Menendez Corruption Trial Gets Underway (Audio)

fighting corruption. That's how I started, and I have always acted in accordance with the law, and I believe when all of the facts not owned, I will be vindicating. Then he went inside to hear prosecutors call him a corrupt politician who sold his Senate office for ritzy life

he couldn't afford. The senator's attorney did not dispute that Dr Salmon Meligan, who's also on trial, paid for lavish trips for Menendez and gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations, But he said the question was why,

and the answer was friendship. Joining me are Robert Mints, head of the white collar and Government Investigations practice at McCarter and English and a former federal prosecutor in New Jersey, and Jeffrey Bell and a professor William and Mary Law School, and a former federal prosecutor in d C. Jeff Let's start with a brief outline of the case against Menendez. Okay, sure, So the government has has to show that there was money exchanged for official acts here and so are things

of value. And they've got a whole catalog of things of value that went from Dr Melligan to Senator Menendez. Highlights include like an expensive Paris hotel room, some trips to the Dominican Republic where the doctor had, I guess, a nice villa. And then you know, some of the eye catching ones are very large, like effectively campaign contributions up to seven fifty thousand dollars. So that's all the

money going to Senator Menendez and things of value. And then the government has a whole bunch of allegations of things that the Senator did for Dr Meligan in that same time period, including intervening on his behalf in a medicare billing dispute, um, intervening on Dr Meligan's behalf in like a business deal having to do with the ports in the Dominican Republic and then arranging or helping to influence the visa application process to help Dr Meligan's girlfriends

get some visas, and so the challenges connecting those things. But they certainly have a lot of allegations of gifts uh and official acts. Bob Menendez is prominent attorney. Abby Lowell said that acting out of friendship is not improper,

it's not corrupt, and it's certainly not a crime. Tell us what the defense strategy is, Well, the defense is taking the position that the case is really not about what happened, but about why it up and and so that means for the jury, this is all a question of intent, and what the jurors are really asked to do is get into the mind of both Center Menendez and Dr Meligan and explore this relationship and try to determine whether this was a true friendship at these gifts

were simply given out of their affection for one another, or whether there was something more nefarious going on here, whether there really was a quid pro pro relationship where this stream of benefits were bestowed upon Center Menendez, with the expectation by Dr Meligan that at some point in the future center Menendez would intercede on his behalf to benefit him financially. So, Jeff, how does the prosecution prove that? Meligan's lawyer said, where's the evidence of why these men

did what they did. There's no corrupt agreement. Does the prosecution have emails or anything substantial? Well, so that's you've hit on the real challenge here. And a lot of times what the prosecution will do is they'll have someone cooperating. So in the trial of Governor McDonald in Virginia, the prosecution had the person who had allegedly given the corrupt bribes testifying for the prosecution, saying, this is why I did it. I did it to get favors from the governor.

In this case, the prosecution does not have that. Uh. And and it's important to note that the case law and the Supreme Court has mentioned this that it's not necessary for the prosecution to come forward to the jury and say here is the explicit agreement between the two parties. Where Dr Meligan in this case would have said, I'm going to give you this money in exchange I want

these favors. The courts recognize that that's unrealistic and so it's it's well established that the prosecution can establish the agreement through circumstantial evidence, and there's even a famous piece of the case law that talks about winks and nods the government can point to kind of unspoken agreement, and

so that's what they're gonna do here. They're gonna try to show that, you know, given the circumstantial evidence, the size of the gifts, the timing of the gifts in comparison to the actions that Senator Menendez allegedly took, and that there isn't another reason for the senator to have done this for someone who's not even a constituent, and hope that the jury will from all the circumstances infer an agreement, even if there's not any evidence of an

explicit or written agreement. That's what members of Congress do. That phrase from Senator Robert Menendez, an attorney, seems to be at the heart of the defense in the bribery case. I've been talking with Robert Min's, a partner McCarter in English, and Jeffrey Bellan, a professor at William and Mary Law School about the case. Bob Lowell said that Menendez helped Meligan by talking to bureaucrats, senators, and a cabinet secretary.

But he said none of that was improper because the senator had intervened on behalf of others and he believed in the merits of the policies he was advancing. Is that a believable argument when so much money was involved. Well, one of the central themes of the defense is going to be what I would call sort of the public

policy defense. What they're trying to do is to convince yours that the actions that were taken we're not really driven by Centor Menendez intent to benefit his friend Dr Meligan, but involved these larger policy issues such as over billing by big pharmaceutical companies in connection with the medicare issue, and that the port issue in the Dominican Republic that Center Menendez got involved with, according to the government, to benefit Dr Meligan, was really a broader national security issue.

So if they can convince us that these really weren't actions motivated to benefit his friend, then the quid pro quo argument is defeated by them, and they can convince jurs is that this is simply a politician who's acting in the public interest and who took actions only because he believed they were the in the interests of his constituents. Jeff The defense attorney Abby Lowell is a high profile

defense attorney. He got former Senator John Edwards off on campaign finance violations by arguing the donors put up the money out of personal friendship. Is that sort of echoing what's happening here? Yes, I do think that that the John Edwards cases is the closest comparator to this one, particularly if you factor in the defense attorney, and so, you know, I think that that's the idea. Can you convince the jury that what was going on here was not an exchange of money for official acts but some

other thing. And you know, obviously jurors are familiar with the reasons that you might give someone money out of friendship or you know, for other purposes, and if you can fit it into that, then then you get an acquittal. But the big question will Menendez take the stand in

his own defense? These jurors are used to hearing Menendez speaking out on issues, and the judge will tell them at the end of the trial not to draw any conclusions if he doesn't, But will they draw them anyway, Well, they'll be instructed, as you said, not to draw that conclusion. Center Menendez has been very vocal, uh speaking to the media in his own defense. My guess is in this case, we will not see him take the stand because I think the way the defense is laying its case out here,

they don't really need his testimony. What they're really trying to argue is that the government has not been able to prove its case, that there's not enough evidence there that shows that the intent here was really a corrupt act, and that this really was a case of friendship and

gifts being given out of friendship. There's really very little that Center Menendez can add to that defense, and all it would do would be to give prosecutors the opportunity to run through their prosecution case again and go through in in lurid detail all of these gifts that were given to him. So I don't expect we'll see him testify. Jeff, do you agree? Well? So, I mean this is I think that Bob made the the that's the common sense or that's the received wisdom on this. I think he's

laid it out really well. And so um I happen to be in the camp of people that think the jury really wants to hear from the defendant. And you know, often in cases, defense attorneys are worried about putting a defendant on the stand because they don't know how they'll do in that kind of high pressure public setting. But here you've got, you know, someone who's made a career out of making big time speeches and things like that, and so you know, I think, uh, that there's a

good argument to put him on the stand. Everything Bob said is right though, and that's what you'd hear from most most attorneys. Um, so the you know, the question. Then the other piece of this, it's kind of interesting to think about is that you could have made the same argument I just made about John Edwards. I mean, who would be better to put on the stand than him? And Abyla won that case without putting him on the stand.

So I think Bob is right, Uh, probably, even though my leanings are to put that that I would put Menendez on the stand. Bob New Jersey's other senator, Corey Booker, who has been supportive of Menendez, came the first day of trial and sat behind him. Does that visual do anything for jurors? Well, I think it's helpful to the defense. It shows that Senator Booker, who's popular in New Jersey,

is supporting his fellow Senator Um. But by the time this case goes to the jury, I think the fact that Senator Menendez was there for the opening statements is going to be something that they will have long forgotten.

I think in many ways, the most difficult issue here for the defense is going to be to deal with these lavish gifts, because all every person on that jury is going to think to themselves, I have friends, but I don't have any friends who have given me the type of gifts here that were bestowed upon the Centator of Menendez, and that is going to be the hurdle that the defense is going to have to overcome if

they're going to get an acquittal here. Well, last question about thirty seconds, which side would you rather be on if you were doing the defense or the prosecution if you were in court? Jeff I I I'm not going to answer that question. I know that that that's that's a good question. It's my favorite question. If I were the host, I would ask, But if I'm the guest, I'm not answering. I'll tell you after the Jerry returns this verdict. Bob, do you want to take a take

a stroll down the lane there? You know, I think this is I think this is a good case for both sides. You know, as a defense lawyer, there's some good issues here. They've got some good facts and they've got some great legal issues to deal with on appeal even if they lose here at the trial level. All right, thank you both for being on Bloomberg Law, even though you didn't answer my favorite question. That's Bob Men's a partner mc carter in English and Jeffrey Bell and he

is a professor at William and Mary Law School. Coming up on Bloomberg Law, Democratic Attorneys General will begin their legal attack on President Trump's end of the DOCCA program. What are the odds of success? And we'll go live to the Rose Garden where President Donald Trump is going to be appearing with the Emir of Kuwait. I'm June Grosso. This is Bloomberg