Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is charged with more than a dozen corrupt acts that span the globe. No detail gripped the public like the gold bars found stashed in his New Jersey home. Not only did federal investigators find 13 gold bars in the summer of 2022, but Menendez’s own curiosity about their value was evident in Google searches. Prosecutors said he searched online three times for the cash value of the gold, Politico reports. Those details and more are expected to emerge at the senator’s criminal trial that begins Monday. Prosecutors allege that the senator or his wife, Nadine, took bribes to influence state and federal prosecutors to go easy on his associates, aid the government of Egypt and help seal a deal between an associate and an investment company led by a member of the Qatari royal family — even as he was one of the most powerful U.S. officials on international affairs, as a leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
To prove their case, prosecutors will need to tie those gold bars to things the senator is alleged to have done to receive them. It helps that prosecutors have years of the senator’s phone and electronic records, including Google searches. Prosecutors say those searches largely followed interactions involving the Menendezes and Fred Daibes, a New Jersey businessperson who is accused of bribing Menendez. The senator is alleged to have tried to help Daibes avoid legal troubles and to seize on a business opportunity involving an investment company run by a member of Qatar’s royal family. Another co-defendant, Egyptian-American businessperson Wael “Will” Hana, is also alleged to have provided the Menendezes with gold bars. Nadine Menendez is said to have sold some of them before investigators searched the couple’s home and deposited the proceeds into bank accounts she controlled.