REPORT: Wife of Bob Menendez Heavily Involved in Corruption Probe

According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, federal prosecutors are now looking into whether the wife of Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez received illicit gifts or services in exchange for political favors from Melendez

Subpoenas have been issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to acquaintances of Menendez’s wife, Nadine Arslanian, whom he married in 2020.

Prosecutors subpoenaed a New Jersey lawyer considered a longtime friend of Arslanian months ago, according to the report.

They’ve known each other for at least 25 years and are both are Armenian.

The investigation in Menendez’s alleged illicit activities stretches back to at least 2019.

According to court filings, federal agents obtained search warrants at the home and office of Wael Hana, the founder of IS EG Halal, an Edgewater, New Jersey-based firm that was recognized as the only organization able to certify halal meat sent to Egypt.

According to those acquainted with the situation, Mr. Hana is an associate of Ms. Arslanian.

According to court records filed in 2020 by Lawrence Lustberg, a lawyer for Mr. Hana, who was seeking the recovery of property confiscated by the government, prosecutors were then examining suspected hidden foreign lobbying in the United States and other potential breaches of federal law.

Menendez currently chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

According to state business documents, Ms. Arslanian is the president of Strategic International Business Consultants LLC, a holding company formed in New Jersey in 2019. According to Mr. Menendez’s most recent federal financial reports, Ms. Arslanian got money from the firm last year. Fusion Diagnostics Laboratories, a New Jersey medical testing company, was also listed on the senator’s disclosure forms.

In the 2015 public-corruption case against Mr. Menendez, federal prosecutors claimed he accepted about $1 million in gifts from a Florida ophthalmologist in exchange for assisting the ophthalmologist with visa applications for his girlfriends, Medicare billing disputes, and a port contract dispute in the Dominican Republic.