Gold bars and Google searches: The damning evidence in Bob Menendez’s corruption trial

Sen. Bob Menendez is charged with more than a dozen corrupt acts that span the globe. But no detail gripped the public like the gold bars found stashed in his New Jersey home.

Not only did federal investigators find 13 gold bars in the summer of 2022, but Menendez’s own curiosity about their value shows up in repeated Google searches. Three separate times, according to prosecutors, Menendez searched online for the cash value of the gold.

Those details and more are expected to emerge at the senator’s criminal trial that begins Monday.

Prosecutors allege that the senator or his wife, Nadine Menendez, took bribes to influence state and federal prosecutors to go easy on his associates, aid the government of Egypt and help seal a deal between an associate and an investment company led by a member of the Qatari royal family — even as he was one of America’s most powerful officials on international affairs, as a leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

To prove their case, prosecutors will need to tie those gold bars to things the senator is alleged to have done to receive them. It helps that prosecutors have years of the senator’s phone and electronic records, including Google searches.

Prosecutors say those searches largely followed interactions involving the Menendezes and Fred Daibes, a New Jersey businessperson who is accused of bribing Menendez. The senator is alleged to have tried to help Daibes avoid legal troubles and to seize on a business opportunity involving an investment company run by a member of Qatar’s royal family.

Another co-defendant in the case, Egyptian-American businessperson Wael “Will” Hana, is also alleged to have provided the Menendezes with gold bars. Nadine Menendez is said to have sold some of them before investigators searched the couple’s home and deposited the proceeds into bank accounts she controlled.

Here’s how prosecutors have framed the timing of each Google search:

‘How much is one kilo of gold worth’

In mid-October 2021, Menendez and his wife had just returned from a trip to Qatar and Egypt, where they’d met with Egyptian officials and had dinner with Hana. They were picked up at JFK Airport by Daibes’ driver, according to the federal indictment.

Federal prosecutors allege Menendez tried to get other prosecutors to go easy on Daibes, who is facing separate fraud charges in New Jersey federal court.

The driver took the Menendezes to their home in New Jersey.

The next day, the senator searched for “how much is one kilo of gold worth.”

‘Kilo of gold price’

In January 2022, Daibes’ driver — who is not named in the indictment — called Nadine Menendez and then she texted Daibes, “Thank you. Christmas in January.”

About two hours later, the senator called a federal prosecutor handling Daibes’ case — the first time the senator had ever called the person, according to federal prosecutors.

Several days later, the senator searched for “kilo of gold price.”

The driver’s fingerprints were later found in the couple’s New Jersey home on an envelope containing thousands of dollars in cash. The envelope also had Daibes’ DNA and his return address.

‘One kilo gold price’

In May 2022, after a meeting between Menendez and Daibes, the Qatari investment company signed a letter to invest in a major real estate project Daibes had been working on in New Jersey.

“Thereafter,” according to the indictment, “Daibes provided Menendez with at least one gold bar.”

Three days after the letter was signed, the senator, his wife and Daibes had dinner in Edgewater — the New Jersey town where Daibes’ development would be. Later that evening at around 10:30 p.m., the senator hit Google again, searching for “one kilo gold price.”