Three Things: No News Isn’t Good News

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

This last several weeks have made the media look really bad. You’d think after several key stories broke there’d be more and deeper coverage but nope.

U.S. media, Congress, and the citizens who elected them each own some of the media fail. Why aren’t we demanding more protection of our personal data in order to protect our democracy?

~ 3 ~

The New York Times published a story on March 28 about the acquisition of the former LIFE magazine assets and the defunct magazine’s resuscitation.

Life Magazine Will Come Back to, Well, Life
The investor Josh Kushner and his wife, Karlie Kloss, have struck a deal with Barry Diller’s media company to revive it as a regular print title.
By Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattu, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Lauren Hirsch and Ephrat Livni

Nowhere in this puff piece a mere 404-words long written by at least one of seven contributors on this byline mention that Josh Kushner is Jared Kushner’s brother.

Nowhere in this heavily-laden beat sweetener is it mentioned that Josh and Jared share ownership of a problematic real estate management company, and that both met with Saudi and Qatari officials during the Trump administration.

Nowhere in this fluff is financing mentioned. Apparently it never occurred to one or more of seven journalists to ask if brother Jared contributed financing or guidance in any way.

We, the readers, are apparently supposed be very happy an attractive model and her now-billionaire spouse are reviving an old American media institution. We’re supposed to assume Kushner and Kloss are wholly financing this project out of their own pockets through their Bedford Media holding out of an appreciation for LIFE.

Why ever would we want to know more? As if we’d expect news from NYT.

~ 2 ~

It’s as if the Ronna McDaniel scandal never happened. There’s been no reported news about her since NBC canned her after MSNBC personalities protested her hiring on air.

I’ve been watching for any news about separation from Creative Artists Agency, who dropped her the same time she was terminated at MSNBC. CAA didn’t keep her on, as if they felt there was no hope of future contracts for her at all, even with right-wing news media.

Nada, not a word has emerged about CAA’s rejection. Just a spattering of op-eds in favor or against McDaniel’s separation from NBC.

One thing which has gone utterly unnoticed by journalists covering U.S. politics and media: a French conglomerate acquired majority interest in CAA last September, with two other foreign firms retaining substantive interest in the firm.

The Pinault Group closed on the deal while Singapore-based Temasek and Shanghai-based CMC Capital retain minority interests.

There are plenty of reasons for McDaniel to have lost her gig on NBC as well as her representation by CAA, like being an unindicted co-conspirator in Trump’s effort to defraud the U.S. and deny U.S. voters their civil rights.

But it doesn’t hurt to ask if foreign interests played a role in her representation or loss thereof. Perhaps a French-owned company doesn’t care to keep a talent who supported a NATO-undermining former president’s attempt to overthrow the U.S. government.

~ 1 ~

For decades there have been restrictions on foreign ownership of broadcast media. It’s about time we began to ask why we don’t have similar restrictions on social media, when social media has become a primary source for news in the U.S. for nearly half of Americans.

Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk, funded substantially by foreign interests, is one example. Since its sale, the former Twitter has become one of if not the largest source of misinformation and disinformation in U.S. media consumption. It’s difficult not to assume this is the reason Musk’s financial backers ponied up the money for an otherwise money-losing business.

Grindr, a social media platform for gay and bisexual men, and transgender people, was launched in the US in 2009. A majority interest was sold to a Chinese gaming company, Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd. in January 2016. Kunlun sought a buyer for Grindr after Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) notified Kunlun in March 2019 its foreign ownership of Grindr posed a national security threat.

Now many are watching stock price vacillations for Donald Trump’s Truth Social social media platform, owned by Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (TMTG), the entity which succeeded the former special-acquisition corporation Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC). DWAC had been associated with Chinese-owned ARC Capital and China Yunhong Holdings, both of which had some role in financing DWAC.

TMTG has been under investigation by the Department of Justice since 2022 for possible money laundering after TMTG had received a loan from Paxum Bank, partially owned by Russian Anton Postolnikov. It’s not clear why TMTG was able to list on a U.S. stock market exchange given the possibility this loan may have violated sanctions against Russian interests.

TikTok is owned by a Chinese firm and its users’ data is stored in China. It’s not the content but the location and control of U.S. users’ data which is and has been most problematic, though it’s easy for TikTok’s Chinese parent to manipulate what U.S. users will see including misinformation and disinformation. Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been trying to pull together a consortium to buy TikTok, but TikTok may have no interest in selling out, and it’s not clear if Mnuchin will end up seeking more foreign investors as Elon Musk did.

If Mnuchin – who met with Middle Eastern leaders during his stint as Treasury Secretary and departed with $1 billion in Saudi cash for his Liberty Strategic Capital fund — manages to pull off buying TikTok, what will he do with users’ data since the future business model is unclear at this time. Will he sell it to offshore buyers including hostile nation-states since there are few restrictions now preventing such sales? TikTok would be as much of threat under such a business model as it is now.

We need federal legislation to regulate not only users’ data privacy – all social media created by U.S. users should be kept inside the U.S. – but to limit control of social media firms by foreign owners, especially hostile nation-states.

Why was Grindr, of all the social media platforms which have been sold in whole or part to overseas parties, the one which drew attention from CFIUS? Especially after Twitter had been infiltrated by multiple Saudi spies, one of which were prosecuted before Musk made an offer to buy the platform? What foreign spies now have access to U.S. citizens and users’ personal data after Musk shit canned so many of Twitter’s pre-acquisition personnel?

This isn’t a First Amendment issue. It’s regulation of commerce, and commerce conducted inside the U.S. relying on U.S. citizens and residents as consumers and data sources shouldn’t pose a threat to national security.

~ 0 ~

This is an open thread. In addition to media criticism, bring your stray cat and dog topics here.

Weekly Nicole Sandler Podcast Appearance

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In one of our threads, someone said they had not seen my weekly podcast appearance with Nicole Sandler. Which made me realize that I should start posting them. Here is Friday’s.

Rebuttals to Eric Trump’s Talking Points about His Daddy’s Corruption

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Yesterday, the Oversight Democrats released a report showing the fraction of foreign payments Donald Trump accepted from foreign governments while President that they were able to document before James Comer helped Trump cover it all up. The topline result is that while President, Trump was known to have received over $7 million from foreign entities, of which $5.5 came from China.

As I’ll show below, that’s a very partial number, but by itself it says that Trump made as much from foreign governments while President as the entirety of the funds that James Comer has spent a year lying about with respect to private citizen Hunter Biden over a longer period of time.

It’s not Hunter Biden who has been on the foreign take. It’s Donald Trump. And while this report mentions that Trump is basically an employee of Mohammed bin Salman through his LIV Golf relationship, that funding, and a number of other foreign payments Trump and his Oval Office employee family members received is not reflected in the topline of this report.

Thanks to some of my best trolls, I’ve had a flood of stupid MAGAts repeating the talking points fed them to make them comfortable with the fact that Donny was effectively for sale to a slew of foreign governments. So I wanted to talk about how silly those excuses for selling access are.

Start with Eric Trump’s supposed rebuttal, a claim that Trump Organization donated their foreign profits to the US Treasury.

First, Trump Org only did this for a subset of their properties.

[T]he policy substantially limited the scope of “profits” it covered to those (1) “generated from foreign governments’ patronage from wholly-owned Properties,” and (2) “generated from management fees earned from managed hotels and condominium-hotels attributed to foreign governments’ patronage.”71 By excluding non-wholly owned and non-hotel Trump properties, the policy omitted potentially significant sums from the already truncated category of emoluments that it covered. For example, this report identifies more than $1 million in foreign emoluments paid to Trump World Tower in New York which fall outside the scope of The Trump Organization’s policy.

But even ignoring Trump Organization’s famously dodgy accounting, it’s not enough to donate profits. That’s because the revenues permitted Trump to have a DC-based influence peddling shop.

Revenues paid to Trump International DC (which most trolls appear not to understand Trump leased the Old Post Office only from 2016 until 2022; it was not a pre-existing hotel that just happened to become inconvenient when Trump became President) effectively provided Trump a way to have foreign governments pay lease to the US government for a private influence peddling location for him during his Administration, which he then sold for a tidy profit.

A review of financial documents regarding the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., provided by the General Services Administration (GSA) revealed that while President Trump claimed on required financial disclosures that he made $156 million in employment income from the hotel between 2016 and 2020, the hotel in fact lost more than $73 million during this period.74 Reflecting the serious financial problems at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., annual financial statements obtained by the Committee also reveal that one of President Trump’s holding companies, DJT Holdings LLC, injected tens of millions of dollars into the Trump International Hotel as loans, the vast majority of which were never repaid and were later converted to capital contributions. The hotel’s significant losses were due in part to the hotel’s fixed costs, including general and administrative expenses, sales and marketing expenses, and property operations and maintenance.75 Given that the hotel was operating at a significant loss, foreign government revenue would have helped to cover a portion of these fixed costs, even if alleged “profits” were donated.

Plus, there’s no transparency to how Trump Org decided something was a foreign payment. The report notes that Mazars had no accounting for what qualified as foreign payments — meaning, however Trump Org made this calculation, they didn’t share it with their accountants.

Mazars also indicated that it had no specific accounting of foreign government spending at Trump-owned properties. This is stunning in light of former President Trump’s pledge that Trump hotel properties would donate “all profits from foreign government payments” to the U.S. Treasury and the policy announced by The Trump Organization purportedly intended to effectuate that pledge.

And for the things that Oversight did get paperwork for, there were clear discrepancies. The Mazars documentation doesn’t cover all the known foreign spending at Trump International, for example.

Last Congress, based on records provided by GSA, former Committee Chairwoman Maloney estimated that total foreign government payments to just the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., from 2017 through 2019 would have been $3,787,485.117 This estimate was based on the hotel’s representations that, for these three years, it had identified $355,687 in foreign government profits (which it had remitted to DJT Holdings LLC, another Trump-owned entity; which DJT Holdings LLC had remitted to the Trump Corporation; and which the Trump Corporation in turn had “donated” to the U.S. Treasury on behalf of The Trump Organization).118 However, only a fraction of this foreign government spending at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., is reflected in the documents provided by Mazars and discussed in this report.

Of particular concern, Mazars didn’t turn over guest ledgers for Trump’s Inauguration, a period when the hotel was wildly inflating prices and hosting any number of foreign visitors.

Also, James Comer intervened in Mazars’ compliance before they had provided “any documents relating to Russia, South Korea, South Africa, and Brazil.”

There are other big gaps. For example, Mazars didn’t turn over any documentation of other properties that hosted significant numbers of foreign visitors.

Mazars also did not provide any ledgers before the subpoena was terminated for properties which reportedly received a large number of foreign government visitors, including: Trump Turnberry Hotel and Resort in Scotland; Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, Illinois; and Trump International Hotel in New York, New York.

And Mazars didn’t provide any documentation pertaining to 80% of Trump’s properties.

The Committee did not receive from Mazars any documents regarding at least 80% of Donald Trump’s business entities. For many other entities, Mazars produced only a single document.

Finally there were two specific expenses that Mazars claimed to have no record of. Mazars claimed to have no do documentation of ICBC’s nearly two-million dollar a year lease in Trump Tower.

Counsel for Mazars informed the Committee that following a comprehensive search of its records, the firm identified no responsive documents in its database relating to the “Industrial and Commercial Bank of China” or “ICBC.” The absence of these records from Mazars’s files raises troubling concerns about The Trump Organization’s candor with its accounting firm.179

As noted above, this was included in the report, based on other publicly available sources.

Mazars similarly claimed to have no documentation of a $20 million loan from Daewoo.

Spreadsheets prepared by Jeffrey McConney, The Trump Organization’s former controller, reflect that former President Trump’s “LOANS PAYABLE” included a loan for $19,760,000 owed to “L/P Daewoo” as of June 30, 2015.113 This loan remained outstanding until Daewoo was “bought out of its position on July 5, 2017.”114 Critically, as Forbes reported: “Although the debt appeared on The Trump Organization’s internal paperwork, it did not show up on Trump’s public financial disclosure reports, documents he was required to submit to federal officials while running for president and after taking office.”115 Yet Mazars informed the Committee’s Democratic staff it had no records to produce regarding the Daewoo loan.

I believe this payment was not included in this report. But its an instance where Trump’s disclosures covered up a key financial tie.

Finally, there are a number of things that this report did not include in its top line conclusion. Along with the LIV partnership mentioned above, Jared Kushner’s financial entanglements, and Ivanka’s trademarks, this report didn’t include Huwaei or CEFC in its emoluments accounting.

Finally, the documents provided by Mazars also record expenditures at Trump-owned properties by two Chinese companies that are closely aligned with the P.R.C.: Huawei; and Hongkong Huaxin Petroleum Unlimited, a subsidiary of CEFC China Energy (CEFC). While the government of the P.R.C. has been linked with both Huawei and CEFC, given the opacity and convoluted ownership and financing arrangements of these companies, this report does not classify their expenditures among the emoluments paid by the P.R.C. to Trump-owned businesses. However, the receipt by former President Trump’s businesses of expenditures from these entities while Mr. Trump was in office created conflicts of interest.

The Huawei payment (for a conference in Las Vegas) was minor, but CEFC maintained a property in Trump Tower for the entirety of Trump’s term.

In 2012, Hong Kong Huaxin Petroleum Company Limited—a wholly owned subsidiary of CEFC—bought an apartment in Trump World Tower for $5.25 million dollars.235 Hong Kong Huaxin Petroleum Company Limited maintained this property throughout the Trump presidency.236 Records provided to the Committee by Mazars and court documents indicate that Hong Kong Huaxin Petroleum Limited paid a standard common charge of $3,177.20 every month in 2018.237 CEFC listed its apartment at Trump World Tower for sale on October 20, 2020.238 On January 26, 2022, CEFC sold the unit to an anonymous LLC named “845UN 78B LLC” for $4.625 million.239

Assuming that the base charges did not change during the four years of the Trump presidency, Hong Kong Huaxin Petroleum Limited paid Trump World Tower at least $152,505 during the four years of the Trump presidency.240

James Comer has falsely claimed that because Joe Biden’s brother and son paid back personal loans to the then ex-VP with money they were paid by CEFC-associated businesses, it amounts to being paid by CEFC directly (again, during a period when Biden was a private citizen). But meanwhile, by halting Mazars’ compliance with a Congressional subpoena before it was done, Comer may, himself, be covering up details of Trump’s own payments from CEFC-related funds.

In Rudy Giuliani Affidavit, SDNY Hung Up the Perfect Phone Call

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Consider this: The April 21, 2021 warrant affidavit showing probable cause for the search of Rudy Giuliani’s home, office, and devices did not mention the Perfect Phone Call between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It could have done so. Earlier warrant affidavits targeting Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, starting with a bunch obtained on October 21, 2019, included it.

On July 25, 2019, President Trump spoke to Ukrainian President [Zelenskyy]. According to a memorandum of the call, which the White House released publicly, President Trump noted that “[t]he former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news.” He also praised a “very good prosecutor,” which appears to be a reference to [Lutsenko,] who was still in place at that time following [Zelenskyy’s] election but subsequently removed from office, or possibly [Shokin,] the former prosecutor.

While SDNY did not release the affidavit for a December 10, 2019 warrant focused exclusively on the Foreign Agent charges, this same reference did appear in an affidavit to obtain the contents of Lev Parnas’ Instagram account the same day.

In context of the potential FARA charges tied exclusively to the firing of Marie Yovanovitch, the paragraph showed that Trump had been persuaded by Rudy Giuliani’s lobbying not just that Yovanovitch “was bad news,” but that the prosecutors behind the effort to oust her, Yuriy Lutsenko and/or Viktor Shokin, were “very good.”

Moreover, the paragraph is particularly relevant evidence in the affidavit targeting Rudy. Far more specifically than the (much earlier) affidavits targeting Lev Parnas, the Rudy affidavit describes that Rudy lobbied Trump to fire Yovanovitch at least three times (the affidavit clearly identifies two instances: once on February 16, 2019, and again on March 22) and lobbied Mike Pompeo at least twice (once on February 8 and again when the White House forwarded his packet of disinformation in March) before he and Parnas turned to a press campaign involving John Solomon to get her ousted.

Yet the only public affidavit targeting Rudy, unlike several targeting Lev Parnas, excluded the paragraph showing the extent of Rudy’s influence.

There may be a perfectly banal explanation, such as an attempt, relatively early in Merrick Garland’s tenure, to minimize the extent to which this was about Trump personally. Or, the Perfect Phone Call might embody some of the uncertainty, noted explicitly in the affidavit, about whether Rudy was targeting Yovanovitch to get contracts with Lutsenko, or whether he was doing it only to get disinformation, to benefit Trump, on Hunter Biden. Given the high likelihood that data seized in this search was also used in other, undisclosed investigations into Rudy — DOJ may not yet have had a January 6 warrant targeting Rudy, but in June 2021, DOJ took overt steps in the investigation into an anti-Hunter Biden film that Rudy plotted — the silence about the Perfect Phone Call may simply reflect the boundary line between investigative prongs. That is, maybe the Perfect Phone Call appears in another affidavit.

The anti-Hunter film was, reportedly, an investigation into possible foreign support. As this table, which compares the scope of investigation in three warrants for substantially the same Foreign Agent investigation, shows, the funding of Rudy’s shenanigans shifted focus over the course of the investigation.

The warrants include:

  • October 21, 2019, 19 MJ 9832, obtained days after Parnas’ arrest, as SDNY obtained warrants to expand the scope of the investigation to incorporate its expanding Foreign Agent focus
  • December 10, 2019, 19 MJ 11500, obtained days after Rudy met with Andrii Derkach, which would have been a natural follow-on investigation to the Parnas investigation, but which Barr moved to EDNY to protect Rudy’s ability to solicit dirt from Russian agents to help Trump’s 2020 campaign
  • April 21, 2021, 21 MJ 4335, obtained on Lisa Monaco’s first day as Deputy Attorney General, when SDNY finally obtained approval for warrants targeting Rudy’s home and devices

In October 2019, DOJ wasn’t looking closely at how the Ukraine caper was funded. In December 2019, it made up two bullets of the warrants, permitting the seizure of:

  • Evidence of any funds sent into any account controlled by or associated with [redacted] or Giuliani, or any instructions to send such funds. (c)
  • Evidence of money, actions, or information requested by, or offered or provided to Parnas, Fruman, Giuliani, or [Toensing] by any Ukrainian national in connection with efforts to remove [Yovanovitch], including but not limited to any Ukrainian investigation of [Burisma Holdings] Ltd., [Hunter Biden], or potential interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. (e)

That December 2019 focus on funding may have reflected details about Lev Parnas that SDNY had only just discovered. In an unsuccessful bid to have Parnas detained pretrial submitted the day after DOJ obtained that December 10 warrant targeting Lev Parnas, SDNY laid out what it had learned about the funding of the Ukraine caper.

Parnas poses a significant risk of flight for several reasons, the chief among which are his considerable ties abroad and access to seemingly limitless sources of foreign funding. Parnas has extensive and significant international ties, particularly in Ukraine, the country of his birth. Over the past two years, Parnas traveled repeatedly to Ukraine, and met with numerous Ukrainian government officials, including officials at the very highest level of government. More broadly, Parnas has traveled abroad more than twenty times over the past four years, including on a nearly monthly basis in 2019. Parnas took circuitous travel routes that obscured his final destination, such as by departing the U.S. for one country, but returning from a different country on a different airline. Parnas traveled internationally by private jet as recently as this year; bank account records from Account-1 show that Parnas spent more than $70,000 on private air travel in September 2019 alone.

[snip]

In addition, Parnas’s close ties abroad include connections to Russian and Ukrainian nationals of nearly limitless means, including [Andrey Muraviev] and a Ukrainian oligarch [Dmitry Firtash] living in Vienna who is currently fighting extradition to this country. Parnas has proven adept at gaining access to foreign funding: in the last three years, Parnas received in excess of $1.5 million from Ukrainian and Russian sources. In sum, given Parnas’s significant, high-level connections to powerful and wealthy Ukrainians and at least one Russian national, he could quickly and easily flee the United States for Ukraine or another foreign country, and recoup the security posted to his bond. It is difficult to overstate the extreme flight risk that Parnas poses.

[snip]

  • Between August and October 2019, Parnas received $200,000—not $50,000, as he told Pretrial Services—from the Law Firm into Account-1, which was held in Svetlana Parnas’s name, in what appears to be an attempt to ensure that any assets were held in Svetlana’s, rather than Lev’s, name.5 A portion of this money existed in Account-1 at the time that Parnas submitted his financial affidavit, and, to the Government’s knowledge, does so today, underscoring that Parnas continues to mislead the Government and the Court about his financial condition.
  • Parnas failed to disclose, in describing his income to the Government and Pretrial Services, the fact that in September 2019, he received $1 million from a bank account in Russia into Account-1. While the majority of that money appears to have been used on personal expenses and to purchase a home, as discussed below, some portion of that money existed in Account-1 at the time Parnas submitted his financial affidavit.
  • At the time of his arrest, Parnas had at least $200,000 in an escrow account, in connection with his intended purchase of a property located in Boca Raton, Florida, which was listed for sale at approximately $4.5 million. The escrow account was funded with $200,000 from Account-1 in September 2019. Parnas did not disclose this asset (either the property or the funds in the escrow account) to either Pretrial Services or the Government. It is unclear whether Parnas proceeded with this real estate purchase or received the funds back from the escrow account.

In an appearance on Michael Cohen’s podcast last month, Parnas addressed how various Ukrainian, Russian, and American oligarchs were funding his and Rudy’s efforts; he says it’ll also appear in his forthcoming book.

The warrant targeting Rudy 17 months later doesn’t reveal what SDNY had learned about the funding in the interim, nor does it sustain the focus on how this was all funded. It states with some certainty that in spite of two rounds of discussions of retainer agreements with Lutsenko and others, Rudy never got any money from them.

Based on my involvement in this investigation and my review of text messages, it appears that Giuliani was referring to the execution of [redaction] retainer agreement and the wiring of funds. However, based on my review of bank records, it does not appear that [redacted] wired funds to Giuliani at that time, or any subsequent time.

As NYT emphasized in their report on these warrants, the later warrant does describe that Rudy needed the money.

6 Based on my review of a financial analysis prepared based on bank records and public reports, it appears that around this time, Giuliani had a financial interest in receiving a retainer agreement from [redacted] Specifically, in May 2018, Giuliani left his former law firm and its substantial compensation package. Based on my review of a financial analysis of bank records that have been collected to date (which may not include all of Giuliani’s checking and credit card accounts), on or around January 25, 2018, Giuliani had approximately $1.2 million cash on hand, and approximately $40,000 in credit card debt. By contrast, on or around January 25, 2019, right before he met with [redacted] Giuliani had approximately $400,000 cash on hand in those same accounts and approximately $110,000 in credit card debt. By on or around February 16, 2019, his account balances had dropped to approximately $288,000 and his credit card debt remained over $110,000.

Perhaps because of what SDNY claimed were Parnas’ efforts to obscure his travel, the December 2019 warrant (for which, remember, it did not release the affidavit) added a bullet point, seemingly an afterthought unmarked by a letter, authorizing seizure of evidence that the men were hiding meetings with Ukrainians.

Evidence of efforts or attempts to conceal meetings with individuals acting on behalf of or associated with any Ukrainian national or government official. (no letter)

By contrast, the April 2021 affidavit targeting Rudy was interested in one single trip: His February 2019 trip, with Parnas, to Warsaw.

Evidence relating to a trip by Rudolph Giuliani to Poland in February 2019.(5)

As the affidavit describes, there was good reason to believe Rudy’s public claims about the trip — made in the days after the Perfect Phone Call was released — were lies, because immediately after the meeting, Rudy drafted a retainer shortly after the meeting and started lobbying Trump and Pompeo.

7 Based on my review of public reporting, I have learned that according to an article published on September 29, 2019 in Reuters, Giuliani admitted that he met [Lutsenko] in Warsaw in February 2019 after first meeting him in New York in January, but that the meeting with [redacted] in Warsaw was “really social . . . I think it was either dinner or cigars after dinner. Not opportune for substantive discussion.” However, this does not appear to be accurate, as described herein, Giuliani circulated a draft retainer agreement between [2 words redacted] and [redacted] (a firm owned by [Toensing] and her husband, [Joe DiGenova]) only five days after meeting with [redacted] and communicated with Parnas and [redacted] about lobbying [Pompeo] and Trump to remove [Yovanovitch] on the same day, and in the days following, his meeting with [redacted].

The reference to Lutsenko in that Reuters story is minor; far more of the story focuses on who paid for Rudy’s galivanting — again, a topic dropped in the later known warrant.

One of the key questions is who financed Giuliani’s globe-trotting as he pursued unsubstantiated allegations that Biden had tried to fire Ukraine’s then chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to stop him investigating an energy company on which his son Hunter served as a director.

“Nobody pays my expenses,” Giuliani said in an interview with Reuters on Friday. “What does it matter if I’m getting paid for it. Isn’t the real story whether he (Biden) sold out the vice presidency of the United States, not whether I got paid for it?”

The singular focus on that Warsaw meeting — a meeting that took place at an event designed to undermine Obama’s Iran Deal, which Rudy attended in conjunction with MEK (former NJ Senator, Robert Torricelli, with whom John Solomon has a past, also attended with MEK) — is all the more interesting given the temporal scope of the warrant.

The other two warrants I adress here were dictated by dates of collection. Because the October 21 warrant authorized an expanded search of materials obtained months earlier, its temporal scope necessarily ended at the collection date, May 16, 2019. Because the December 10 warrant authorized an expanded search of materials seized from the search of Parnas and Fruman’s residences (primarily Parnas’ — by this point, SDNY seemed to be scrutinizing Parnas far more closely than it did Fruman), its temporal scope necessarily ended on that collection date, October 9, 2019.

But the Rudy warrant extended long past the last overt act, the firing of Yovanovitch, described in the warrant, to December 31, 2019. Here’s how the FBI justified that:

To the extent materials are dated, this warrant is limited to materials created, modified, sent, or received between August 1, 2018, and December 31, 2019. Materials going back to approximately August 2018 are relevant to understand Giuliani’s relationship with Parnas and information he was provided in the fall of 2018 relating to, among other things, Ambassador [Yovanovitch] and Ukraine. Materials created, modified, sent, or received after approximately May 2019, when the Ambassador was removed from her post, through the end of December 2019, during which time Giuliani traveled to Europe to meet [Lutsenko] with are relevant because based on my review of the Prior Search Warrant Returns, it appears that Giuliani continued to make public statements about Ukraine and the Ambassador.

Thus, it rationalized extending the warrant’s temporal scope through December 2019 — a temporal scope that would include the trip for the anti-Hunter Biden documentary, on which Rudy again met Lutsenko, but also met known Russian asset Andrii Derkach and others who would later be deemed Russian assets — based on Rudy’s continued focus, vaguely, on Ukraine (as well as Yovanovitch).

But it’s not clear whether FBI would be able to access details of Rudy’s meeting with Derkach, as opposed to Lutsenko, with this warrant. The long redaction in this bullet point shields who else, in addition to Parnas and Lutsenko, was included in the scope of the known warrant.

In other words, though the temporal scope of the warrant would permit FBI to review information about Rudy’s later meetings with Lutsenko, in association with which trip Rudy also met a series of Russian assets, nothing unredacted in the warrant permitted FBI to seize information about that later meeting (or about the anti-Hunter Biden documentary).

For that matter, nothing unredacted in the April 2021 warrant explicitly permits the FBI to seize information about Rudy’s attempts to dig up disinformation targeting Hunter Biden and his father, even though the warrant affidavit likely mentions such efforts at more than twelve times (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve).

Still, as I’ve noted repeatedly, by the time Judge Oetken approved the Special Master process that Rudy himself had demanded, Special Master Barbara Jones was instructed to review all content post-dating January 1, 2018, a temporal scope significantly broader than the one laid out in the warrant. And according to her reports, while for some devices she focused more nearly on the timeframe of the Ukraine caper, those she reviewed first, she reviewed through the date of seizure.

We still know just a fraction of the story about how Bill Barr obstructed the investigation into Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainian influence peddling — and the degree to which that let Rudy get rid of phones before the investigation would have otherwise developed (for example, the warrant describes that Rudy replaced a phone used with his main phone number on the date the House started subpoenaing records in advance of impeachment). That is, even though SDNY took aggressive investigative steps on Lisa Monaco’s first day as Deputy Attorney General, it was likely already too late.

Update: Back in real time, I posited that the first time Rudy pitched Mike Pompeo on firing Marie Yovanovitch was done while in Trump’s presence.

Timeline

Below, every bullet is a known warrant. The ones not linked were described in a passage that failed to be fully redacted in a Lev Parnas filing.

  • January 18, 2019, 19 MJ 1729: Yahoo and Google content

May 15, 2019: Marie Yovanovitch firing public

  • May 16, 2019, 19 MJ 4784: iCloud content
  • August 14, 2019, 19 MJ 7593: Yahoo and Google content since January, with expanded focus
  • August 14, 2019, 19 MJ 7594: Unknown warrant
  • August 14, 2019, 19 MJ 7595: Existing Yahoo and Google content, with expanded focus

September 25, 2019: Disclosure of Perfect Phone call

October 9, 2019: Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman arrested

  • October 17, 2019, 19 MJ 7595: Actual authorization of the warrant approved in August
  • October 21, 2019, 19 MJ 9829: iCloud content since May
  • October 21, 2019, 19 MJ 9830: Unknown warrant
  • October 21, 2019, 19 MJ 9831: Devices from Dulles
  • October 21, 2019, 19 MJ 9832: Existing iCloud content for expanded focus
  • November 4, 2019: Warrant for Rudy’s iCloud
  • November 4, 2019: Warrant for Rudy’s email
  • November 4, 2019: Warrant for Victoria Toensing’s iCloud
  • November 6, 2019: Warrant for Yuriy Lutsenko’s email

December 5, 2019: Rudy meets with known Russian asset, Andrii Derkach

  • December 10, 2019, 19 MJ 11500: Stuff seized from residences for foreign agent focus
  • December 10, 2019, 19 MJ 11501: Instagram
  • December 10, 2019, Warrant for Roman Nasirov’s email
  • December 13, 2019, Warrant for Victoria Toensing’s email

December 14, 2019: Barr aide texts him: “Laptop on way to you”

January 3, 2020: Barr establishes dedicated channel to ingest Rudy’s dirt

January 17, 2020: Jeffrey Rosen makes Richard Donoghue a gatekeeper for all Ukraine-related investigations

  • February 28, 2020: iPhone of Alexander Levin
  • March 3, 2020: iPad of Alexander Levin
  • March 20, 2020, 20 MJ 3074: Fruman iCloud content obtained with October 21, 2019 warrant to cover earlier periods

June 20, 2020: Barr fires Geoffrey Berman

November 2020: SDNY denied authority to seek devices of Rudy Giuliani

January 2021: SDNY denied authority to seek devices of Rudy Giuliani

  • April 13, 2021: Cell site data for Rudy and Toensing

April 21, 2021: Lisa Monaco sworn in

  • April 21, 2021, 21 MJ 4335: Rudy’s office, residence, and devices
  • April 21, 2021: Victoria Toensing iPhone

Rudy’s Seized Devices Were More Useful for Investigating January 6 than Marie Yovanovitch’s Firing

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On April 28, 2021, the FBI seized up to 18 devices from Rudy Giuliani. On Tuesday, DOJ unsealed the affidavit behind that seizure.

The affidavit, read in conjunction with Barbara Jones’ Special Master reports, Rudy’s privilege log from the Ruby Freeman lawsuit, and a filing he submitted in that suit provide abundant evidence that the devices FBI seized on April 28, 2021 were more useful for investigating January 6 than any suspected FARA violations involved in the firing of Marie Yovanovitch.

And this goes well beyond Robert Costello’s claim that a number of the devices seized from Rudy were corrupted.

The affidavit, as written, was narrow: it only covered FARA violations tied to the role of Yuriy Lutsenko and other Ukranians in the firing of Ambassador Yovanovitch in spring 2019. While there is evidence cited in the affidavit from a broad period of time (for example, describing Rudy’s public admissions that he did certain things in early 2019 later that year), the last overt act described in the affidavit is of someone — probably Victoria Toensing — texting Rudy on May 9, 2019, complaining that people were asking about whether she had registered under FARA and denying that she had a client.

Remarkably, then, the affidavit asked for — and Judge Paul Oetken authorized — the authority to seize “any and all” devices at Rudy’s office and home almost two years after that last overt act.

Judge Oetken authorized that search and seizure even though one of the phones described in the affidavit — an Apple iPhone X that Rudy first started using on January 20, 2021 — could not possibly have been used in the suspected crime described in the affidavit. And three more of the devices described in it, including another iPhone, were only put in use later in 2019.

I’ve long argued that by September 2021, DOJ at least contemplated obtaining other warrants to access that content (because SDNY successfully argued to do the privilege review on all content that post-dated January 1, 2018). But given the scope of those devices, it looks likely that there was at least one other affidavit presented to Oetken in April 2021, one that would justify seizing those later devices.

This table shows (on the vertical axis) the devices that Rudy says were seized and (on the horizontal axis) the devices that FBI thought they’d find.

While Rudy’s own description of these devices (including the model number of the MacBook used in planning January 6, here listed as A22251) is as unreliable as everything else about him, the FBI didn’t find the two iPhone Xes — one used between January 8, 2018 and August 13, 2019, the other used between April 5 2018 and August 27, 2019, both marked in yellow above — that would have been Rudy’s primary phones during the events described in the affidavit.

Just three devices — two iPads and one iPhone 11 — clearly match the description of what the FBI expected to find.

All of them were, according to Rudy’s description (marked in the vertical “January 6 column”), among those used in planning January 6.

Whichever iPhone 11 they did find is almost certainly device that Special Master Jones labeled as device 1B05, the privilege review of which she described this way:

I next assigned for review the chats and messages that post-dated January 1, 2018 on Device 1B05, which is a cell phone. There were originally 25,481 such items, which later increased to 25,629 after a technical issue involving document attachments was identified. An initial release of non-designated items was made to the Government’s investigative team on November 11, 2021.1

Of the total documents assigned for review, Mr. Giuliani designated 96 items as privileged and/or highly personal. Of those 96 designated items, I agreed that 40 were privileged, Mr. Giuliani’s counsel withdrew the privilege designation over 19, and I found that 37 were not privileged. I shared these determinations with Mr. Giuliani’s counsel, and they indicated that they would not challenge my determination that the 37 items are not privileged. The 40 privileged documents have been withheld from the Government’s investigative team and the remaining 56 were released on January 19, 2022.

1 Additional non-designated items were released on January 19, 2022.

Those 25,000 chats were easily the most voluminous content turned over from any one device to the FBI. Of all the chats that Rudy attempted to withhold from that phone, he ultimately only succeeded in withholding 40 items. 40 chats or texts out of 25,000 total.

262 items in Rudy’s privilege log come from that phone. Another 127 come from a device, 1B09, also used to text about January 6 (including with Mark Meadows), which — given the date scope — must have been among the first devices Jones reviewed. That’s one possible source of a Ken Chesebro document included in the indictment but not identified in the January 6 Report.

And while Rudy withheld those documents from Ruby Freeman, since Jones only permitted Rudy to withhold 43 items total from DOJ, those must have been deemed non-privileged in the Special Master review. (I’ve noted before that there are easily 40 items that clearly relate to Rudy’s own lawyers.)

They were all turned over to DOJ, for use with whatever investigative teams had obtained warrants to access them, no later than January 21, 2022.

This is one thing Rudy accomplished by defaulting on discovery: Withholding from Ruby Freeman, and therefore from a public trial that would precede Republican primaries, documents that were turned over to DOJ in January 2022.

By April 2021 when — using warrants approved on Lisa Monaco’s first day on the job, but nevertheless a year after Bill Barr started obstructing this investigation — the FBI came looking for devices involved in Rudy’s suspected FARA violations tied to getting Marie Yovanovitch, they didn’t find the devices he would have been using at the time.

They did, however, find three devices on which Rudy planned January 6. And because of the way DOJ did the privilege review on those devices, those records would have been made available to any investigators with a lawful warrant no later than January 21, 2022.

Perjury Trapped: Rudy Giuliani’s Sync Sink

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As I noted here, I’m just beginning to go through the warrants from SDNY’s Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani investigation the NYT liberated.

I want to start with a very minor point about the apparent inconsistencies between what SDNY found when they conducted searches on Rudy’s cloud and what Rudy claimed — purportedly under penalty of perjury — before Beryl Howell.

In the Ruby Freeman case — the first one, not her renewed suit to enjoin him from continued lies about her — Rudy claimed that he didn’t need to separately search his messaging accounts, because his phones were all synced to his iCloud.

All of my [redacted]@icloud.com iCloud data would have also been included in the TrustPoint data because I synced my iCloud to my devices.

But SDNY, when they searched his iCloud back in 2019, discovered that known messages were not there.

On or about November 4, 2019, the USAO and FBI sought and obtained from the Honorable J. Paul Oetken, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, a warrant (the “November 4 Warrant”) for records in iCloud accounts belonging to Giuliani and [Victoria Toensing].

[snip]

As discussed above, on November 4, 2019, the FBI and USAO sought and obtained a search warrant for, among other things, Giuliani’s iCloud account. However, the iCloud did not contain many of the text messages outlined above with Parnas and [Fruman] during the December 2018 to April 2019 time frame. Based on my training and experience, as well as my review of records provided by Apple, I believe the iCloud account did not contain text communications from early 2019 because Giuliani did not backup that content, or removed it from the backup, and not because it does not exist. Indeed, for the reasons set forth below, including Giuliani’s public statement that he has retained potentially relevant communications on his cellphones, there is probable cause to believe that, unlike the iCloud account, evidence of the Subject Offenses continue to be maintained on the Subject Devices.

But, according to Robert Costello, in a declaration that — unlike Rudy’s — was actually notarized and so worth something if you ignore the obvious spin in his representations of what SDNY told him — when SDNY reviewed at least seven of those devices, they were corrupted.

Rudy’s messaging wasn’t in his iCloud when SDNY looked in 2019. And it wasn’t in his phones when SDNY looked in 2021. And yet this year, he claimed the content in both places would be the same.

SDNY Adds FARA Charges to Menendez Indictment

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SDNY just superseded the Robert Menendez indictment to add a Foreign Agent charge.

There’s not much new to the indictment. It lays out FARA. It establishes Menendez’ awareness of FARA’s requirements by pointing to two letters he sent asking for someone else to be investigated for FARA violations. It speaks of an agreement to deliver benefits to Egypt. It describes that the gold and cash found at the Menendez residence was in exchange for favors to Egypt. And it charges Menendez, Nadine, Wael Hana — but not Fred Daibes, the guy who dealt most of the cash — with FARA violations.

I assume much of the evidence may remain classified. But I also wonder whether this was charged now because Menendez hasn’t yet resigned — or because the Israeli war raises the stakes on US relations with Egypt.

Update: On closer read of the indictment, I see a few other key differences.

First, there’s far more detail about this meeting, in which — as with Egypt’s role in the Jamal Khashoggi assassination — Menendez seems to have interceded to protect Egypt.

21. Onorabout May 21,2019, ROBERT MENENDEZ, NADINE MENENDEZ, aa “Nadine Arslanian,” and WAEL HANA, a/k/a “Will Hana,” the defendants, met with an Egyptian intelligence official (“Egyptian Official-3”) at MENENDEZ’s Senate office in ‘Washington, D.C. During this meting, the group discussed a human rights matter pertaining to the resolution ofa claim involving the serious injuries suffered by an American citizen, who was. injured in a 2015 airstrike by the Egyptian military using a U.S -manufactured Apache helicopter. The incident leading to the citizen’s injuries and the perception of certain Members of Congress that the Government of Egypt was not willing to provide fair compensation to the injured citizen for the attack resulted in objections by some Members of Congress to the ‘awardingof certain military aid to Egypt. Shortly after the meeting with Egyptian Offical-3, MENENDEZ conducted a web search for the nameof that American citizen and visited a website that contained an article about the citizen’s claim. Approximately a week later, using an encrypted messaging application, Egyptian Official-3 texted HANA in Arabic regarding this |human rights matter, writing, in part, that if MENENDEZ helped resolve the matter, “he will sit very comfortably,”to which HANA replied, “orders, consider it done.” Egyptian Official then texted HANA screenshots of a statement from the American citizen’s attorney pertaining to the claim, which HANA then forwarded a few days ater to NADINE MENENDEZ, who in turn forwarded it to MENENDEZ. NADINE MENENDEZ subsequently deleted her text messages with HANA about this matter.

One other difference is investigative. To the existing paragraph about the search of Wael Hana’s phone in 2019, the superseding indictment notes that the search also found his encrypted texts, texts that Nadine had deleted.

That search also revealed thousands of text messages, many via an encrypted application, with Egyptian military and intelligence officials, pertaining to various topics, including MENENDEZ, and including requests and directives for HANA to act upon.

They obviously have had those for years, but decided to indict, first, without including them.

Finally, there are a few more pictures of meetings, such as this one taken in Menendez’ office and another taken from the May 21, 2019 dinner.

While this indictment may reflect more cooperation from Menendez’ staffers, much of it was all baked into the prosecution when they first indicted a month ago.

Update: The 2015 airstrike was on April Corley and her boyfriend.

Update: The indictment establishes Menendez’ knowledge of FARA — which is required for FARA but not for 951 — by pointing to two letters he wrote asking for DOJ to investigate a former Congressman under FARA. As Phil Bump lays out, that former Congressman is David Rivera; he has since been charged as an Agent of Venezuela.

The Still Ongoing Investigation into Where that Robert Menendez Cash Came From

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Among the most interesting stories I’ve read on Robert Menendez since his indictment is this story, from the day before the indictment.

I find it interesting for how much of the story NBC already had — but more importantly, details from NBC that don’t show up in the indictment. The story reports on two of three prongs that appear in the indictment: It provides passing coverage of the IS EG Halal financing (though offers few specifics of the Egyptian favors) and extensive coverage of the Fred Daibes relationship.

The NBC story actually attributes the Mercedes, which the indictment directly ties to Menendez’ intervention in the state prosecution of a Jose Uribe associate, to IS EG Halal (Uribe does have ties to Wael Hana’s company). NBC doesn’t mention Menendez’s alleged intervention in the state prosecution of Uribe’s associate. Of more interest, it also describes a “a luxury D.C. apartment” that may have come from Hana’s company which is not mentioned at all in the indictment.

The story notes IRS-CI’s involvement in the case (as did Damian Williams at his presser announcing the charges); there’s no sign of tax charges, yet, in the indictment, or for that matter, of campaign disclosure violations (something the NYT reporter who has followed this closely is focused on).

As noted, however, the NBC story focuses much more closely on the Daibes prong of the investigation. It describes witnesses being asked if Menendez offered Daibes to interfere in the federal prosecution against him.

Sources say witnesses are now testifying before that federal grand jury. Part of the investigation centers on the senator’s ties to Fred Daibes, a New Jersey developer and one-time bank chairman. Officials with the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation want to know if Daibes or his associates gave gold bars to the senator’s wife, Nadine Arslanian — gold bars worth as much as $400,000.

At the time of the gift handoff, Daibes was facing federal bank fraud charges that could have landed him up to a decade in federal prison.

Sources familiar with the matter say federal prosecutors have been asking if Menendez offered to help support Daibes with his criminal case by contacting Justice Department officials about the case. If the senator did offer to act in exchange for expensive gifts, legal experts say that could be a crime.

“For purposes of the Federal Extortion Act, it makes no difference if the senator took an official act so long as he accepted the money and there was knowledge the money was in exchange for that official influence, even if he never carried out what he had promised he would do,” NBC Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos said.

The indictment does not describe such an offer. The closest thing it describes is this exchange, after the prosecution of Fred Daibes was continued, when Nadine told Daibes that Menendez was “fixated” on Daibes’ fate:

On or about December 23, 2021, the trial of DAIBES, which had previously been scheduled for January 2022, was adjourned for reasons related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Later that day, DAIBES texted NADINE MENENDEZ, a/k/a “Nadine Arslanian,” the defendant, and asked how ROBERT MENENDEZ, the defendant, who had recently sustained a shoulder injury, was doing. NADINE MENENDEZ responded that MENENDEZ was doing better having heard that the trial date was adjourned, and that MENENDEZ was “FIXATED on it.” DAIBES responded, “Good I don’t want him to be upset over it. This is not his fault he was amazing in all he did he’s an amazing friend and as loyal as they come. How is the shoulder is he sleeping. Let me know if I can get him a recliner it helped me sleep.” DAIBES thereafter provided a recliner to MENENDEZ.

There’s also an incident where Daibes and Menendez, together, yell at Daibes’ attorney for not being aggressive enough; that’s not a crime, and in fact Menendez will use it to claim he intervened because he cared, not because he was paid.

NBC’s description of Menendez’ contact with US Attorney Phil Sellinger’s office differs in fairly significant ways from the indictment. It cites sources claiming that Menendez never contacted Sellinger or his office.

Sources told News 4 there is no indication U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger or his office were ever contacted by the senator — but the two men had been close, with Sellinger appointed to the position with the senator’s support, and Sellinger previously serving as a campaign fundraiser for Menendez.

According to the indictment, Menendez did. The indictment alleges that Menendez raised Daibes before supporting Sellinger for the nomination.

In that meeting, MENENDEZ criticized the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey’s prosecution of FRED DAIBES, the defendant, and said that he hoped that the Candidate would look into DAIBES’s case if the Candidate became the U.S. Attorney. MENENDEZ did not mention any other case in the meeting. After the meeting, the Candidate informed MENENDEZ that he might have to recuse himself from the DAIBES prosecution as a result of a matter he had handled in private practice involving DAIBES. MENENDEZ subsequently informed the Candidate that MENENDEZ would not put forward the Candidate’s name to the White House for a recommendation to be nominated by the President for the position of U.S. Attorney.

And Menendez allegedly called Sellinger’s First AUSA, Vikas Khanna.

b. On or about January 21, 2022, MENENDEZ called Official-3 and asked the identity of Official-3’s First Assistant U.S. Attorney (“Official-4”). As a result of Official3’s recusal, Official-4 had supervisory responsibility over the prosecution of DAIBES.

[snip]

d. On or about January 24, 2022, DAIBES’s Driver exchanged two brief calls with NADINE MENENDEZ. NADINE MENENDEZ then texted DAIBES, writing, “Thank you. Christmas in January.” DAIBES’s Driver’s fingerprints were later found on an envelope containing thousands of dollars of cash recovered from the residence of MENENDEZ and NADINE MENENDEZ in New Jersey. This envelope also bore DAIBES’s DNA and was marked with DAIBES’s return address. In or about the early afternoon of January 24, 2022— i.e., approximately two hours after NADINE MENENDEZ had texted DAIBES thanking him and writing “Christmas in January”—MENENDEZ called Official-4, in a call lasting for approximately 15 seconds. This was MENENDEZ’s first phone call to Official-4. On or about January 29, 2022—i.e., several days after NADINE MENENDEZ had texted DAIBES, thanking him and writing “Christmas in January”—MENENDEZ performed a Google search for “kilo of gold price.”

[snip]

45. Official-3 and Official-4 did not pass on to the prosecution team the fact that ROBERT MENENDEZ, the defendant, had contacted them as described in the above paragraphs, and they did not treat the case differently as a result of the above-described contacts. In or about April 2022, FRED DAIBES, the defendant, pled guilty pursuant to a plea agreement that provided for a probationary sentence.

Frankly, I find this part of the indictment unpersuasive, not just because the evidence presented only ever ties Daibes’ payments to proximate acts, not to a specific quid pro quo, but also because it is not explained how this case went from imminent trial to a sweet plea deal in four months.

A cooperation agreement in this investigation might explain it, but there’s no hint of that, though NBC seems to agree with me that that would explain what we’re looking at.

So one reason I find the NBC piece interesting is it portrays that prosecutors were still trying to obtain proof that this interference was a quid pro quo on the eve of the indictment. And SDNY didn’t provide that evidence in the indictment.

Couple that with two other details.

First, there’s the widely mocked line in the Menendez presser, attempting to explain the large amounts of cash found at his home:

For thirty years, I have withdrawn thousands of dollars of cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies, and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba. Now this may seem old-fashioned. But these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those thirty years.

This story is at best a partial explanation for the cash shown in the indictment, much less the checks from Daibes and the gold bars (though Menendez has treated some, if not all, of the gold bars as Nadine’s property).

But consider the utility of it. Most reporters didn’t note Menendez’ silence about the gold bars (Menendez said he’d address other issues at trial). And for less credulous supporters of Menendez, such an explanation is all you need to offer to win their continued support. As with Trump, for the kind of political support you need to try to fight this out, the explanation doesn’t have to be plausible, it just needs to exist.

More interestingly, there’s probably enough truth in the statement — some of the cash the FBI seized in the search last year likely did come from Menendez’ bank account, regardless of why he withdrew it — that if prosecutors attempt to use this video at trial, it could backfire. Prosecutors have called to seize all this cash in forfeiture.

Over $480,000 in cash—much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe—was discovered in the home, along with over $70,000 in NADINE MENENDEZ’s safe deposit box. Some of the envelopes contained the fingerprints and/or DNA of DAIBES or his driver. Other of the envelopes were found inside jackets bearing MENENDEZ’s name and hanging in his closet, as depicted below.

[snip]

A sum of $486,461 in U.S. currency seized from the Englewood Cliffs Premises on or about June 16, 2022.

But there’s not a shred of evidence that they have the ability to tie all of it — or even most of it — to the specific quid pro quos alleged in the indictment, for which it has better evidence of gold bars as payment. It may come from crime, but if it does, it may not come from this crime.

Prosecutors alleged that all of this $486,000 ties to the crimes alleged in the indictment. If Menendez can prove that some of it doesn’t, then he can use that overreach to discredit the prosecution.

As such, the statement — as ridiculous as it has justifiably been treated — seems partly a taunt. Menendez seems quite confident that prosecutors can’t trace a good deal of this cash, certainly not to these specific crimes, even if they can trace it to Daibes.

Note that Menendez’ claims to care about Egyptian human rights includes a similar taunt, referencing a meeting he had directly with Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Whether and how and which Egyptians, including Sisi, have evidence to support Menendez’s defense will be a topic of extended litigation. Imagine trying to litigate testimony from the Egyptian President? Similarly, Menendez may demand testimony from his (still) fellow Senators, who witnessed another interaction he had with Sisi.

Which brings me to Damian Williams’ presser.

One reason I’m struck by the NBC story is it suggested there was still some work before prosecutors would be ready to indict, and yet they obtained an indictment — an indictment that doesn’t map the Daibes corruption as closely as I assume they would like — the very next day. Since then, we’ve learned that SDNY unsealed the indictment without first waiting to arrest Wael Hana at the airport, as they did yesterday. It’s highly unusual to indict someone in a way that maximizes their opportunity to flee the country, unless you have good reason to believe they won’t do that.

Hana didn’t take that opportunity to flee.

The whole thing seems either rushed, perhaps in response to disclosures like NBC’s, or tactical, an effort to advance a larger investigation.

As Williams said in his presser,

This investigation is very much ongoing. We are not done. And I want to encourage anyone with information to come forward and to come forward quickly.

That’s a version of the statement Williams made (though nowhere near as forceful) in his first presser on the Sam Bankman-Fried arrest — “come see us before we come see you” — which preceded the announcement of cooperation pleas from two key SBF associaties the following week, at which Williams again invited cooperators to come foward: “we are moving quickly and our patience is not eternal.”

I may be alone in this judgement, but I don’t think SDNY has the Daibes side of these alleged corruption — by far the bulk of the money — at all locked down. The Daibes corruption was the topic of Menendez’ taunt about cash; he may be confident that prosecutors won’t succeed in doing so.

But Damian Williams, at least, seems to believe more is coming.

Update: I didn’t see this NBC report on an ongoing counterintelligence investigation until after I posted. Note that statutes of limitation on some of the allegations in the indictment (which started more than five years ago) would have expired.

“Piker:” Donald Trump Rants as if Robert Menendez’s 22 Ounces of Gold Were as Big as Jared’s $2 Billion

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The former President went on one of his classic rants of projection last night, demanding that every Democratic Senator resign because of the alleged corruption of Robert Menendez.

“They all knew what was going on,” Trump said, “and the way [Menendez] lived.”

All Trump’s rants are, at their core, at least partly an attempt to use projection to cast attention away from his own similar or worse corruption.

This one is a doozy, though.

Start with the fact that Trump was suspected of getting $10 million from Egypt in September 2016, money he used to stay in the Presidential race. That suspected bribe was investigated for several years, with the Egyptian state-owned bank suspected of making the payment fighting a subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court. The investigation was then closed in summer 2020, without ever subpoenaing Trump Organization, during a period when Bill Barr was shutting down all Mueller-related investigations of Trump. The allegation that, like Menendez, Trump was on the take from Egypt — a key prong of the Mueller investigation — has been ignored by most outlets, so I may return to describe what we know of it.

Then consider that Trump told a comedian posing as Menendez, John Melenedez, that he believed Menendez had gotten a raw deal in his corruption prosecution. “Congratulations on everything,” Trump told the guy he thought was Menendez not long after DOJ dropped the first bribery prosecution. “We’re proud of you. Congratulations! Great job! You went through a tough, tough situation, and I don’t think a very fair situation. But congratulations!”

“They all knew what was going on, and the way [Menendez] lived,” Trump wailed. But so did Trump when he congratulated someone he thought was Menendez for getting away with accepting alleged bribes.

In fact, Trump even commuted the separate Medicare fraud sentence of Menendez’ first co-defendant, Salomon Melgen (like Menendez, the jury hung on bribery charges against Melgen). When Trump claims that Senate Democrats knew what was going on? Unlike Senate Democrats, Trump reviewed Melgen’s conduct closely enough to save him from most of a 204-month prison sentence. Trump specifically said that “the ends of justice do not require [Melgen] to remain confined until his currently projected release date of August 2, 2031.” There’s no question Trump doesn’t care about Menendez’ corruption because he used his presidential authority to eliminate most punishment against Menendez’ co-defendant.

Finally, the craziest part of Trump’s attempt to project his own corruption on Democrats: a key allegation in the Menendez indictment alleges that Menendez did exactly what Jared Kushner did, only for a tiny fraction of the payoff that Jared got.

As I noted in this post, most of Menendez’ Egypt-related corruption came before he and Nadine were married, and most of the payment was laundered through Wael Hana’s halal company, at which Nadine had a no-work job. That may make it hard to prove was a quid pro quo.

There’s one glaring exception to that: The 22 one-ounce bars of gold that, the indictment suggests, Menendez and Nadine received days after Menendez helped shield Egypt from repercussions tied to their role in the Jamal Khashoggi execution.

As the indictment explains, after Nadine’s relationship with Egyptian Official-4 had blossomed over time, the two of them set up a meeting between Menendez and a senior Egyptian intelligence official on June 21, 2021, before the same official would meet with other Senators.

On or about June 21, 2021, NADINE MENENDEZ and Egyptian Official-4 organized a private meeting between MENENDEZ and a senior Egyptian intelligence official (“Egyptian Official-5”) in a hotel in Washington, D.C. prior to a meeting between Egyptian Official-5 and other U.S. Senators the next day. On the day of the private meeting, MENENDEZ provided NADINE MENENDEZ with a copy of a news article reporting on questions that other U.S. Senators intended to ask Egyptian Official-5 regarding a human rights issue. NADINE MENENDEZ then sent that article to Egyptian Official-4, who responded, “Thanks you so much, chairman [i.e., MENENDEZ, the Chairman of the SFRC] also raised it today, we appreciate it.” The next day, NADINE MENENDEZ texted Egyptian Official-4 that she hoped the article she had sent was helpful, and stated, “I just thought it would be better to know ahead of time what is being talked about and this way you can prepare your rebuttals.”

A Michael Isiskoff story posted the same day explained what Egypt would need to “rebut:” Egypt’s Intelligence head, Abbas Kamel, was set to be grilled about Egypt’s role — providing training and drugs — in the execution of Jamal Khashoggi.

A just-released Yahoo News “Conspiracyland” podcast series about Khashoggi’s murder [] revealed that the Gulfstream jet carrying a so-called Tiger Team of Saudi assassins to Istanbul made a middle-of-the-night stopover in Cairo for the purpose of picking up a lethal dose of undetermined “illegal” narcotics.

The drugs were injected hours later by a Saudi Ministry of Interior doctor into Khashoggi’s left arm inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul — an operation that the CIA has concluded was authorized by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, often known as MBS.

Abbas Kamel, the chief of Egyptian intelligence, is visiting Washington this week to meet with U.S. intelligence officials as well as members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Staffers told Yahoo News that a number of senators are preparing to ask Kamel about the Cairo stopover — the subject of a Washington Post editorial on Sunday — and whether Egyptian intelligence officials delivered or helped facilitate the delivery of the drugs.

[snip]

There is also evidence that Egyptian intelligence may have provided training for the Tiger Team as well as previous support for Saudi abductions ordered by MBS. A Saudi source familiar with the matter told Yahoo News that the Egyptians assisted the Tiger Team with the 2015 abduction from Italy of Saudi Prince Saud bin Saif al-Nasr. An outspoken foe of MBS, the prince was tricked into boarding a plane he thought was flying to Rome but ended up in Riyadh. He has not been heard from since.

The indictment implies that whatever Menendez did to blunt the accusations of his fellow Senators, it had some tie to the 22 ounces of gold that Hana purchased two days later, at least some bars of which were found at the Menendez residence when it was searched a year later.

On or about June 23, 2021—i.e., two days after the private meeting between MENENDEZ and Egyptian Official-5—HANA purchased 22 one-ounce gold bars, each with a unique serial number. Two of these one-ounce gold bars were subsequently found during the court-authorized search in June 2022 of the residence of MENENDEZ and NADINE MENENDEZ. During the relevant time periods, the spot market price of gold was approximately $1,800 per ounce.

In his rant, Trump accused Menendez of being “piker” compared to others, but he got the comparison wrong.

After all, Menendez sold out cheap. If he received all 22 of those gold bars in 2021 in recognition of having laundered the reputation of Egypt, it would have been worth roughly $40,000.

That’s a miniscule amount compared to what Jared got — $2 billion — for whitewashing Saudi’s role in the Khashoggi execution.

Trump, who knows better than Senate Democrats what was going on, is right: Menendez was a piker. But he was a piker when you measure him against the corruption of Trump’s own son-in-law.

The Sordid Second Season of the Robert Menendez Bribery Series

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There’s a really sordid aspect regarding the timing of the indictment of Robert Menendez unveiled yesterday. Its timeline starts in February 2018, when Nadine Arslanian first starts dating the senior Senator from New Jersey. That was just weeks — possibly days! — after the last bribery case against Menendez ended.

So weeks after DOJ decided not to retry Menendez on his first bribery case, a then-unemployed woman, Nadine Arslanian, started dating the disgraced Senator and, within weeks of that, she alerted an Egyptian friend, Wael Hana, that she was dating him. That set off the most alarming — but probably not the stongest — part of the case: that Menendez was feeding Egypt information and ultimately set up a back channel with an Egyptian intelligence official, meeting at his home in Egypt in October 2021. Those are alarming allegations, but not allegations as clearly tied to financial payoffs to Menendez as some other things.

It’s like some TV producer decided to renew a series for a second season based off an entirely new story line slapped on the older story. “I know! We’ll throw a woman in the mix!”

Aside from that 2021 trip, much of the Egyptian influence operation happened before Nadine and Menendez were married in October 2020. For much of the period, Nadine complained she wasn’t being paid (in a no-work job at Hana’s Halal company). And some of the meetings between Menendez and the Egyptians would not be that far outside the norm for a Senate Foreign Relations Member, much less the Chair. The trip to Egypt, probably accidentally, was made official, giving Menendez legal cover for it. And the seeming bribery immediately upon his return — like a lot of the other payments in this period — came from a long-time Menendez fundraiser, Fred Daibes, or from a Hana associate, Jose Uribe, not directly from Hana.

In other words, this story appears to start with Nadine’s friends exploiting the access she got through her relationship with Menendez. That, as alleged, is largely her corruption. And to prove the corruption, DOJ will need to prove that the payments she only belatedly got were not part of a legitimate job. It’s sketchy as hell. It raises questions about Foreign Agent laws (especially for Hana). But at least as presented in the indictment, that’s not the strongest evidence, certainly not against Menendez.

The stuff that more directly implicates Menendez is his intervention in several criminal investigations, first in the case of an Uribe associate, then in the case of Daibes, Menendez’ longtime fundraiser. Menendez allegedly tried to intervene with prosecutors to help an Uribe associate beat a state charge, and Daibes beat a federal charge, but as described, both cases resolved in probation plea deals without his interference having any effect.

The items DOJ claims must be forfeited as fruits of the crime provide a sense of how much more Daibes allegedly paid Menendez than Hana:

  • The Menendez’ residence in Englewood Cliffs (this may have originally belonged to Nadine, in which case the forfeiture stems from mortgage payments of $23,000 IS EG Halal made on the residence in July 2019)
  • The $75,000 2019 Mercedes C300 José Uribe paid for starting in 2019, which the Menendez’ tried to make look like a loan retroactively in July 2022; it’s not clear — and DOJ doesn’t say — whether the Mercedes was payoff for the Egyptian influence or for Menendez’ attempt to influence the prosecution of Uribe’s associate
  • $486,461 in cash, some of which bore Daibes’ DNA or fingerprints, one envelope of which had Menendez’ DNA, some of which was stashed in a Menendez jacket
  • $79,760 in cash seized in Nadine’s safe deposit box
  • 2 1-KG bars of gold seized on June 16, 2022; these — and at least two others that Nadine sold for around $120,000 in March 2022 — likely came from Daibes
  • 11 1-ounce bars of gold seized on June 16, 2022; these were likely what remained of 22 ounces total, originally valued at around $39,600, purchased by Hana after some meetings with Egyptian officials on June 23, 2021
  • An account tied to Strategic International Business Consultants, which Nadine formed in June 2019 after IS EG Halal got its monopoly and to which IS EG Halal paid three $10,000 payments in August, September, and November 2019

So the Mercedes (worth $75,000) at least appears to be payoff for Menendez’ efforts to help an Uribe associate beat a state case. As noted, the indictment says prosecutors shielded the investigative team from Menendez’ interference, but Uribe and the associate nevertheless had a celebratory dinner with Menendez attributing his legal good fortune to Menendez.

Because the roughly $100,000 in payments from Hana — with the exception of the one-ounce gold bars — came through IS EG Halal, DOJ will need to prove that Nadine’s no-work job really wasn’t a job or at least not a legal one.

The bulk of the payments, around $720,000 in cash and gold (the indictment also references checks not itemized here), came from Daibes. While he had financial ties to Hana, he also had a long-lasting relationship as a fundraiser for Menendez, and DOJ doesn’t lay out when the money came in. Given the extent of that relationship, Menendez’ intervention with the US Attorney’s office (and his equivocations about supporting Phil Sellinger’s appointment) are corrupt as hell but not unusual for Washington.

After all, Attorney General Garland only got confirmed after assuring Lindsey Graham and other Senators that he would continue the politically influenced criminal investigations into Hunter Biden and (by John Durham) of Hillary Clinton and her associates. And the entire House GOP is continuing such demands to this day, in part because their Sugar Daddy, Donald Trump, demands it.

There has to be something more to the Daibes’ money, something not laid out in this indictment. Particularly given that there are no campaign finance allegations, DOJ has not ruled out that Menendez was just on a regular take from Daibes. It simply doesn’t account for the amount of money Daibes allegedly gave Menendez, nor does it tie that money to specific quid pro quos.

(Daily Beast reports that Daibes has or had ties with the Italian mafia.)

Similarly, there must be more explanation to the Daibes’ plea deal. This indictment suggests that Sellinger’s First AUSA, Vikas Khanna, rebuffed Menendez’ efforts to intervene in the Daibes case, just like NJ state prosecutors rebuffed his efforts to intervene in the case of the Uribe associate who nevertheless attributed his plea to Menendez. The NJ USAO only belatedly clarified that Sellinger was recused and the plea had been approved by Khanna on the day of the indictment. And it’s hard to explain the repeated continuances of Daibes’ sentencing, first in September 2022, then in December 2022, then in March 2023, then in July 2023; sentencing for Daibes and his co-defendant is currently set for October 23, 2023. The sentencing submissions submitted in August 2022 remain sealed. If Daibes started cooperating in this case after the June 2022 searches of the other co-defendants, it might make sense, but there’s no hint of that.

Likewise, there’s no ready explanation for why SDNY is prosecuting this instead of NJ USAO. Rather than any mention that this got referred from one of those NJ offices, which is what you would hope happened if a politician attempted to influence a prosecution, the indictment establishes venue in fairly tangential acts (marked in blue in the timeline below): Two dinners Menendez and Nadine had in Manhattan, the loan payments Uribe arranged through a bank in the Bronx, and a text Nadine sent on September 5, 2019.

Finally, it’s not clear whether this investigation arose out of an investigation — perhaps for being a foreign agent, which inexplicably is not included in this indictment — into Hana, which led up to the search of his phone in November 2019 but which doesn’t appear to have alarmed anyone, or out of further scrutiny of Daibes.

Or maybe, after the prosecution failed the last time, DOJ Public Integrity (which was heavily involved in the first prosecution of Menendez) just kept watching, knowing he’d stumble again.

Some of the overt acts in this indictment — most notably when Menendez provided sensitive information about embassy staffing to the Egyptians — happened more than five years ago, so they’re only included as part of a conspiracy that continued for years after that. But I wouldn’t rule out that we get more clarity about all this money in a superseding indictment.

Update: Added the detail that the June 21, 2021 meeting with Egypt’s Intelligence head pertained to Egypt’s role in the Jamal Khashoggi assassination.

Timeline

Below, I’ve bolded key payments (there are other payments that DOJ does not date in the indictment). I’ve marked in pink the engagement and marriage of Nadine and Menendez, which may change the legal import of Nadine’s actions with Menendez. I’ve marked the acts that SDNY uses to establish venue in blue.

April 1, 2015: DOJ indicts Menendez and longterm associate, Salomen Melgen.

June 27, 2016: US v McDonnell decision.

July 17, 2017: Menendez moves to dismiss in light of US v McDonnell decision.

August 2017: State Department withholds $195 million in military support for Egypt and cancels $65.7 million in other financing.

November 16, 2017: Jury hangs in Salomon Melgen trial.

January 19, 2018: DOJ notices intent to retry case.

January 24, 2018: Judge William Walls grants Menendez’ Rule 29 motion on 7 of 18 counts.

January 31, 2018: DOJ moves to dismiss first bribery case.

February 2018: Nadine Arslanian, at the time unemployed, starts dating Menendez.

Early 2018: Nadine tells Hana she is dating Menendez.

March 2018: Menendez meets with Egyptian Official-1, Nadine, and Hana, without his professional staffers, in his DC Senate office and discusses foreign military funding.

April 2018: Uribe tells Hana that “the deal is to kill and stop all investigation”‘ of associate investigated for insurance fraud.

May 6, 2018: After meeting with Nadine and Hana (location uncertain), Menendez seeks out number and nationality of peoeple working at US Embassy in Cairo.

May 7, 2018: Menendez texts details of Embassy staffing to Nadine, who forwarded it to Hana, who forwarded it to Egyptian Official-2.

May 2018: Menendez has fancy dinner with Hana after which Hana texts Egyptian Official-1 that “the ban on small arms and ammunition to Egypt has been lifted.”

May 2018: Nadine gets Menendez to ghost write letter asking other Senators to release $300 million hold. He sends ghost-written letter to her via personal email; she sends it to Hana. Both delete the email.

Several months after March 2018: Nadine expresses hope that Egypt “replace him,” meaning Hana. 

June 30, 2018: Menendez, Nadine, and Hana meeting in Manhattan restaurant. 

July 2018: After meeting with Egyptian Official-1 set up by Nadine and Hana, Menendez tells Nadine he will sign off on $99 million sale to Egypt, stating that they have had such arms for many years and use them for counterterrorism in the Sinai.

October 30, 2018: Fred Daibes charged by US Attorney for obtaining loans under false pretenses.

December 2018: Nadine has car accident and starts complaining to Hana that she does not have a car.

January 27, 2019: Menendez, Nadine, and Hana meet at dinner (Uribe was invited but did not attend), after which Hana starts sending Nadine texts about Uribe associate’s criminal case. Nadine deleted those messages.

January 29, 2019: After reviewing texts with Nadine (which both deleted), Menendez attempts to pressure Official-2 to resolve the prosecution of Uribe’s associate. Official-2 does not intervene.

February 3, 2019: Nadine texts Hana, “I’m so excited to get a car next week !!”

2018 to 2019: Hana’s halal firm, which had no revenue, did not deliver on payments promised to Nadine.

March 12, 2019: Nadine and Uribe speak for 21 minutes, after which Uribe texts, “I am real. I will stand by my word.”

March 27, 2019: Uribe directs Nadine to a Mercedes dealer, after which she sends Menendez pictures to help pick a color.

April 2019: Uribe associate resolves case with guilty plea that was more favorable than prosecutors’ initial plea offer.

April 3, 2019: Nadine texts dealer saying Uribe told her to pick up car on April 5.

April 3, 2019: Uribe tells associate, “I need 15k cash this afternoon.”

April 4, 2019: Nadine texts Menendez that she’s going “to meet Jose for five minutes;” in the parking lot of a restaurant, he hands her $15,000 in cash.

April 5, 2019: Nadine uses the $15,0000 as a down payment to get the Mercedes, paying the rest with a loan based on false financing claims.

April 7, 2019: Egyptian government official informs Hana he’ll become sole certifier for halal imports.

April 8, 2019: Nadine texts Menendez, “seems like halal went through. It might be a fantastic 2019 all the way around.”

Spring 2019: Egypt grants Hana’s halal company, IS EG Halal, exclusive monopoly on certifiying meat exported from the US to Egypt as halal.

April and May 2019: USDA complains to Egypt about monopoly grant to IS EG Halal.

May 2019: Uribe starts paying off Nadine’s loan, via an associate’s Bronx business account, keeping his name out of it.

May 3, 2019: Uribe causes associate to pay off Nadine’s loan through bank in the Bronx.

May 21, 2019: Menendez, Hana, and Egyptian Official-3 meet twice, the second time at steakhouse in DC. They discuss human rights issue. Hana requests Menendez’ intervention on USDA objections to IS EG Halal monopoly.

May 22 and 23, 2019: Hana provides Nadine information on USDA objections. She texts them to Menendez, and later deletes them.

May 23, 2019: Menendez intervenes with USDA Official-1, asking him to stop interfering with IS EG Halal’s monopoly. Official-1 did not accede to demand, but IS EG Halal kept monopoly.

June 2019: Nadine forms Strategic International Business Consultants, LLC, explaining to a relative she would use it to get paid. “Every time I’m in a middle person for a deal I am asking to get paid and this is my consulting company.”

July 2019: After mortgage company moves to foreclose on Nadine, IS EG Halal pays $23,000 to bring Nadine’s mortgage current. As part of those discussions, Nadine said, “When I feel comfortable and plan the trip to Egypt [Hana] will be more powerful than the president of Egypt.” [DOJ does not allege Menendez was part of this discussion.]

July 2019: A New Jersey detective asks to interview Uribe’s associate, leading Menendez to attempt to intervene again.

July 31, 2019: Uribe contacts Nadine saying “We need to move fast” … “We can stop this.” Nadine responds that she will “address itfirst thing tomorrow morning or tonight depending on when he is home.” Menendez does Google search on State agency employing insurance fraud investigator.

August 30, 2019: IS EG Halal pays Nadine $10,000.

September 3, 2019: Uribe texts Nadine saying, “Please don’t forget about me. I will never forget about you” … “I need peace.”

September 4, 2019: Menendez sets up meeting with NJ prosecutor for September 6.

September 5, 2019: Menendez, Nadine, and Uribe meet at Nadine’s house.

September 5, 2019: Nadine sends Uribe a text sent through cell tower in Manhattan.

September 6, 2019: Prosecutor meets with Menendez, Menendez informs Uribe the meeting was “very positive.”

September 9, 2019: Egyptian Official-3 texts Hana relaying that a State Department official told an Egyptian diplomatic official that “Senator Menendize put a hold on a billion $ of usaid to Egypt before the recess !!!!” Hana attempted to contact Nadine, then forwarded the Egyptian text to Daibes, who called Menendez and then responded that it wasn’t true.

September 2019: Menendez offered to provide assistance to Hana and Egypt during official trip to India, then later meets with Daibes, Hana, and Egyptian Official-3.

September 2019: Nadine complains to Daibes that Hana had not paid her. Daibes responds, “Nadine I personally gave Bob a check for September.”

September 2019: Nadine texts Menendez complaining that Hana has not left her an envelope, referencing a meeting Menendez had with senior Egyptian officials “last Saturday.” Nadine called Daibes.

September 21, 2019: Menendez, Hana, Daibes, and Egyptian Official-4 meet at restaurant in Manahattan.

September 28, 2019: IS EG Halal pays Nadine $10,000.

October 2019: Menendez and Nadine get engaged.

October 29, 2019: Uribe texts Nadine for an update. Menendez calls Uribe, after which he tells Nadine he is “a very happy person.”

After October 29, 2019: Menendez, Nadine, Uribe, and associate have celebratory dinner.

November 5, 2019: Uribe texts Nadine about automatic payments for Mercedes Benz.

November 5, 2019: IS EG Halal pays Nadine $10,000.

November 9, 2019: Uribe sets up automatic payments through another trucking company, ultimately paying $30,000 in addition to the cash down payment.

November 2019: Search of Hana’s cell phone reveals thousands of text messages with Nadine, many of which she had deleted.

March 2020: Nadine texts Egyptian Official-3 and offers to help, then setting up meeting with “the general,” after which Menendez intervenes to pressure State to increase its engagement on Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

October 2020: Menendez, Nadine, Egyptian Official-3 ,and Egyptian Official-4 meet for dinner in Edgewater, NJ.

October 2020: Menendez and Nadine get married.

December 2020: Menendez and Nadine have dinner meeting with Egyptian Official-3.

December 2020: Menendez meets with US Attorney candidate and complains about prosecution of Fred Daibes. US Attorney candidate tells Menedez he might have to recuse. Menendez told US Attorney candidate he would not recommend him.

Early 2021: IS EG Halal delivers two exercise machines and air purifier to Menendez home.

May 2, 2021: Advisor intervenes with US Attorney candidate about recusing, tells Menendez “you’ll be comfortable with what he says.” Menendez recommends candidate. After confirmation, he recuses.

June 21, 2021: Nadine and Egyptian Official-4 organized meeting between Menendez and Egyptian Intelligence Head Abbas Kamel, in advance of meeting with other Senators that day. Both Nadine and Menendez alert Egyptian Official-4 that other Senators were going to raise a human rights issue. Per this thread (ThreadReader is down right now but it’s here) and this Isikoff story, the human rights issue was Egypt’s involvement in the execution of Jamal Khashoggi.

June 23, 2021: Hana purchases 22 one ounce gold bars, each worth $1,800. Two were found at Menendez residence in June 2022 search.

October 2021: Nadine arranges trip for her and Menendez to Egypt, originally planned as unofficial visit. When a SFRC took steps that made it an official visit, Egyptian Official-4 said he might lose his job. During the trip, Menendez had meeting at home of Egyptian Official-5 (the intelligence official).

October 17, 2021: Driver for Fred Daibes picks up the Menendezes from trip to Egypt; the next day Menendez searches, “how much is one kilo of gold worth.”

December 23, 2021: Daibes’ trial adjourned. Daibes asks about Menendez’ shoulder injury. Nadine responds that Menendez is fixated on trial date. Daibes sent recliner to Menendez.

December 2021 through February 2022: Menendez asks Advisor to ask why US Attorney recused himself.

January 2022: Menendez sends Nadine a link about military sales to Egypt totally $2.5 billion; Nadine forwards ot Hana, saying that Menendez had to sign off on it.

January 21, 2022: Menendez called NJ US Attorney and asked for First AUSA name.

January 22, 2022: Menendez complains to Daibes that his attorney has not been aggressive enough.

January 24, 2022: Nadine has two calls with Daibes’ driver. “Christmas in January.” Thousands in cash with Daibes’ DNA later found at residence. 

January 29, 2022: Menendez searches for “kilo of gold price.”

January 31, 2022; Menendez calls First AUSA, then calls Daibes.

March 2022: Menendez asks Advisor to bring up Daibes at lunch with US Attorney, Advisor declines to do so.

March 30, 2022: Nadine thanks Daibes, then sells 2 1-KG gold bars to jeweler, each worth $60,000.

March 31, 2022: Two 1-KG gold bars Nadine provided to jeweler sold in Manhattan.

April 2022: Daibes pleads guilty to plea agreement providing probationary sentence. Sentencing has been continued repeatedly since plea.

June 2022: Federal agents approach Menendez, Nadine, and Uribe, after which Menendez pays Nadine $23,000 and Nadine pays Uribe $21,000.

June 16, 2022: Search discovers:

  • 2 1-KG gold bars
  • 9 1-ounce gold bars
  • 10 envelopes of cash, each with 10s of 1000s of dollars, bearing Daibes’ fingerprints, one which included fingerprints of Menendez

July 14, 2023: Sentencing for Daibes and co-defendant reset, for fourth time, for October 23, 2023.

September 21, 2023: DOJ amends sentencing agreement to note that Phil Sellinger was recused and Vikas Khanna oversaw the Daibes prosecution.

September 21, 2023: Indictment