Another suggested Menendez ethics defense in bribery trial: Ignorance and age

NEW YORK — Even after 18 years in the Senate and an ethics investigation into his finances, Bob Menendez couldn't seem to figure out his chamber's disclosure forms, defense attorneys in his bribery trial suggested Thursday.

They also suggested his age played a role in how he filled out forms where he didn’t initially disclose what prosecutors say were bribes.

While the senator did eventually disclose gold bars, prosecutors used testimony Thursday from the Senate Ethics Committee’s general counsel and staff director to show that he did not disclose other money and the car they say he or his wife received as bribes before FBI agents searched his house in summer 2022.

Federal prosecutors allege several New Jersey businesspeople bribed Menendez and his wife with cash, gold bars and a luxury car. Menendez has tried to separate himself from the bribery allegations throughout the trial, claiming his wife, who is standing trial separately, made deals without his knowledge.

Elements of this strategy came in response to Thursday testimony from Shannon Kopplin, the ethics committee’s lawyer, about her interactions with Menendez in February 2022 as he sought to amend his 2020 financial disclosures to include gold bars he said were his wife Nadine’s. The FBI searched the Menendez home in 2022, finding gold bars and nearly a half million dollars in cash, some of it stuffed in jackets and boots.

Menendez has said he’s taken out cash from banks for years because of his family ties to communist Cuba and that the gold bars were Nadine’s.

On Thursday, Menendez defense 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’s ethics manual or the instructions about how to file financial disclosures. Weitzman also suggested 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, count on senators to disclose their financial interests on the annual forms, which the Senate Ethics Committee accepts based largely on the honor system.

While the suggestions were aimed at sowing doubt about 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 another example of how what Menendez may want the jury to think can clash with his larger political interests and reputation.

Menendez, a Democrat, is in a long-shot bid for a fourth term as an independent.

For example, earlier this month, when prosecutors showed photos and video of Menendez at a table with an Egyptian official during a stake out of a steakhouse , the senator’s attorneys portrayed the meeting as an innocent one at Menendez’s regular spot — not a shady meeting of criminal co-conspirators. Adam Fee, another of Menendez’s attorneys, told the judge overseeing the case that when the senator is in D.C., he probably eats “at that same restaurant at that same table 250 nights a year.”

On Thursday, Weitzman suggested the ethics manual was voluminous and the financial disclosure instructions too complicated to understand.

“This isn’t simple stuff, right?” he asked Kopplin.

Koppin said the disclosure forms were easier to fill out than taxes.

Weitzman also suggested some senators were old. Menendez is 70.

“Do you know how old Chuck Grassley is?” Weitzman asked, referring to the 90-year-old senator.

If anything, though, Menendez should be more familiar with the rules than most senators.

In 2018, the ethics committee formally admonished Menendez over 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 and prosecutors later dropped the charges.

But after it was over, the ethics committee declared Menendez “knowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value from Dr. Melgen without obtaining required Committee approval, and that you failed to publicly disclose certain gifts as required by Senate Rule and federal law. Additionally, while accepting these gifts, you used your position as a Member of the Senate to advance Dr. Melgen’s personal and business interests.”

As the prosecutors prepare to rest their case and Menendez and two co-defendants start their defense, the two sides are in heated arguments over what defense witnesses can be called and what defense evidence can be shown to jurors.

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 by prosecutors trying to bar some of the testimony.

Menendez’s attorneys want to argue that Menendez broke up with Nadine during part of the time prosecutors allege they conspired to sell his office. They also want to explain why Menendez appeared to be keeping close tabs on Nadine’s location using iPhone’s location tracking features, something prosecutors have used to suggest he was aware of what she was up to, which would refute part of the defense’s claim that they lived separate lives.

As part of that defense, Menendez’s attorneys want to show that she was badly assaulted by the ex-boyfriend and wanted the senator to know where she was as a safety measure.

U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein seems prepared to allow jurors to hear some versions of those events, but does not want the trial to become a “soap opera.”