DAY TWENTY-FIVE

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is expected to rest its case in U.S. Senator Bob Menendez’s criminal trial on Friday. Then, the defense takes over, and attorneys representing Menendez and his two co-defendants, Fred Daibes and Wael Hanna, have estimated that it will take roughly two weeks. The court is closed on July 4 and 5, and it’s unclear if U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein will keep jurors for a full day on July 3.

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee chief counsel told jurors that Bob Menendez called her to ask how he should report some items – like gold bars – on his personal financial disclosure.

DAYS SINCE THE INDICTMENT: 278

DAYS SINCE MENENDEZ’S LAST CRIMINAL TRIAL ENDED: 2,413

MISSED VOTES: 34
There were no votes in the Senate today.

And in case you’re keeping track: it’s been 43 years and 55 days since a United States Senator from New Jersey was last convicted of accepting a bribe.

WHO IS SHANNON HAMILTON KOPPLIN: The chief counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee is a retired U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. She joined the Ethics panel in 2020 after a 19-year military career that included a stint as special counsel to the Chief of Naval Operations.

TO DISCLOSE OR NOT TO DISCLOSE? THAT IS THE QUESTION
— Sen. Menendez did not disclose riches he calls gifts, Senate ethics counsel testifies from New Jersey Monitor’s Dana DeFilippo: “Attorneys defending Sen. Bob Menendez in his ongoing corruption trial have insisted the valuables that prosecutors call bribes were actually gifts and loans. But under the Senate’s longstanding ethics rules, New Jersey’s senior senator was obligated to report the gold bars, luxury car, mortgage payments, cash, and other items as either income, assets, gifts, or liabilities, the Senate’s ethics director told jurors … Shannon Kopplin is chief counsel and staff director of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics. She told jurors Menendez called her in February 2022, at the direction of the committee’s chairman, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), to ask about reporting gold bars on his annual disclosure forms. He told her the gold belonged to his wife, Nadine, whom he’d married in October 2020, and he wondered if he had to amend his 2020 disclosure form to include it, Kopplin said. He’d initially filed the form seven months after his wedding, when it was due in May 2021. ‘My impression was that he had recently learned of it,” she said of multiple one-kilogram and one-ounce gold bars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars … Under cross-examination by Menendez attorney Avi Weitzman, Kopplin agreed the Senate ethics manual is more than 500 pages and her office fields thousands of calls a year from people seeking clarity about disclosure rules. ‘Fair to say there’s some complexity to disclosure? This isn’t simple stuff,’ Weitzman asked. Kopplin agreed it wasn’t simple, but added: ‘I don’t consider it complex either. It’s easier than income taxes. The first report’s the hardest.’”

TOWERS DON’T LIE
— Menendez Met Alleged Briber Pre-Gold Price Search, Jury Told from Law 360s Cara Salvatore: “An FBI cell tower expert told Sen. Robert Menendez’s bribery jury Thursday that the phones of the senator, his wife, and co-defendant Fred Daibes all pinged in the same location minutes before the senator did a web search for ‘how much is one kilo of gold worth.’”

IN CASE BLAMING YOUR WIFE ISN’T WORKING
— Another suggested Menendez ethics defense in bribery trial: Ignorance and age from POLITICO’s Ry Rivard: “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 … 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.’”

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