The Ongoing National Security Threats Posed by Senator Bob Menendez

[Celerity]

https://www.justsecurity.org/88890/the-ongoing-national-security-threats-posed-by-senator-bob-menendez/

by Asha Rangappa and Marc Polymeropoulos

The recent indictment of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) reads like the script of a B crime movie: A politician, three New Jersey businessmen, a shady trucking business, and envelopes and a safe deposit box stuffed with cash and gold bars. But the most important thru-line in the narrative isn’t the criminal charges. Rather, it is the national security threat raised by the espionage and counterintelligence concerns which run throughout the 39-page document. In sum, the government of Egypt–with whom the United States has an ostensible “critical defense partnership”–appears to have recruited the powerful Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The indictment explicitly lists five ways Menendez has already compromised U.S. national security, and implicitly reveals one ongoing threat Menendez poses as long as he continues to hold his current position.

1. Disclosing the United States’ Staffing Blueprint in its Egyptian Embassy

According to the indictment, on May 6, 2018, Menendez requested that the State Department provide him with non-public information regarding the number of people serving at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and their nationality. Upon receiving this information, Menendez texted that information to his then-girlfriend (now wife), Nadine Menendez, who forwarded it to an Egyptian businessman Wael Hana, who in turn forwarded it to Egyptian officials.Notably, the senator requested this information from the State Department after having met with Nadine Menendez and Hana earlier that day.

Such tasking by the Egyptians would be consistent with classic modus operandi in a recruitment operation. One requests a seemingly innocuous document, that once is provided, gets their hooks into an agent-candidate. Indeed, the chronology that follows in the indictment indicates the senator had become compromised and increasing demands were then placed on him by the Egyptian officials and intermediaries.

Although the precise staffing numbers of a foreign embassy are not classified, they are considered sensitive because they can potentially be used to determine a foreign intelligence presence in that country. Foreign embassies are a primary focus for a domestic counterintelligence service. In addition, understanding the number of locals employed at the embassy offers opportunities for a domestic counterintelligence service to recruit those individuals to be their “eyes and ears” inside the embassy – even just to spot and assess potential targets who may be vulnerable.

2. Providing Advance Information on U.S. Military Aid...........

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Open Society Foundations, formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded by George Soros.

[MLAA]

1. Assuming that's true, lock his and his wife's ass up.