Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., seemed to have "complete knowledge" about the investigation that the senator and his wife allegedly took bribes to unsettle, according to a witness in the senator's trial who testified on Monday.
Menendez faces charges of bribery, obstruction of justice, acting as an unregistered foreign agent, and honest services wire fraud. Prosecutors allege that he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, some in the form of gold bars, in exchange for helping three individuals from New Jersey as well as the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
Menendez is on trial alongside two of those individuals, Egyptian-American businessman Wael Hana and real estate developer Fred Daibes. The third, New Jersey insurance broker Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify on behalf of the prosecution.
Uribe testified that he bribed the senator's now-wife Nadine Menendez with a new Mercedes-Benz convertible in exchange for the senator using his "power and influence" to scuttle a criminal investigation and prosecution of his business associates.
According to Uribe, he gave Nadine $15,000 in cash in March 2019 for a down payment on a new Mercedes-Benz and later arranged, or paid himself, more than a dozen payments on the car.
He also testified that he met with the senator and his wife in an Italian restaurant in North Jersey on Aug. 7, 2019, where he said they discussed the prosecution that Menendez allegedly disrupted. According to Uribe, Menendez appeared to have "complete knowledge" of the prosecution he's accused of attempting to impede. Uribe also testified that Menendez signaled he would "look into" an investigation against Uribe's own company.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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