TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A leading pro-Taiwan U.S. senator is facing growing calls to resign following charges for corruption and bribery being laid against him and his wife.

Prosecutors say Robert Menendez and wife Nadine Arslanian accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for assistance to Egypt’s government. After denying the charges Menedez stepped down from his role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but said he will not resign from congress.

Menendez introduced bills that support increased economic ties and increase military aid to Taiwan, and has visited the country multiple times. The day before the charges were laid Menendez published a statement challenging China’s reasoning for Taiwan’s exclusion from the United Nations.

Research Fellow at the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation Paul Huang (黃柏彰) told Taiwan News that Menendez’s fall from grace will be a blow to the Taiwan lobby in Washington. Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) "has received Menendez numerous times and heaped lavish praise on him, which is now of course looking like an embarrassment to Taiwan,” he said.

Huang said Menendez’s fall does not come as a surprise, as reports of corruption investigations against the senator have been circulating for years. In 2015 Menendez stepped down from the same foreign policy position amid bribery charges that resulted in a mistrial after a jury failed to reach a unanimous decision.

AP reported that Menedez accepted international trips from a prominent donor to his political party, which he repaid once they became public. In 2017 the donor was sentenced to 17 years in prison, but had his sentence commuted by former U.S. President Donald Trump during his final hours in office.