U.S. senator could face charges in DOJ corruption probe: report

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) could face new corruption charges as prosecutors meet with lawyers to weigh a decision, reported the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

According to the report, prosecutors are looking into whether he or his wife Nadine Arslanian sold political favors in exchange for gifts. They are also investigating how a New Jersey businessman became the sole certifier of Halal meat exported from the United States to Egypt one month after a meeting with Menendez.

A report earlier this summer found that another person caught up in the probe, real estate magnate Fred Daibes, has ties to the mob. Other strange transactions have been reported around the case, including that Menendez's wife sold $400,000 in gold bars shortly before his office was facing a federal corruption probe.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

"The senator remains confident this matter will be successfully resolved," said a spokeswoman for Menendez, and the senator has categorically denied any wrongdoing, saying of the halal contract allegations in an interview on CNN, "If anyone looks at my history on Egypt, they would know that by both denying aid to Egypt, denying arms sales to Egypt, criticizing its human-rights record, I am not in a position to be helpful to anyone as it relates to Egypt."

Menendez, who has served in the Senate since 2006 and chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, has a history of corruption and gifts-for-services allegations against him.

In 2015, he was indicted on federal charges of conspiracy, bribery, and honest services fraud. Prosecutors asserted that Menendez took $1 million in gifts and campaign contributions from Salomon Melgen, an ophthalmologist from Florida, in exchange for resolving a Medicare billing dispute at Melgen's practice and fast-tracking visa applications for several of his girlfriends. However, the jury deadlocked in that case, causing a mistrial. The Justice Department chose to drop the charges in that case shortly after that.