In response to a series of several motions from indicted Senator Bob Menendez’s legal team asking a judge to dismiss or alter the case against him, the federal prosecutors in the case submitted a new filing yesterday refuting each of Menendez’s arguments and insisting that the trial should continue as planned.
Menendez, who has been charged with bribery and acting as an unregistered foreign agent, has argued variously that the charges against him apply to acts that are protected under the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent; that the charges are duplicitous and should be rejected for applying to multiple distinct acts; that the case should be dismissed for improper venue or transferred to the District of New Jersey; and that he should be tried separately from his wife, Nadine Menendez, and the case’s other co-defendants. Each of those arguments was rebutted by prosecutors in yesterday’s filing.
As to the first and most notable claim – that the senator’s conduct under scrutiny in the case cannot “form the basis for, or even be included in, a criminal indictment” – the prosecutors responded that the senator is not above the law and cannot avoid a trial by asserting that the charges are incorrect. Menendez’s filing called the case against him “false,” “misleading,” “absurd,” and more, but the prosecutors said none of that is reason to dismiss the case.
“None of these factual assertions – or hyperbolic characterizations of what the grand jury found in returning a detailed, 50-page Indictment – is correct, as the Government expects to demonstrate amply at trial,” they wrote. “None is proper in a legal memorandum on a motion to dismiss. None is a cognizable basis for a defendant to avoid a jury trial. And none can or should be considered by this Court.”
Menendez has also argued that the case against him should be severed from that against his wife, who is accused of being heavily involved in the senator’s alleged bribery scheme, so as to avoid forcing him to incriminate her. Again, prosecutors said that his argument should be rejected.
“The defendants are charged with entering into and executing a scheme together, the Indictment makes plain how they worked together, and they should be tried together,” they wrote.
Menendez’s additional requests to have the charges thrown out for improperly applying to multiple different acts, or to move the case out of the Southern District of New York, were also opposed by prosecutors in yesterday’s filing.
“The defendants offer no factors sufficient to justify a departure from the general rule that a criminal prosecution should be retained in the original district where the case was charged, as they must to succeed in a motion to transfer,” they wrote of the latter argument. “They utterly fail to show why trial in this Court, which is adjacent to their preferred and home district, would be so unduly burdensome as to require transfer, and their motion should thus be denied.”
Menendez’s trial is currently set to begin on May 6, after his effort to have it delayed until the summer was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein.
Regardless of the legal outcome, though, Menendez’s political future is likely over thanks to the charges against him. If he tries to seek another term in the Senate this year, he’s expected to get virtually no party support anywhere in New Jersey, and dozens of his colleagues in the Senate have called for his resignation.