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“What else can the love of my life do for you?” requested Nadine Arslanian, the girlfriend of Senator Robert Menendez.
She posed the query at a comfortable dinner at a steakhouse in Might 2019 attended by Gen. Ahmed Helmy, Egypt’s prime spy in Washington. The dialogue was revealed in a federal indictment on Thursday.
As Common Helmy would come to search out out, even when Ms. Arslanian and her soon-to-be husband weren’t all the time capable of ship what Egypt needed, they a minimum of appeared to strive very laborious.
The indictment charged Mr. Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his now spouse with conspiring to behave as brokers of the Egyptian authorities. The doc, along with one other indictment made public final month, paint an unseemly image of how the couple superior Egyptian pursuits on quite a few fronts.
They tried to go off potential cuts to the greater than $1 billion in support that the US sends to Cairo annually. They gave Egyptian officers inner details about staffing on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. And so they pushed the U.S. secretary of state to assist block a dam mission on the Nile River that Egypt’s authorities vigorously opposed.
In return, prosecutors say, the Menendezes acquired a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} in gold bars, money and different bribes.
The truth that the couple was speaking on to Common Helmy and his boss, Gen. Abbas Kamel, the chief of Egypt’s highly effective Common Intelligence Service, is a measure of how vital Mr. Menendez was to the very best ranges of the Egyptian authorities and the way central the nation’s spies have develop into to its pursuits.
Neither Common Helmy nor Common Kamel are named within the indictments, and their roles haven’t been beforehand reported. Common Helmy is recognized within the indictment solely as “Egyptian Official-3” and Common Kamel as “Egyptian Official-5.” However three U.S. officers have confirmed their names.
The roles of the 2 Egyptian spies in making an attempt to affect U.S. coverage additionally present extra proof to counsel that the information-passing and bribe-paying may very well be a part of an espionage operation centered on Mr. Menendez, and never simply one other tactic to wield affect in Washington.
The spies in Washington additionally replicate a deliberate technique by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt to lean on these he trusts most — the intelligence cadres led by Common Kamel — who kind a part of the army and intelligence equipment that helped Mr. el-Sisi seize energy in 2013 and that analysts say is now the first instrument of his rule.
In Cairo, Common Intelligence handles nearly all key overseas coverage issues and has shunted apart the as soon as highly effective Overseas Ministry. Common Intelligence additionally has home tasks similar to preserving Parliament in line and micromanaging the information media.
Together with Egypt’s army, Common Intelligence has develop into one of many nation’s largest financial gamers and gobbles up what students have decided is a large portion of Egypt’s financial system. The intelligence company typically makes use of civilian frontmen to cloak their firms’ true possession.
Particulars within the two Menendez indictments reveal how central the couple was to the efforts of Egyptian intelligence officers.
In a single occasion, in Might 2019, Common Helmy pressed Mr. Menendez to intervene together with his Senate colleagues who have been holding up army support to Egypt due to the federal government’s unwillingness to correctly compensate an American who was injured in an Egyptian airstrike in 2015.
Days after assembly with Mr. Menendez, Common Helmy despatched an encrypted textual content in Arabic to Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman who had launched the couple to a number of Egyptian officers and has additionally been charged by prosecutors. The final wrote that if the senator helped resolve the matter, “he’ll sit very comfortably.”
“Orders, think about it finished,” Mr. Hana replied, in keeping with the indictment.
In one other message Mr. Hana despatched to Common Helmy, he referred to Mr. Menendez as “our man.”
Mr. Hana and the Menendezes have pleaded not responsible within the case. The Egyptian authorities’s overseas press heart and the overseas ministry spokesman didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Eclipsing the Ambassador
The indictments element how the 2 spies met the Menendezes by way of Mr. Hana, who’s accused of drawing on his halal certification firm to bathe the couple with bribes whereas passing delicate data to the Egyptians. The corporate had the means to pay, the indictment says, as a result of the Egyptian authorities had abruptly awarded it a multimillion-dollar monopoly quickly after Mr. Hana met Mr. Menendez.
The connection might sound baffling to People: Egypt’s intelligence chief and an obscure firm guaranteeing that exported meat, milk and nutritional vitamins are religiously permissible for Muslims to eat. However in Egypt, the place official energy and revenue have develop into inseparable, a profitable deal for a well-connected businessman — one that might additionally enrich the safety institution — was a typical means for the state to do enterprise.
Gaining the cooperation of Mr. Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee, would have been a bonus, analysts stated. It’s unclear whether or not Mr. Hana gained the halal monopoly from Egypt due to his ties to the Menendezes, although it appeared to have been accomplished after he launched Egyptian officers to the senator.
Egyptian officers have lengthy made the case that they’re an important companion to the US on a spread of points similar to counterterrorism and being a liaison within the Israeli-Palestinian battle, which erupted final weekend after Hamas launched its most audacious assault on Israel, killing 1,300 Israelis and taking 150 hostages.
By the point Egyptian officers started their outreach to the senator, Mr. el-Sisi had consolidated energy in Washington into the arms of the highly effective Common Intelligence Service.
Gen. Ashraf el-Tarabani, the highest intelligence official figuring out of Egypt’s Embassy in Washington in the course of the mid-2010s, had eclipsed the ambassador as probably the most influential official advancing the nation’s pursuits in the US.
The gregarious, chain-smoking normal held common conferences with lawmakers and White Home officers. He overtly disparaged the ambassador, who nominally led the embassy, as ineffectual.
Common Intelligence even employed its personal lobbyists in Washington, Cassidy and Associates. The agency was separate from one other group of lobbyists working for the ambassador and the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, in keeping with interviews with individuals accustomed to the contract and overseas brokers’ registration information.
The lobbyists labored Capitol Hill and hosted dinners at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, a favourite fishbowl of Washington’s political elite, to buff the Egyptian authorities’s picture.
Their chief aim was to influence lawmakers to raise restrictions imposed on the $1.3 billion in army support that flowed from Washington to Cairo annually.
Common Helmy finally took over from Common Tarabani as the highest intelligence official in Washington, assuming management of the lobbying contract and assembly incessantly with the Menendezes.
The indictments present that Common Helmy thought the senator may make an amazing deal and that he saved shut tabs on him. In September 2019, months after the steakhouse dinner, the overall despatched a nervous textual content message to Mr. Hana saying he had heard secondhand that Mr. Menendez had put a maintain on “a billion $ of usaid to Egypt earlier than the recess!!!!”
“Is that this true?” he requested.
Mr. Hana stated he would discover out. After a flurry of messages to Ms. Menendez and others, he wrote again to the overall minutes later, assuring him it was not true.
In March 2020, Ms. Menendez dashed off a textual content message to Common Helmy.
“Anytime you want something you’ve my quantity and we are going to make the whole lot occur,” she wrote, in keeping with the indictment unsealed final month.
In June 2021, Common Kamel flew to Washington to satisfy with senators who had pressed Egypt’s authorities on human rights. A day earlier than the assembly, he sat down with Mr. Menendez and his spouse at a resort. Within the indictment made public on Thursday, the couple gave Common Kamel a briefing about what questions the senators have been more likely to ask him.
Days later, in keeping with the second indictment, Mr. Hana purchased 22 one-ounce gold bars, valued on the time at roughly $1,800 every. Two of the gold bars have been found throughout an F.B.I. search of the Menendez residence. In fall 2021, the Menendezes flew to Egypt. The indictment included {a photograph} of the couple at a non-public dinner at Common Kamel’s residence, beaming subsequent to their host.
Heart of Energy
Concentrating authority below Common Kamel has allowed Mr. el-Sisi a virtually impregnable diploma of management.
Egyptian journalists and analysts say Common Intelligence handpicks members of Parliament to make sure it’s pleasant to Mr. el-Sisi and to handle political events. Common Kamel, described by individuals who have met him as a relaxed man with an affable humorousness, meets with opposition leaders and activists when essential.
Common Intelligence additionally instructs authorities aligned-presenters on Egyptian TV information on what to emphasise. The company overtly owns a lot of the media, together with information shops and hit TV reveals and films produced by intelligence-owned firms.
Common Kamel was Mr. el-Sisi’s chief of employees because the president ascended from normal to the top of army intelligence to protection minister. Leaked audio recordings in 2015 paint Common Kamel as an unwavering loyalist who pulled strings within the whisper marketing campaign that paved the best way for Mr. el-Sisi’s takeover in 2013 and elevated his boss’s picture within the media.
Final yr, Common Intelligence’s huge enterprise holdings turned public after the Egyptian Parliament handed a regulation permitting the spy service to determine, maintain shares of and take board seats in personal firms. The company now owns some firms outright, together with East Gasoline, a key participant within the multibillion-dollar deal that brings pure fuel to Egypt from Israel.
The income by no means present up within the authorities finances. As a substitute they go into slush funds that consultants say are used to reward loyalists, together with funding “an enormous patronage community to keep up the cohesion of the ruling coalition,” stated Maged Mandour, an Egyptian political analyst.
It’s an insurance coverage coverage for a management hemorrhaging assist amongst unusual Egyptians, who’re struggling to remain afloat in the course of the nation’s largest financial disaster in many years.
In different instances, the businesses are ostensibly managed by personal businessmen who as soon as labored for the army or the intelligence institution or are in any other case linked to them, consultants say.
Typically, they go from rags — or, a minimum of, disrepute — to riches seemingly in a single day, like Mr. Hana.
Earlier than Egypt granted him the halal monopoly, Mr. Hana’s enterprise document confirmed little however dangerous checks, unpaid payments and authorized troubles. A Christian, he had no prior expertise with the trade.
However he appeared to have helpful connections in Egypt. In 2018, he started introducing the Menendezes to a number of officers, in keeping with the indictments. By mid-2019, in keeping with federal prosecutors, he gained the halal monopoly.
Reporting from Mada Masr, an impartial Egyptian information outlet, confirmed that Mr. Hana’s firm, IS EG Halal, labored in tandem with one other firm linked to the nation’s safety equipment.
After profitable the monopoly, Mr. Hana promptly raised the worth of halal certification, in some instances greater than tenfold, inflicting an uproar amongst exporting international locations.
William Ok. Rashbaum contributed reporting from New York, and Adam Goldman and Julian E. Barnes from Washington.
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