He called for a ban on aid to Azerbaijan and constantly raised the issue of the “Armenian genocide”. He became particularly active during and after the 44-day war.
He spared no effort to earn the money of his Armenian patrons, calling Azerbaijan an aggressor and demanding punishment for our country. However, today Menendez does not care about Armenians, he wants to save his own skin. The senator’s extreme passion for easy money may get him into trouble.
Frankly speaking, this guardian of Armenian interests has been at large eight years longer than he should have been. The storm clouds first gathered over Menendez’s head back in 2015. Back then, the federal prosecutor’s office charged him with bribery, but he was never convicted.
According to 2015 court documents, a certain ophthalmologist provided Menendez with private plane flights and other benefits in exchange for his assistance in getting contracts. The subsequent 2017 trial in New Jersey ended in dismissal because the jury did not reach a unanimous verdict.
And now Menendez’s name features in yet another scandal. Federal prosecutors and the FBI are investigating Menendez and his wife Nadine Arslanian (ethnic Armenian) for receiving unreported gifts of a luxury car and an apartment in Washington from a halal meat company that is also under investigation.
According to The New York Times, the investigation into Menendez is linked to a government search of the meat company’s offices and the home of its president.
The search followed the Egyptian government’s decision in 2019 to make the US company, IS EG Halal, the sole authorized importer of halal meat into the country from anywhere in the world. The US Department of Agriculture warned that the abrupt change could drive meat prices for Egypt’s 90 million Muslims higher and disrupt the market.
Until recently there had been few outward signs of movement in the federal investigation of Menendez since initial subpoenas became public knowledge in October. Two weeks ago, as part of the same investigation, the Manhattan prosecutors subpoenaed documents tied to a bill that has stalled in the New Jersey Legislature that would limit the height of construction projects along the Hudson River. The subpoena asked for any information about the bill from Mr. Menendez and his wife, or Fred Daibes, one of the region’s most prominent developers. Daibes had already pleaded guilty to a federal banking crime, but since the arrangement required no prison time, his sentencing had been delayed, fueling speculation that he was cooperating with the Menendez investigation.
The articles says and Menendez and his wife were married in October 2020. According to a disclosure report Menendez filed in May 2021, the couple received wedding gifts from prominent public figures New Jersey.
In March 2022, Menendez amended that report to add an asset belonging to his wife: gold bullion bars worth between $100,000 and $250,000. However, the senator did not include in disclosure reports any mention of a car or an apartment. Menendez’s Senate spokeswoman, Jennifer Morrill, did not directly address the claims that the federal inquiry had expanded to include questions about a car and a Washington apartment, or answer questions about the Senator’s wife’s gold bars.
As we can see, the American senator’s corrupt activities were quite diverse. The generous handouts from the Armenian lobby were not enough to quench his thirst for profit, and Menendez managed to get caught up in the “Egyptian story” and in the “construction business”.
However, it seems that the lion’s share of his “hard-earned” money still came from the Armenian payoffs. Looking at the Armenian-inclined “antics” of the Menendez-Arslanian couple, one cannot help drawing an analogy with another overly mercenary couple who served the global Armenian cause. Of course, we are talking about the first and last president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev and his beloved Raisa Maksimovna.
Those who witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union are well aware of how they fought for the Armenian “miatsum” and how passionately they pandered to the separatist aspirations in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Incidentally, the Karabakh conflict, unleashed by Armenian terrorists under the wing of the Gorbachevs, was one of the main (if not the main) causes of the collapse of the USSR. The contributions of the president and first lady of the Soviet Union were appreciated not only by the Armenian lobby, but also by the West. Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Prize as an added bonus for the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the prestigious prize is not in the card for Menendez, even though his actions echo Gorbachev’s scenario.
The United States may encourage corruption, but with a caveat: not in America, and only in a country that is hostile to it. The US law enforcement should not stop at the “Egyptian case” and the “construction business”. If they dig deeper in the “Armenian direction” of Menendez’s activities, they will be amazed at the scale of corruption. And for the ultimate shock of how many Armenian acolytes there are in Congress, the FBI only needs to see a little further than their noses: Adam Schiff, Frank Pallone, Jackie Speier, Nancy Pelosi. The list is long. And it is up to them to find the skeletons in these people’s closets. They will, if they want to.
Farid Teymurkhanli
Translated from Minval.az
