'Unenviable position': Egypt remains silent on US senator Bob Menendez's conviction for bribery

The recent political scandal involving US Senator Bob Menendez, who was convicted on all charges this week by a New Jersey jury of operating as "a foreign agent for Egypt," has so far been met by silence in Cairo.

However, a high-level Egyptian official, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, told The New Arab that "Menendez had been cooperating with the Egyptian intelligence before being compromised and exposed." Notably, the official said, Menendez facilitated military aid, despite the North African country's poor human rights record and have been repeatedly condemned by the US administration.

Washington has been supplying its ally, Cairo, with military aid since the Camp David Accords signed in the late 1970s. 

On Tuesday, Menendez, a 70-year-old Democrat, was found guilty of steering billions of dollars in US military aid to Egypt at the time he was the chair of the influential US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in exchange for bribes among several other corruption-related charges, which he previously denied.

"Offering valuable gifts to a foreign official or anyone in exchange for information, especially sensitive data, or for facilitating a deal is a common practice in the intelligence world," said a senior Egyptian official, seemingly confirming the US judiciary's conclusions and the investigators' allegations.

"But neither Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, who maintained direct contact with Menendez, or female operative Mai Abdelmaguid, whose name was mentioned in the case for [reportedly] being in touch with the senator's wife, would not be dragged into the case," the official told TNA, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.

"Neither are former foreign minister Sameh Shoukry nor Egypt's military attaché in the US, Khaled Shawky, expected to face any legal repercussions in the US," the senior official added, without elaborating further about their role in the case.

Federal prosecutors had unveiled several overlapping bribery schemes in which the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted a Mercedes car, gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, from three businessmen, including two originally Egyptian nationals, who wanted his help with several matters.

Meanwhile, most Egyptian news outlets, generally loyal to the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, have not reported any thorough details on the corruption trial or the recent verdict, also triggering limited social media reactions locally.

"It is no news that Egypt has been at loggerheads with the US administration over the subject. But at the end of the day, only interests prevail. Both countries need each other in one way or another, especially given Egypt’s strategic significance in the region," a high-profile political analyst told TNA, also requesting to remain anonymous for similar reasons.

"It's a rather problematic situation, leaving Egypt is an unenviable position. The Egyptian government cannot officially deny facts supported by a judicial verdict. Neither can it admit any involvement of its intelligence officers," the analyst opined.