Overview

• Excerpts from “Gold Bar Bob” bring renewed attention to court filings showing Menendez’s June 2021 meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel to rehearse responses on Khashoggi oversight.
• The Department of Justice’s January 2025 sentencing memo states Menendez briefed Kamel on likely Senate questions to help Egypt craft rebuttals.
• Text-message records indicate Menendez’s wife, Nadine, sent articles to Kamel and intermediaries linked gold-bar bribes to the cover-up scheme.
• Two of the 22 gold bars purchased by Egyptian-American businessman Wael Hana were seized by the FBI in a 2022 search of Menendez’s New Jersey home.
• Menendez is serving an 11-year sentence after his July 2024 conviction, and the new revelations intensify scrutiny over foreign influence on U.S. lawmakers and ongoing legal appeals.