Bob Menendez and the dangers of communication with autocratsocrats

Imagine yourself as the President of Egypt. You are an autocrat who seized power through a military coup ten years ago, so you don't have to worry about elections, parliament, courts, or domestic media. You control all of this. Instead of campaigns and legislation, your tools are patronage, surveillance, and intimidation. However, you are concerned about Washington. The United States provides Egypt with over a billion dollars a year in military aid, and their lawmakers occasionally threaten to withhold some of this aid in protest against your habit of imprisoning critics and violating human rights.

However, unlike Egypt, Washington is open by nature. Rival politicians from independent branches of power must share power, and to maintain their positions, they depend on a permeable campaign financing system dominated by large and often anonymous donors. And a thriving and lightly regulated industry of influence gladly conducts business with your government, as you are a close ally. You and your representatives are welcomed in the White House, the Pentagon, and the halls of Congress; U.S. counterintelligence agencies are busy protecting against enemies such as China and Russia.

From the perspective of an authoritarian ally, such as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, the openness of the American political system looks like an irresistible invitation. Therefore, Egypt's recent involvement in the corruption indictment of Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey should not come as a surprise. Rather, Menendez's case is a cautionary tale of the inherent danger that the American political system faces when allied with authoritarian rulers who often try to manipulate it using extravagant methods familiar to them at home. The lesson is timely as it comes to light at a time when the Biden administration appears poised to place significant trust in another authoritarian ally - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Arguments about Washington's authoritarian clients

We are usually focused on the supposed contradiction between our values and our interests. An aphorism attributed to various U.S. presidents has become a succinct expression of this compromise: "He may be a bastard, but he's our bastard." It is believed that Franklin Roosevelt said this about Rafael Trujillo, the brutal dictator linked to the Dominican Republic's mafia. However, Trujillo is also an example of how corrupt clients can tarnish Washington. To maintain his status as "our bastard," Trujillo reportedly spent five million dollars in his final years bribing members of Congress—starting with five thousand dollars for a regular member and up to seventy-five thousand for a committee chair—while also arranging for some accompanying sex workers. His agents are also widely blamed for the mysterious disappearance of Columbia University professor Jesus Galindez, who wrote a dissertation criticizing Trujillo's dictatorship.

Bernardo Vega, a historian from the Trujillo era who served as the Dominican ambassador in Washington in the 1990s, said he is disheartened that former members of Congress are still selling their services as lobbyists to help the Dominican Republic and other foreign governments influence the votes of current members. "It's not very moral," he told me. However, he stated that after Trujillo's death and the advent of democracy, the Dominican Republic has kept its influence campaigns legal. "I don't know of any cases of bribing people in the United States, other than paying for lobbying services."

The accusation against Menendez

It implies that Sisi, whom President Donald Trump once called "my favorite dictator," began bribing Menendez in 2018. Menendez was the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his then-girlfriend Nadine Arslanian helped struggling American businessman of Egyptian descent Wael Hana connect with Egyptian military and intelligence officials.

In turn, Menendez approved the continuation of high-tech weapon supplies and military aid to Egypt, and allegedly passed sensitive information to Sisi's agents about the number of Egyptians working at the United States Embassy in Cairo. (Egyptian spies may attempt to use this information to infiltrate the embassy.) He also wrote a letter on behalf of an Egyptian official to persuade other lawmakers to overlook human rights violations in Cairo. After the Egyptian military accidentally injured an American tourist in 2015 due to a strike from an American Apache helicopter, Menendez seemingly intervened to protect the flow of American aid. (Hana allegedly wrote to his Egyptian contact: "orders, executed.") Later, in June 2021, Menendez met confidentially at a hotel in Washington with a senior Egyptian intelligence officer to prepare him for a meeting the next day with other senators. The senators planned to press the intelligence representative on human rights issues, and Nadine Menendez explained in a text message to another official that her husband had warned the Egyptians "in advance about what was being discussed," so they could prepare "denials." On Thursday, prosecutors filed new charges, accusing Hana and both Menendezes of acting as unregistered foreign agents. (The Menendezes and Hana have pleaded not guilty to the initial charges; all three claim they did nothing wrong.)

It goes without saying that Russian and Chinese spies

They cannot easily meet with high-ranking senators; only allies have such access. A look at the Trump administration offers several other examples of how authoritarian allies of the U.S. attempt to undermine or corrupt its political process. Agents of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—a strongman who leads a NATO member—paid former General Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s first national security advisor, to advocate for them while he was serving as a figure in Trump’s campaign. (Flynn, who published an article on election day defending Erdoğan's interests and only later disclosed the Turkish payments, pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about contacts with Russian officials and was later pardoned by Trump.) After Flynn was exposed, Erdoğan invited Trump’s real estate investment partner in Istanbul to lobby the White House, and the partner ensured that the Turkey-U.S. Council held conferences at the Trump hotel in Washington. In 2019, Erdoğan irritated American politicians by purchasing a Russian missile defense system and attacking U.S. proxy forces in northern Syria. Nevertheless, Trump invited him to the White House and proclaimed himself a "big fan" of the Turkish leader.

The United Arab Emirates, a close ally known for its practice of offering high-paying positions to former U.S. Navy officers, was caught attempting to use two of Trump's largest fundraisers, Tom Barrack and Elliott Broidy, to influence American policy in the region. The Justice Department charged Barrack with acting as an unregistered foreign agent of the UAE, but he was acquitted, claiming he was promoting better relations with the ally. Broidy pleaded guilty to illegal lobbying on behalf of China and Malaysia—prosecutors did not highlight his connections to the UAE, and he was later pardoned by Trump. UAE operative George Nader pleaded guilty to transferring...