“What else can the love of my life do for you?” requested Nadine Arslanian, the girlfriend of Senator Robert Menendez.
She posed the query at a comfortable dinner at a steakhouse in Could 2019 attended by Gen. Ahmed Helmy, Egypt’s high spy in Washington. The dialogue was revealed in a federal indictment on Thursday.
As Common Helmy would come to seek out out, even when Ms. Arslanian and her soon-to-be husband weren’t at all times capable of ship what Egypt wished, they not less than appeared to strive very exhausting.
The indictment charged Mr. Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his now spouse with conspiring to behave as brokers of the Egyptian authorities. The document, along with another indictment made public final month, paint an unseemly image of how the couple superior Egyptian pursuits on quite a few fronts.
They tried to move off potential cuts to the greater than $1 billion in aid that the USA sends to Cairo annually. They gave Egyptian officers inner details about staffing on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. And so they pushed the U.S. secretary of state to assist block a dam undertaking on the Nile River that Egypt’s authorities vigorously opposed.
In return, prosecutors say, the Menendezes acquired a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} in gold bars, money and different bribes.
The truth that the couple was speaking on to Common Helmy and his boss, Gen. Abbas Kamel, the chief of Egypt’s highly effective Common Intelligence Service, is a measure of how necessary Mr. Menendez was to the best ranges of the Egyptian authorities and the way central the nation’s spies have turn into to its pursuits.
Neither Common Helmy nor Common Kamel are named within the indictments, and their roles haven’t been beforehand reported. Common Helmy is recognized within the indictment solely as “Egyptian Official-3” and Common Kamel as “Egyptian Official-5.” However three U.S. officers have confirmed their names.
The roles of the 2 Egyptian spies in making an attempt to affect U.S. coverage additionally present extra proof to counsel that the information-passing and bribe-paying might be a part of an espionage operation centered on Mr. Menendez, and never simply one other tactic to wield affect in Washington.
The spies in Washington additionally mirror a deliberate technique by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt to lean on these he trusts most — the intelligence cadres led by Common Kamel — who type a part of the navy and intelligence equipment that helped Mr. el-Sisi seize power in 2013 and that analysts say is now the first instrument of his rule.
In Cairo, Common Intelligence handles nearly all key overseas coverage issues and has shunted apart the as soon as highly effective Overseas Ministry. Common Intelligence additionally has home obligations corresponding to retaining Parliament in line and micromanaging the information media.
Together with Egypt’s navy, Common Intelligence has turn into one of many nation’s greatest economic players and gobbles up what students have decided is a huge portion of Egypt’s economy. The intelligence company typically makes use of civilian frontmen to cloak their corporations’ true possession.
Particulars within the two Menendez indictments reveal how central the couple was to the efforts of Egyptian intelligence officers.
In a single occasion, in Could 2019, Common Helmy pressed Mr. Menendez to intervene along with his Senate colleagues who have been holding up navy assist to Egypt due to the federal government’s unwillingness to correctly compensate an American who was injured in an Egyptian airstrike in 2015.
Days after assembly with Mr. Menendez, Common Helmy despatched an encrypted textual content in Arabic to Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman who had launched the couple to a number of Egyptian officers and has additionally been charged by prosecutors. The final wrote that if the senator helped resolve the matter, “he’ll sit very comfortably.”
“Orders, take into account it accomplished,” Mr. Hana replied, in line with the indictment.
In one other message Mr. Hana despatched to Common Helmy, he referred to Mr. Menendez as “our man.”
Mr. Hana and the Menendezes have pleaded not responsible within the case. The Egyptian authorities’s overseas press middle and the overseas ministry spokesman didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Eclipsing the Ambassador
The indictments element how the 2 spies met the Menendezes by way of Mr. Hana, who’s accused of drawing on his halal certification firm to bathe the couple with bribes whereas passing delicate data to the Egyptians. The corporate had the means to pay, the indictment says, as a result of the Egyptian authorities had abruptly awarded it a multimillion-dollar monopoly quickly after Mr. Hana met Mr. Menendez.
The connection may appear baffling to Individuals: Egypt’s intelligence chief and an obscure firm guaranteeing that exported meat, milk and nutritional vitamins are religiously permissible for Muslims to eat. However in Egypt, the place official energy and revenue have turn into inseparable, a profitable deal for a well-connected businessman — one that may additionally enrich the safety institution — was a typical means for the state to do enterprise.
Gaining the cooperation of the chairman of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee would have been a bonus, analysts mentioned. It’s unclear whether or not Mr. Hana gained the halal monopoly from Egypt due to his ties to the Menendezes, although it appeared to have been accomplished after he launched Egyptian officers to the senator.
Egyptian officers have lengthy made the case that they’re an important companion to the USA on a spread of points corresponding to counterterrorism and being a liaison within the Israeli-Palestinian battle, which erupted this weekend after Hamas launched its most audacious assault on Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking 150 hostages.
By the point Egyptian officers started their outreach to the senator, Mr. el-Sisi had consolidated energy in Washington into the palms of the highly effective Common Intelligence Service.
Gen. Ashraf el-Tarabani, the highest intelligence official figuring out of Egypt’s Embassy in Washington throughout the mid-2010s, had eclipsed the ambassador as essentially the most influential official advancing the nation’s pursuits in the USA.
The gregarious, chain-smoking basic held common conferences with lawmakers and White Home officers. He brazenly disparaged the ambassador, who nominally led the embassy, as ineffectual.
Common Intelligence even employed its personal lobbyists in Washington, Cassidy and Associates. The agency was separate from one other crew of lobbyists working for the ambassador and the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, in line with interviews with individuals acquainted with the contract and overseas brokers’ registration information.
The lobbyists labored Capitol Hill and hosted dinners at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, a favourite fishbowl of Washington’s political elite, to buff the Egyptian authorities’s picture.
Their chief purpose was to influence lawmakers to elevate restrictions imposed on the $1.3 billion in navy assist that flowed from Washington to Cairo annually.
Common Helmy ultimately took over from Common Tarabani as the highest intelligence official in Washington, assuming management of the lobbying contract and assembly regularly with the Menendezes.
The indictments present that Common Helmy thought the senator may make an amazing deal and that he stored shut tabs on him. In September 2019, months after the steakhouse dinner, the final despatched a nervous textual content message to Mr. Hana saying he had heard secondhand that Mr. Menendez had put a maintain on “a billion $ of usaid to Egypt earlier than the recess!!!!”
“Is that this true?” he requested.
Mr. Hana mentioned he would discover out. After a flurry of messages to Ms. Menendez and others, he wrote again to the final minutes later, assuring him it was not true.
In March 2020, Ms. Menendez dashed off a textual content message to Common Helmy.
“Anytime you want something you’ve gotten my quantity and we are going to make every thing occur,” she wrote, in line with the indictment unsealed final month.
In June 2021, Common Kamel flew to Washington to fulfill with senators who had pressed Egypt’s authorities on human rights. A day earlier than the assembly, he sat down with Mr. Menendez and his spouse at a resort. Within the indictment made public on Thursday, the couple gave Common Kamel a briefing about what questions the senators have been more likely to ask him.
Days later, in line with the second indictment, Mr. Hana purchased 22 one-ounce gold bars, valued on the time at roughly $1,800 every. Two of the gold bars have been found throughout an F.B.I. search of the Menendez dwelling. In fall 2021, the Menendezes flew to Egypt. The indictment included {a photograph} of the couple at a non-public dinner at Common Kamel’s dwelling, beaming subsequent to their host.
Heart of Energy
Concentrating authority below Common Kamel has allowed Mr. el-Sisi a virtually impregnable diploma of management.
Common Intelligence additionally instructs authorities aligned-presenters on Egyptian TV information on what to emphasise. The company brazenly owns a lot of the media, together with information retailers and hit TV exhibits and films produced by intelligence-owned corporations.
Common Kamel was Mr. el-Sisi’s chief of employees because the president ascended from basic to the pinnacle of navy intelligence to protection minister. Leaked audio recordings in 2015 paint Common Kamel as an unwavering loyalist who pulled strings within the whisper marketing campaign that paved the way in which for Mr. el-Sisi’s takeover in 2013 and elevated his boss’s picture within the media.
Final 12 months, Common Intelligence’s huge enterprise holdings grew to become public after the Egyptian Parliament passed a law permitting the spy service to determine, maintain shares and take board seats in non-public corporations. The company now owns some corporations outright, together with East Gasoline, a key participant within the multibillion-dollar deal that brings pure gasoline to Egypt from Israel.
The income by no means present up within the authorities funds. As an alternative they go into slush funds that specialists say are used to reward loyalists, together with funding “an enormous patronage community to keep up the cohesion of the ruling coalition,” mentioned Maged Mandour, an Egyptian political analyst.
It’s an insurance coverage coverage for a management hemorrhaging assist amongst bizarre Egyptians, who’re struggling to stay afloat throughout the nation’s greatest economic crisis in a long time.
In different circumstances, the businesses are ostensibly managed by non-public businessmen who as soon as labored for the navy or the intelligence institution or are in any other case linked to them, specialists say.
Usually, they go from rags — or, not less than, disrepute — to riches seemingly in a single day, like Mr. Hana.
Earlier than Egypt granted him the halal monopoly, Mr. Hana’s enterprise document confirmed little however unhealthy checks, unpaid payments and authorized troubles. A Christian, he had no prior expertise with the business.
However he appeared to have helpful connections in Egypt. In 2018, he started introducing the Menendezes to a number of officers, in line with the indictments. By mid-2019, in line with federal prosecutors, he gained the halal monopoly.
Reporting from Mada Masr, an impartial Egyptian information outlet, confirmed that Mr. Hana’s firm, IS EG Halal, labored in tandem with one other firm linked to the nation’s safety equipment.
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After successful the monopoly, Mr. Hana promptly raised the price of halal certification, in some circumstances greater than tenfold, inflicting an uproar amongst exporting international locations.
William Okay. Rashbaum contributed reporting from New York, and Adam Goldman and Julian E. Barnes from Washington.
