Opening statements in bribery trial of Bob Menendez begin
NEW YORK — Opening statements began Wednesday afternoon in the federal corruption trial of Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who is accused of selling out his public office and his country in pursuit of lucrative bribes.
The case has already dealt a near-lethal blow to Menendez’s four-decade political career. But a jury sworn in earlier Wednesday has now begun formally weighing his fate under intense scrutiny.
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Lara Pomerantz, the U.S. prosecutor delivering the government’s opening statement in federal court in Manhattan, said that the case was about a public official “who put his power up for sale.”
Avi Weitzman, the lawyer delivering Menendez’s opening statement, distilled the senator’s defense into a single line: “Bob was doing his job, and he was doing it right.” He argued that the prosecutor’s case amounted to “speculation and guesswork.”
Weitzman also attempted to pin blame on the senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, who has also been charged in the case. “Let me say this about Nadine: Nadine had financial concerns that she kept from Bob,” he said. He asserted that the senator was unaware of what his wife was up to with the businesspeople prosecutors say bribed them.
The charges are among the most serious ever brought against a sitting U.S. senator. The government has accused the Menendezes of conspiring to trade his “influence and power” as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair to foreign powers and New Jersey businesspeople in exchange for a Mercedes-Benz convertible, mortgage payments, gold and cash.
Bob Menendez, 70, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, some of which carry up to 20 years in prison.
He is being tried alongside two of the businesspeople, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana. Nadine Menendez, 57, will be tried in July.
A fifth defendant, Jose Uribe, has already pleaded guilty and could be called to testify later in the trial. Uribe has said that he gave Nadine Menendez the $60,000 convertible “in return for influencing a United States senator to stop a criminal investigation.”
The case has already made history. Bob Menendez is the first senator ever indicted under the foreign agent statute and the first in the Senate’s 235-year history to be indicted twice in separate bribery cases. His first prosecution ended in a mistrial in 2017.
Judge Sidney H. Stein swore in 12 jurors and six alternates Wednesday morning. The case has proceeded quickly since the government first brought charges in September 2023. But the trial could be protracted; Stein has laid out a timetable that could run until July.
In a setback for the senator, Stein issued a ruling Tuesday precluding his lawyers from presenting testimony from a psychiatrist who had evaluated Menendez. Her testimony had been expected to address the cash that authorities found stockpiled in Menendez’s home.
Prosecutors are prepared to detail a list of official actions they say Menendez traded for bribes. These include ghost writing a letter from Egypt lobbying senators to release military aid; trying to quash criminal cases for Daibes and Uribe; and introducing Daibes to a member of the Qatari royal family who could invest in a real estate development.
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