NEW YORK — Even after 18 years in the Senate and an ethics investigation into his finances, Bob Menendez appeared unable to retrieve his chamber’s disclosure forms, lawyers at his bribery trial suggested Thursday.
It was also suggested that his age played a role in the way he filled out forms, with him initially failing to mention that it was a bribe.
Although the senator eventually disclosed the gold bars, prosecutors on Thursday used testimony from the general counsel and staff director of the Senate Ethics Committee to show that he failed to disclose other money and the car he or his wife allegedly received as bribes before FBI agents searched his home in the summer of 2022.
Federal prosecutors allege that several New Jersey businessmen bribed Menendez and his wife with cash, gold bars and a luxury car. Menendez has attempted to distance himself from the bribery allegations during the trial, claiming that his wife, who is being tried separately, made deals without his knowledge.
Elements of this strategy came in response to Thursday’s testimony from ethics committee attorney Shannon Kopplin about her interactions with Menendez in February 2022 when he tried to amend his 2020 financial disclosures to include gold bars that he said they belonged to his wife Nadine. The FBI searched Menendez’s home in 2022 and found gold bars and nearly half a million dollars in cash, some of which was stuffed into jackets and boots.
Menendez has said he withdrew cash from banks for years because of his family ties to communist Cuba and that the gold bars belonged to Nadine.
On Thursday, Menendez’s attorney Avi Weitzman suggested the senator may not have known about the gold bars.
But Weitzman also asked questions that suggested Menendez may not have read the Senate ethics manual or instructions on filing financial disclosures. Weitzman also suggested that a staffer filed the disclosures, not the senator — a way to distance Menendez from the forms filed in his name.
The public, including the media, expects senators to disclose their financial interests on annual forms, which the Senate Ethics Committee accepts, largely on the basis of the honor system.
While the suggestions were intended to cast doubt on what prosecutors can prove to jurors beyond a reasonable doubt, they could backfire outside the courtroom: Claiming ignorance of his ethical obligations and throwing a staffer under the bus is a another example of how what Menendez wants the jury to think can conflict with his larger political interests and reputation.
Menendez, a Democrat, is on a long path to a fourth term as an independent.
For example, when prosecutors earlier this month released photos and videos of Menendez sitting at a table with an Egyptian official during a steakhouse fire, the senator’s lawyers portrayed the meeting as an innocent gathering at Menendez’s usual spot — not a shady meeting of criminal co-conspirators. Adam Fee, another lawyer for Menendez, told the judge overseeing the case that when the senator is in D.C., he likely “eats at that same table in that same restaurant 250 nights a year.”
On Thursday, Weitzman said the ethics manual is extensive and that the financial disclosure instructions are too complicated to understand.
“This is not a simple matter, is it?” he asked Kopplin.
Koppin said the disclosure forms were easier to fill out than taxes.
Weitzman also suggested that some of the senators were old. Menendez is 70.
“Do you know how old Chuck Grassley is?” Weitzman asked, referring to the 90-year-old senator.
But at least Menendez should be more familiar with the rules than most senators.
In 2018, the ethics committee formally warned Menendez about his relationship with a close friend and donor, Dr. Salomon Melgen. They were prosecuted together in a 2017 corruption trial that ended in a mistrial. Prosecutors later dropped the charges.
But after it was over, the Ethics Committee found that Menendez “knowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value from Dr. Melgen without obtaining the necessary committee approval, and that you failed to disclose certain gifts as required by Senate rule and federal law. Furthermore, while accepting these gifts, you used your position as a member of the Senate to advance Dr. Melgen’s personal and business interests.”
As prosecutors prepare to rest their case and Menendez and two co-defendants begin their defense, the two sides are locked in a heated argument over which witnesses can be called for the defense and what evidence can be shown to the jury.
Menendez’s legal team wants to call Nadine’s sister to testify about Nadine’s abusive ex-boyfriend, including fights they got into, and alleged stalking and vandalism, according to a filing from prosecutors seeking to block some of the testimony.
Menendez’s attorneys want to argue that Menendez broke up with Nadine during part of the time prosecutors allege they were conspiring to sell his office. They also want to explain why Menendez appeared to be keeping a close eye on Nadine’s location using the iPhone’s location tracking features, something prosecutors have used to suggest he was aware of what she was up to, which is in part would refute the defense’s claim that they lived separately. lives.
As part of that defense, Menendez’s attorneys want to show that she was severely assaulted by the ex-boyfriend and, for security reasons, want the senator to know where she was.
US District Court Judge Sidney Stein appears willing to let jurors hear certain versions of these events, but does not want the trial to become a “soap opera.”
