Homegrown scandals have global flavor
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), facing corruption charges, has had to give up his influential role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee indefinitely. Credit: AP/Stephanie Scarbrough
The big corruption scandals keep sending investigators into foreign domains. Our borders seem quite open when it comes to high-level venality.
The latest example is once-again-indicted Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez’s business intrigues involving Egypt. A New Jersey company run by an immigrant businessman named Wael Hana suddenly ended up with a monopoly, approved in Cairo, on halal meat certification for imports into that country. Meat prices there soared.
Said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams: “Senator Menendez improperly pressured a senior official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect a lucrative monopoly that the government of Egypt had awarded to Hana.” Menendez denies all charges. He’s had to give up his influential role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee indefinitely.
Earlier this month, the international angle of the Menendez story grew sharper when Williams’ office added a charge of conspiracy for a public official to act as a foreign agent. The indictment now says Menendez, his wife Nadine, and Hana used the senator’s official role to benefit the government of Egypt without registering as foreign agents. In 2018, Menendez allegedly revealed to Hana that a federal ban on sales of small arms and ammunition to Egypt was lifted. Hana reportedly related the information to an Egyptian official.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, requires a person acting in the U.S. on behalf of a foreign principal to disclose that relationship. Its enforcement lagged for a long time before former President Donald Trump’s globe-trotting fundraising allies were investigated — including Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in a FARA case involving China.
The Menendez case is especially glaring. In his role as committee chairman, the senator blocked the proposed tightening of a loophole in the FARA law allowing disclosure exemptions for lobbyists with clients in nations deemed “foreign adversaries.”
Hunter Biden, the indicted son of President Joe Biden, really had no business, so to speak, serving for five years on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Ukraine wasn't his country, and gas pipelines weren't his area of expertise.
This type of cross-border nepotism has become a feature of our global economy. Did the power of Ivanka Trump’s father have anything to do with the Chinese government granting 41 trademarks to companies linked to her as of April 2019? Or her husband Jared Kushner’s famous $2 billion investment deal with the Saudis? It's hard to believe otherwise.
In 2019, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) issued a report that said the National Rifle Association effectively acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia leading up to the 2016 election. Indeed, one of the well-connected Russian nationals involved, Maria Buttina, who worked her way into Republican and conservative circles, was convicted in 2018 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
For perspective: The “Koreagate” political scandal of nearly a half-century ago that rocked a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives shows that today's cross-border corruption might be nothing new. Evidence surfaced by 1976 suggesting the Korea Central Intelligence Agency was allegedly supplying bribes and favors through a Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, to gain clout in Washington.
Two members of Congress were criminally charged; one pleaded guilty and served a year in prison, and another was acquitted at trial. Still others were reprimanded.
Powerful elected officials have a unique opportunity to join the multinational white-collar crime community, either as enablers or full members in good standing. The Menendez charges make the point.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
