The FBI and federal prosecutors are determining if Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., or his wife received unreported gifts of a Mercedes and a Washington, D.C., apartment from a New Jersey-based halal meat company that is also the target of a criminal investigation, The New York Times reported.
A lawyer who met with prosecutors told the Times that the Menendez probe is connected to a 2019 government search of the home of the meat company's president and its offices.
The search was conducted after the Egyptian government decided in 2019 to make the company — IS EG Halal of Edgewater, N.J. — the only authorized importer of halal meat into the country, despite being warned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the move could drive up the price of meat for 90 million Egyptian Muslims.
Menendez, who serves as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he is willing to cooperate with investigators and expressed confidence about the matter last week to NBC New York News Channel 4.
"I am sure it is going to end up in absolutely nothing," Menendez said.
Court records show that that authorities confiscated cellphones, computers and documents during the search of the home of IS EG Halal President Wael Hana and the company's office.
Hana, a Christian who came to the U.S. from Egypt, has admitted in court papers that he had no previous experience in Islamic certification of international meat imports and exports before he began operating his company in 2019.
When IS EG Halal was awarded an exclusive contract by the Egyptian government in 2019, seven companies around the world were abruptly fired, losing out on millions in business to the upstart Edgewater business, according to NBC 4.
"It defies logic," Peter Paradis, the former deputy assistant inspector general at the USDA, told NBC 4.
Though not involved in the current criminal investigation into Menendez and his relationship with IS EG Halal, Paradis pointed to past USDA reports that stated the company "has no preexisting relationship with the US beef industry or Islamic organizations."
"This corporation has no track record of doing these types of certifications — and yet the country in question earmarks them as the sole entity to perform that task?" Paradis said.
A spokeswoman for Hana denied that he or the company had provided gifts to either Menendez or his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez.
"IS EG Halal was awarded its halal certification contract with Egypt without any assistance whatsoever from Senator Menendez or any other U.S. public official," spokeswoman Ellen Davis told the Times in a statement.
Allegations about gifts being provided "by anyone associated with IS EG Halal to Senator Menendez or his wife at all, let alone in exchange for any kind of favorable treatment, are totally without basis," Davis said.
Menendez and his wife were married in October 2020 and received wedding gifts from a number of New Jersey officials, according to a disclosure report Menendez filed in May 2021. A Mercedes or an apartment in Washington, D.C., were not listed in Menendez's report.
Jennifer Morrill, Menendez's Senate spokeswoman, told the Times that stories that employ anonymous sources create the "suggestion of impropriety without any facts," and added that relying on unnamed sources for such "extreme and damaging claims" was irresponsible.
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