They had only been dating for a few months, but Nadine Arslanian, who would eventually become Sen. Bob Menendez’s second wife, had a very particular request for the New Jersey Democrat.
In a 2018 text message about his upcoming remarks at the Egyptian Embassy, Arslanian asked, “could you please” discuss Cairo’s improving relations with the International Monetary Fund and other capital projects, including the “new Suez Canal.”
Menendez seemed puzzled.
“Really???” he replied.
One minute later, according to court documents, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee went online and searched “Egypt and International Monetary Fund.” He then clicked on a page titled “Frequently Asked Questions on Egypt and the IMF.”
Nadine offered one final push in the exchange. “Will said please just speak about the IMF. That’s important,” she told the senator, referring to Wael “Will” Hana,” a co-defendant of the senator’s at his corruption trial.
The third week of that sprawling trial has featured hundreds of text messages, emails, images and voicemails sent between the senator, his future wife, Hana and an array of friends and business associates with alleged roles in the bribery scheme at the heart of the government’s case.
Nadine Menendez, though, has been the central character in the communications, alternately cooing in French at her new boyfriend on phone calls, trying to facilitate meetings between Menendez and Egyptian officials, and asking for Menendez’s prayers – adding that his were almost always answered.
Attorneys on both sides have battled over the nature of Nadine’s role in what prosecutors described as the senator’s “politics-for-profit” operation – an enterprise, they say, that secured the couple hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.
In exchange for gold bars, cash, a $60,000 luxury car and more, prosecutors allege, Menendez, 70, acted as an agent of the Egyptian government and delivered a slew of favors for friends in the US, including Hana, who enjoyed a monopoly in the lucrative business of halal meat certification.
The senator and his co-defendants have all denied any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors have called Nadine, who is also charged but is not slated to go on trial until late July, a mere “go-between” for Menendez’s corrupt acts.
The defense has portrayed her as more involved and connected – a force behind the alleged crimes, parlaying her romance with the senator into a series of gifts and loans from local businessmen in exchange for her cajoling him to deliver, with a blinkered view of the wider arrangement, on her promises.
‘My very handsome senator’
Over three days, prosecutor Paul Monteleoni and FBI special agent Michael Coughlin, from the witness stand, went line-by-line through hundreds of pages of correspondence. When Menendez lawyer Avi Weitzman rose Thursday to cross-examine Coughlin, he argued that the documents on display had been cherry-picked by prosecutors, stripped of context, and given to misleading conclusions.
The unique dynamics of Menendez’s relationship were on display in the missives.
In late February 2018, shortly after they began dating, Nadine left the senator a voice message.
“It’s me calling my very handsome senator,” she said, “I have a favor to ask you. Hopefully, you can do it.”
The ask was for Menendez to meet with Egyptian Maj. Gen. Khaled Shawky at the Arab state’s embassy. Even 25 minutes would do, Nadine said, mostly because Shawky would require “some kind of clearance from Egypt” to hold the conversation outside the building. She told the senator it would “not (be) worth the trip” to Washington, DC, if he couldn’t be in attendance for the meeting with Shawky, before signing off, “I miss you.”
A few weeks earlier, before their romantic relationship had begun in earnest, Nadine texted Menendez to celebrate the Justice Department’s dismissal of outstanding bribery charges against him. The case had ended in a 2017 mistrial, and the DOJ decision meant Menendez could run for another term without the specter of a retrial hanging over his head. (The couple married in 2020.)
“Now re-election!!!!” Nadine wrote to Menendez, who asked her if she was “around on Friday?” On Saturday, after they got together for dinner in New Jersey, Nadine texted with a pair of questions for Menendez.
First, she asked if he knew Albio Sires, then a US House member representing Menendez’s old congressional district. Then she asked: “What is your international position?”
“I know him well,” Menendez said of Sires, before sharing his title. “I’m the ranking member,” he wrote, “which means senior democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
In response, the sender – whom Menendez presumably believed was Nadine – revealed his identity.
“Senator,” he wrote, “I’m using Nadine’s phone but I’m Andy Aslanian. I am now the U.S. attorney for the government of Egypt ministry of defense in EPO office in Washington, D.C.”
Aslanian, a New Jersey attorney, added: “We can definitely help you with your election campaign. We should get together and those arrangements can be made through Nadine.”
Apparently unruffled, Menendez greeted Aslanian and commented, “Based on your last name, I guess you’re related” to Nadine. (They are not. Nadine’s last name was Arslanian; her friend’s is Aslanian.)
Still, Menendez told Aslanian he “would be happy to meet” him and would “arrange (it) through Nadine.”
There would be more favors over the coming months, as their romance took flight. For “mon amour,” as they frequently addressed one another, Menendez enlisted staffers in his office to spruce up Nadine’s resume as she tried to build up her consulting business.
And he ghost-wrote or copy edited, depending on whose story in the correspondence one believes, a letter to his own committee – on behalf of Egyptian interests who passed along the document to Nadine, who forwarded it to Menendez – about a hold on $300 million in US military aid to Cairo.
On May 7, 2018, Nadine called Menendez and the new couple spoke for 12 minutes, according to phone records.
“He said he’s waiting for an answer,” Nadine texted Hana almost immediately after her call with the senator had ended. “As soon as he gets it he will call me.”
Shortly thereafter, she sent Hana details about the embassy provided to her by Menendez, who had asked a committee staffer for the information.
The defense has argued that the figures cited – regarding the number of US and Egyptian staff – were publicly available, but an exchange between the staffer and the State Department suggests the query was, at the least, unusual.
“Don’t know why I’m asking,” the staffer wrote to his colleague after passing along the question. After being pressed, though, he spilled the beans: “Menendez is asking.”
Over time, as the circle of alleged conspirators became better acquainted, their interactions began to sour. More often, Nadine became angry with Hana and others – and took those frustrations to Menendez.
In March 2019, Nadine texted the senator to complain about Hana.
“Can you believe Wael said he does not need me to make appointments with you”? she asked. “The man has gone crazy after everything I’ve done for him.”
Menendez agreed.
“He is crazy,” the senator replied. Hana, seated behind Menendez now in the courtroom, smirked as Coughlin read the exchange Wednesday.
Managing their relationship with Nadine eventually became a focal point for the alleged co-conspirators and their allies. New Jersey attorney Howard Dorian, an associate of Hana’s, texted another man asking him to get a “carpeting” job done for Nadine.
“It is extremely important,” Dorian wrote, “we keep Nadine happy.”
