Why on earth would Egypt need to bribe a US Senator?

Taking bribes in exchange for helping Egypt

is one of the accusations

in return for

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was indicted Friday along with his wife.

has moved this federally upwards

Prosecutors allege Menendez repeatedly tried to help Egypt avoid congressionally imposed restrictions on aid because of the country’s human rights record. These actions included ghost-writing a letter to other senators asking them to cancel the $300 million earmarked for Egypt. Menendez

and his wife Nadine

denied wrongdoing.

But why should Egypt, a

long-time ally of the US

, does he even need Menendez’s help? To understand it, it helps to know a little history.

For years, Egypt was the second-largest recipient of American aid, after Israel.

This was in part a reward for Egypt’s willingness to recognize Israel (almost uniquely in the Middle East) and cooperate with security around the Gaza Strip, a stretch of often unstable Palestinian land along the Mediterranean Sea bordering Egypt and Israel .

During autocrat Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade rule, the relationship remained more or less stable, despite widespread reports of corruption and election fraud, but often with Egypt stepping in to provide valuable security during conflicts in the region.

That changed during the Arab Spring, when nearly three weeks of demonstrations forced Mubarak from power in 2011. He was eventually tried on charges of murdering protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, making it an iconic center in the quest for democracy.

Mubarak was briefly replaced by a Muslim Brotherhood presidency, but Abdel Fattah Sisi came to power in a military coup in 2013 and remains president.

Egypt has since shown little respect for human rights, activists say. “Villainous behavior [by government agents] “has been the norm” under Sisi, targeting journalists, political opponents and human rights activists, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a recent report.

Sisi, who met with President Biden last year on the sidelines of a climate summit in Egypt and who has met a few times with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, has largely turned a deaf ear to private U.S. pleas for his release of prisoners and other human rights concerns, officials say.

Over time, that

Its human rights record has eroded congressional support

for unfettered aid to Egypt

Squad prosecutors claim Menendez was working to shut down the case.

Earlier this month, a group of senators led by Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.) applauded a separate decision by the Biden administration to withhold $85 million in military aid to Egypt and called for curtailing another $235 million in security assistance. Sisi had failed to make progress on human rights.

“Egypt has released more than 1,600 political prisoners since the beginning of 2022. That’s good news,” Murphy said at the time. “During that same time, they imprisoned another 5,000. So for every political prisoner Egypt releases, three more are imprisoned. That’s one step forward and three steps back. That’s not the kind of “clear and consistent progress” in freeing politics. prisoners who the [U.S.] the law requires.”

In a lengthy and often impassioned speech, Murphy went on to answer those in Congress who argued that Egypt would end its security cooperation, including counter-terrorism efforts in the Sinai Desert, if aid is cut, saying that this has not happened yet. Murphy acknowledged that previous administrations of both parties, under Presidents Obama and Trump, had ignored the need to limit aid to Egypt, but said the Biden administration must now toe the line.

Biden ultimately released the $235 million in security assistance,

disappointing Murphy

who called it a “missed opportunity to show the world that our commitment to advancing human rights and democracy is more than a talking point. As of Friday evening, Murphy had not released a statement on his Democratic colleague’s indictment.