Bob Menendez continues to spend money on legal services as federal inquiry looms

Legal bills appear to continue to mount for Sen. Bob Menendez, as New Jersey's senior senator girds for battle with lawyers from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Federal campaign finance records show that from April 1 to June 30, Menendez spent more than $11,000 on legal services.

He paid the Washington, D.C.-based Elias Law Group $11,434 during the second quarter of 2023 as he remains under federal investigation.

In addition to his payments to Elias, Menendez paid HaystackID, a digital consulting service, more than $47,000 in the second quarter. In the first quarter of the year, from January to March, Menendez paid HaystackID more than $55,000.

Haystack has ties to another political investigation: It is the computer forensics company that the Trump Organization hired to respond to subpoenas from New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Earlier this year, the senator paid two other firms — Schertler & Onorato LLP and Winston & Strawn LLP — $48,000 and $127,343, respectively, for legal services.

Menendez’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

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What's driving the new federal investigation?

Last fall, Menendez confirmed that there was a federal investigation being conducted but didn’t provide any further details.

"I know of an investigation, don't know the scope or the subject and, of course, am ready to help authorities when and if asked for any questions," he said in October.

Since then, more information has emerged about what exactly is under investigation.

Federal investigators are looking into whether Menendez or his wife accepted luxury gifts from Wael Hana, the head of IS EG Halal Certified, according to reports from WNBC in New York. The Edgewater-based company has obtained exclusive rights to certify halal products to be exported from the U.S. and elsewhere to Egypt.

The investigation is also looking at the partial sale by prominent Edgewater developer Fred Daibes of several properties along the Hudson, including the Quanta Superfund site, to a Qatari sheikh.

There's also a bill introduced in Trenton last year, co-sponsored by state Sen. Nick Sacco and state Sen. Brian Stack, designed to limit development at the foot of the Palisades cliffs in towns along the Hudson River in Hudson and Bergen counties.

The bill, which has languished since being introduced, could have affected a high-rise development that Daibes had long planned for the Quanta Superfund site.

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Ties between the Menendez investigation and Daibes began to surface in the spring, when Sacco received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan requesting correspondence related to Menendez, his wife, Nadine Arslanian, and Daibes.

It also asked for information regarding the “Palisades Cliffs Protection and Planning Act,” the bill co-sponsored by Sacco and Stack that would protect their constituents’ views of New York City by restricting the height of any proposed building at the foot of the Palisades from rising above the cliffs’ sightline.

Daibes has donated more than $20,000 to various Menendez political campaigns and PACs over the years. Currently there's no indication that Menendez has any connection to the Palisades bill, either by lobbying on its behalf or by opposing it.

Earlier investigations

This isn’t the first federal investigation Menendez has faced.

A 2017 investigation probed ties between Menendez and his longtime friend and donor Salomon Melgen. They stood trial in federal court in connection with alleged favors for Melgen after he paid for trips and expenses for Menendez. The judge declared a mistrial, and prosecutors later dropped the charges against Menendez. Melgen was separately convicted of Medicare fraud but was pardoned by former President Donald Trump.

Even that case wasn’t the first time Menendez found himself the target of an investigation, though he has never been convicted of a crime. In 2006, he was under investigation by then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who later became governor, on suspicion of steering federal funds to a local nonprofit, but prosecutors closed the case without filing charges.

In 2012, the year Menendez won a second term, a campaign donor from Franklin Lakes, Joseph Bigica, admitted to federal authorities to making illegal contributions to the senator. Menendez said he was a victim and donated the money to charities.

In 2013, a federal investigation revealed that the developers of the massive Meadowlands retail and entertainment complex now called American Dream were reportedly asked to contribute $50,000 to Menendez's campaign fund in return for the senator's help in getting permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Federal authorities did not pursue the accusation.

Katie Sobko covers the Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bob Menendez: NJ senator continues to fund legal defense