telling the world, “You can act with impunity and ultimately have no consequences.”
Yet that is precisely what Menendez was doing, getting CIA intel briefs whereas taking conferences, money and items from the Egyptians who performed a main position within the crime.
Menendez performed the media by receiving categorised CIA briefings and turning them into Egyptian propaganda he funneled via shops like The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN and The New York Times.
These shops maybe unwittingly did a disservice to human-rights teams: They allowed a convicted legal to dissuade them from protecting the source of the homicide weapon within the Khashoggi case to today.
Months earlier than Khashoggi’s death in 2018, Menendez supplied the Egyptians with key intelligence associated to our embassy in Cairo.
With the roster of embassy staff, the Egyptians knew the identities of all American security personnel in Egypt, in addition to potential CIA belongings.
In May and July, Menendez communicated again with Major General Khaled Ahmed Shawky Osman, assuring him he had efficiently eliminated weapons bans and sanctions on Egypt.
A number of months later, Khashoggi was killed.
Menendez turned the homicide into a political weapon. He used it to mount an all-out assault on MbS, reinforcing his claims within the press and following up with legislative maneuvers.
Menendez sponsored payments designed to put Saudi Arabia and the crown prince on a Magnitsky-style sanctions checklist.
He additionally moved to dam emergency weapons gross sales to the Saudis, immediately opposing the Trump administration and claiming he sought to finish the Saudi-led conflict in Yemen.
Khashoggi’s death, in impact, grew to become Menendez’s rallying cry, permitting him to set the Egyptians up to have more affect in Yemen conflict.
Egyptians have been now in a place to sell weapons whereas the Saudis have been combating to remain off Bob’s sanctions checklist. This dynamic was setting Egypt up to change into a regional weapons seller.
One of these weapons offers after Menendez lifted humanitarian holds was to Russia during its assault on Ukraine. (Egypt later claimed the reviews have been mistaken and it was by no means planning on promoting weapons to Vladimir Putin.)
The media purchased the con job with out hesitation. And when questions lastly surfaced, Menendez labored to drown them.
When senators summoned Egyptian intelligence chief Major General Abbas Kamel to reply questions concerning the homicide in 2021, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee head sprang into motion.
He used his place to anticipate the inquiries and gave the Egyptians a detailed, rebuttal-filled memo — and met with Kamel in Washington to teach him.
It’s time to re-examine the Khashoggi homicide and all the pieces Menendez did as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman whereas he was on the payroll of the Egyptian authorities.
The stakes are high, not just for the steadiness of energy within the Middle East but additionally for America’s credibility in how it handles intelligence, alliances and overseas coverage.
A false story created for money and items shouldn’t be allowed to distort world diplomacy and human-rights requirements any longer.
Thomas Jason Anderson is the co-author of “Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt U.S. Senator.”
