Gold Bar Bob Menendez acted against Americans to help cover up Khashoggi’s murder
Until now, the story of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder was simple: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was solely responsible for the October 2018 killing and dismemberment in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
But the true story is far more complicated.
It involves the machinations of a corrupt senator who received a cache of gold bars to cover up the Egyptian government’s role in the murder.
The fresh revelations are highlighted in “Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt U.S. Senator,” the new book I wrote with New York Post reporter Isabel Vincent.
We show how Democrat Bob Menendez acted as a mob boss from New Jersey and played a central role in concealing the truth about one of the most horrific murders of a journalist — a permanent US resident who had championed the Arab Spring, a series of popular uprisings that began in 2010 and spread throughout the Middle East.
No one else has reported the role of Menendez — who’s serving an 11-year prison sentence for bribery and other felonies — with the Egyptians in the months leading up to the murder and for years after as head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Even the best assessments the Office of the Director of National Intelligence offered have failed to show evidence MbS definitively ordered the murder.
The Biden administration’s ODNI report was meant to undercut the previous Trump administration’s ambiguity over his role in the murder: “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi” (emphasis mine).
The US intelligence community knew Egyptian officials, who were bribing Menendez, had provided the drugs that killed Khashoggi in the consulate.
The revelation the former senator was involved in covering up the crime came to light almost as an afterthought in a sentencing memo at his trial this year.
Menendez worked to facilitate his Egyptian paymasters’ role and eventually conceal it.
The world was prevented from learning about that role because Menendez essentially ran a spy operation against his fellow senators that thwarted any chance of a serious investigation.
The little we know relates to the Saudi Arabian kill squad given key intel and training in Egypt before stopping in Cairo to pick up the drugs they would use to kill Khashoggi in Istanbul.
Did the Egyptians turn an abduction into a murder they could leverage through their paid senator, Bob Menendez?
They had significant motive: Khashoggi supported the Muslim Brotherhood, who were being persecuted by the Egyptian government. Khashoggi used his platform to expose what he alleged were the regime’s human-rights abuses against the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt was constantly flirting with being sanctioned during this period as previous Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairmen kept restrictions on weapons sales to the country due to its long and storied history of alleged human-rights violations.
Menendez sat squarely at odds with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other Trump officials who argued the CIA had no “smoking gun” showing MbS ordered the killing.
The senator accused the Trump administration of telling the world, “You can act with impunity and ultimately have no consequences.”
Yet this is exactly what Menendez was doing, getting CIA intel briefs while taking meetings, money and gifts from the Egyptians who played a major role in the crime.
Menendez played the media by receiving classified CIA briefings and turning them into Egyptian propaganda he funneled through outlets like The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN and The New York Times.
These outlets perhaps unwittingly did a disservice to human-rights groups: They allowed a convicted criminal to dissuade them from covering the source of the murder weapon in the Khashoggi case to this day.
Months before Khashoggi’s death in 2018, Menendez provided the Egyptians with key intelligence related to our embassy in Cairo.
With the roster of embassy employees, the Egyptians knew the identities of all American security personnel in Egypt, as well as potential CIA assets.
In May and July, Menendez communicated again with Major General Khaled Ahmed Shawky Osman, assuring him he had successfully removed weapons bans and sanctions on Egypt.
A few months later, Khashoggi was killed.
Menendez turned the murder into a political weapon. He used it to mount an all-out attack on MbS, reinforcing his claims in the press and following up with legislative maneuvers.
Menendez sponsored bills designed to place Saudi Arabia and the crown prince on a Magnitsky-style sanctions list.
He also moved to block emergency weapons sales to the Saudis, directly opposing the Trump administration and claiming he sought to end the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
Khashoggi’s death, in effect, became Menendez’s rallying cry, allowing him to set the Egyptians up to have more influence in Yemen war.
Egyptians were now in a position to sell weapons while the Saudis were fighting to stay off Bob’s sanctions list. This dynamic was setting Egypt up to become a regional weapons dealer.
One of those weapons deals after Menendez lifted humanitarian holds was to Russia during its attack on Ukraine. (Egypt later claimed the reports were mistaken and it was never planning on selling weapons to Vladimir Putin.)
The media bought the con job without hesitation. And when questions finally surfaced, Menendez worked to drown them.
When senators summoned Egyptian intelligence chief Major General Abbas Kamel to answer questions about the murder in 2021, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee head sprang into action.
He used his position to anticipate the inquiries and gave the Egyptians a detailed, rebuttal-filled memo — and met with Kamel in Washington to coach him.
It’s time to re-examine the Khashoggi murder and everything Menendez did as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman while he was on the payroll of the Egyptian government.
The stakes are high, not only for the balance of power in the Middle East but also for America’s credibility in how it handles intelligence, alliances and foreign policy.
A false story created for cash and gifts should not be allowed to distort global diplomacy and human-rights standards any longer.
Thomas Jason Anderson is the co-author of “Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt U.S. Senator.”
