CNN
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First the fireworks, now the smoke.
Sen. Bob Menendez’s corruption trial, which started with absorbing and vivid opening statements — each from federal prosecutors and from attorneys for the New Jersey Democrat and his co-defendants — is shifting right into a much less spectacular part because it enters its second week Monday.
Menendez, 70, has been charged with enjoying a pivotal function in a convoluted worldwide bribery scheme involving his spouse, Nadine; the governments of Egypt and Qatar; and a number of other Backyard State businessmen — together with one who has already pleaded responsible and agreed to cooperate with the federal authorities. Menendez and his co-defendants have pleaded not responsible.
However for all of the discuss of graft and gold bars, prosecutors should now get right down to the nitty-gritty, connecting a sprawling assortment of proof and testimony — a lot of it nonetheless to come back — for a jury that’s already repeatedly listening to from protection attorneys not solely that their shopper is harmless, however that even when he did do a lot of what’s alleged, it wouldn’t quantity to against the law.
Although the trial has been overshadowed by one other sordid legal drama enjoying out a brief stroll away in New York Metropolis’s Manhattan Prison Court docket, Menendez has already made some historical past of his personal: He’s the one US senator ever to be indicted in two separate legal circumstances.
Final time round, Menendez walked after a deadlocked jury led the judge to declare a mistrial. Now, although, prosecutors really feel they’ve a stronger case. Menendez, who — together with co-defendants Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman, and Fred Daibes, a New Jersey actual property developer — has vigorously denied the costs, faces a prolonged jail sentence if convicted.
The political ramifications for Menendez, who arrived within the Senate from the Home in 2006, have been dire. He’s not seeking reelection in subsequent month’s Democratic major; the celebration is coalescing round Rep. Andy Kim as his successor, seemingly ending a 50-year political profession, the final three many years of which Menendez has spent on Capitol Hill.
Listed here are 4 massive questions dealing with Menendez, his legal professionals and federal prosecutors because the trial intensifies.
They’re doing their finest to maintain it tight.
In her opening assertion, Lara Pomerantz, an assistant US lawyer, described Menendez as a standard criminal with unusual energy.
“This was not politics as typical. This was politics for revenue,” the prosecutor mentioned. “He was highly effective. He was additionally corrupt. And what was his value? Gold bars.”
Not lengthy after, Pomerantz was handing out a few of the gold bars Menendez is accused of receiving as bribes for jurors to the touch and cross round. Getting a grip on the narrative scope of the allegations will probably be harder. Friday’s slow-burn testimony took the court docket again greater than 5 years, as James Bret Tate, then a diplomat primarily based in Cairo with a deal with US agricultural pursuits, gave a cloak-and-dagger account — which can proceed Monday — of how he got here to comprehend Hana’s threadbare firm obtained a monopoly on the halal certification course of for meats headed to Egypt.
In line with the indictment, a few of that revenue in the end made its option to Menendez within the type of bribes. Prosecutors additionally allege that the senator, in a name to a US Division of Agriculture official, sought to guard Hana’s enterprise amid issues over its impact on the sprawling and profitable American beef markets. (Menendez’s legal professionals are anticipated to counter by arguing that their shopper was merely offering boffo “constituent providers” to Hana’s New Jersey-based agency.)
Bought that? It’s as much as the prosecution to ensure the jury does. This, too, is barely the start. The trial is predicted to stretch on for weeks.
Attorneys for the senator are to date indicating a two-pronged strategy to defending their shopper. The primary is to say that he acquired no bribes, did no work as a overseas agent and that, although outsiders would possibly discover a few of his habits distasteful, he didn’t corruptly abuse his energy.
The opposite half of their telling, in brief, is that Nadine Menendez was the one pulling the strings — and hiding it from her husband. (She can be charged and slated to go on trial this summer season. She has pleaded not responsible.)
The senator’s lawyer, Avi Weitzman, instructed the jury in his opening assertion that the couple largely led “separate lives” and “had separate funds.”
“They even had a separate cellular phone plan,” Weitzman mentioned, a indisputable fact that was included in a PowerPoint presentation accompanying his remarks. Weitzman listed “monetary issues that (Nadine) saved from Bob,” whom he described as being captivated with a “stunning and tall, worldwide girl.”
Hana’s lawyer, in his opening assertion, additionally pointed the finger at Nadine Menendez.
To additional complicate the dynamic, coming into view, the senator disclosed Thursday that his spouse is “affected by Grade 3 breast most cancers, which would require her to have mastectomy surgical procedure.” Although it was beforehand recognized that she confronted a “severe medical situation,” the specifics solely emerged late final week — on the morning after the senator’s lawyer asserted that she was a driving drive behind a few of his shopper’s alleged crimes.
What’s going to the Menendez group admit and what is going to they contest?
“You may not prefer it, however it’s not against the law.”
Weitzman, in these opening remarks, acknowledged that the senator’s alleged habits may not stay as much as one’s excessive beliefs of fine authorities. Menendez backed his constituents, the lawyer mentioned, and a few of these constituents had been mates.
However enjoying favorites — one of many halal certification corporations that bought squeezed out of the market by Hana can be primarily based in New Jersey — is just not essentially a felony offense. Nor, Weitzman recommended, is a telephone name to an administrative official a couple of constituent’s enterprise something uncommon, a lot much less legal, and it definitely — he implied — doesn’t rise to the extent of an “official act.”
Extra particulars about Menendez’s dialog with a high Division of Agriculture official, during which he allegedly pushed for the company to give up a course of that might have threatened Hana’s monopoly, will probably be mentioned within the coming days. The particulars of their name stay unknown to the general public, although the USDA official and maybe others are anticipated to testify in regards to the matter.
What these witnesses say, and the way (and whether or not) the prosecution argues that Menendez, on this incident, broke the regulation — a bar more and more troublesome to clear, per latest US Supreme Court docket precedent referring to corruption — may make or break a key element of the case.
Republicans have been surprisingly absent from the hoopla across the Menendez trial. In equity, there hasn’t been a complete lot of it, at the very least compared with what one would possibly anticipate. Or may need anticipated if former President Donald Trump, on trial down the block, were not such a magnet for self-promoting — and self-preserving — GOP leaders.
Once more, Menendez is a strong longtime Democratic US senator accused of staggering corruption, together with promoting out nationwide safety data to a overseas authorities. New Jersey is a deep shade of blue, however its Democratic governor very nearly lost his reelection bid in 2021, and this November is more likely to function an open-seat race to succeed Menendez. (The senator has mentioned he would take into account operating as an impartial if exonerated.)
However nationwide Republicans haven’t sought to make hay out of the allegations or put a highlight on the trial. Or tried, on the very least, to develop the battleground Senate marketing campaign map and make Democrats play protection on what’s — and sure, seemingly stays — their dwelling turf.
This dynamic may change later this week or subsequent when Trump’s trial is predicted to succeed in its denouement. However for now, Menendez and this trial appear destined to stay on the nationwide political again burner.