We begin with the shocking new details in the federal indictment of a powerful US Senator. And tonight, the calls for New Jersey’s B.M to resign are growing, including from the governor of his state and from his own party who say the three-term senator needs to step down immediately. A grand jury indicted the Democratic senator and his wife on three counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, extortion and fraud in a case alleging he aided a foreign government and New Jersey businessman. The thirty-nine-page indictment just unsealed today is astonishing in its scope. Prosecutors found hundreds of thousands of dollars inside the lawmaker’s house with cash stuffed in his congressional jacket with his name on it. And these gold bars that were wrapped in paper towels. In a statement, M denies any wrong doing. This is his second indictment in ten years, which is believed to be the first time in American history that a sitting US senator has been indicted on two separate criminal cases.

The senator faces prosecution and calls from inside his own party to resign, accused of leveraging his powerful seat here at the Senate to enrich himself. The indictment against New Jersey R.M and his wife vast corruption, trading political favors with three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for riches. Federal agents say when they raided the family home last summer, they found one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold bars, four hundred eighty thousand dollars in cash, some stuffed in envelopes found in a jacket bearing M’s name. And outside in the driveway, a sixty thousand dollars Mercedes Benz convertible allegedly given to them by one of the businessmen he helped. The indictment says agents discovered a Google search by M asking “how much is one kilo of gold worth”.

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Prosecutors allege M wielded his Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship to help one of the businessmen, American-Egyptian W.H secure a lucrative contract in Egypt and helped H gets sensitive information about the US embassy in Cairo which was ultimately shared with the Egyptian government. They say the scheme started in 2018, just months after a mistrial was declared in a prior corruption case M was involved in. The new indictment details the involvement of M’s wife, Lebanese-born N.A whom he married in 2020 after ten months of dating. The senator is seen here serenading her at India’s Taj Mahal. A is accused of taking no-show job with H who allegedly had close ties to Egyptian intelligence. And according to the indictment, H in a text message to an Egyptian general referred to M as “our man”. The sixty-nine-year old senator who will temporarily step aside from his role as committee chairman blasted the charges saying, “the excessess of these prosecutors is apparent. They have misrepresented the normal work of a Congressional office. On top of that, they have attacked my wife”.