Nadine Menendez, who is fighting federal corruption charges alongside husband Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ)—a man who allegedly appreciates a fine watch, an envelope stuffed with cash, and the odd gold bar—doesn’t believe she’ll get a fair trial if she has to defend herself as one half of a couple.
Lawyers for Nadine Menendez on Monday filed a motion to sever her trial from that of the embattled senior senator, arguing a joint trial would “undoubtedly prejudice Ms. Menendez’s right to defend herself.” Sen. Menendez followed suit just hours later with his own motion for severance.
If the two are tried as one unit, “either Senator Menendez will be prevented from providing exculpatory testimony in the form of marital communications on his own behalf, or Ms. Menendez will risk the admission of damaging testimony about privileged matters that would be inadmissible if she was tried separately,” according to Nadine’s motion, which contends it is “unfair to require either spouse to sacrifice the right to testify fully in one’s own defense or the ability to maintain the confidentiality of privileged marital communications.”
ADVERTISEMENT
A joint trial would present an “irreconcilable conflict between husband and wife,” the motion says, arguing that the “dueling rights and privileges of Senator Menendez and Ms. Menendez create a precarious situation that can be avoided through severance.”
That is, Nadine Menendez shouldn’t have to choose between offering testimony beneficial to her own case but damaging to her husband’s, or declining to testify in her own defense so she isn’t forced to testify against him.
In his own motion to sever, Sen. Menendez said he “intends to present a defense arguing (in part) that he lacked the requisite knowledge of much of the conduct and statements of his wife, Nadine.”
“By this defense, Senator Menendez’s legal team may have to argue, in effect, that any unlawful conduct—and we are aware of none,” the motion hedges, “involved the actions of others (including Nadine), not the Senator.”
The motion says only a solo trial will allow Sen. Menendez the ability to provide “essential exculpatory evidence” that he couldn’t at a joint trial. It then lays out two heavily redacted examples.
An unredacted paragraph notes that the indictment against the Menendezes and their three co-defendants, New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes, contains “significant” allegations concerning “conduct occurring after Nadine and Senator Menendez were married,” in October 2020. For example, it continues, allegations in the indictment include that “Senator Menendez and Nadine attended dinners with Egyptian officials in October and December 2020,” that Hana “caused items of value to be delivered to Senator Menendez and Nadine’s home in ‘early 2021,’” and that “Senator Menendez, via his wife, conveyed information about planned questioning from other Senators to an Egyptian official,” and would all involve privileged communications between the two.
Any way you slice it, according to Menendez’s motion, he, like Nadine, will “find himself in a Catch-22.”
“He will be forced to choose between his right to testify in his own defense (and being examined about his own wife’s conduct) and his right to exercise his own testimonial spousal privilege to decline to offer testimony in any case against Nadine,” it says.
Menendez also wants to sever his case from Hana, Uribe, and Daibes, arguing in the motion that he could be unfairly tarred by association for things he may not have done. Therefore, “Senator Menendez should be tried alone first, and then the joint-trial of Nadine and the Conspiracy Defendants should follow,” the motion states.
Both Nadine and Bob Menendez, who until recently served as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are charged with three counts of conspiring to commit federal bribery, and one count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The charges involve bribes and backroom deals to benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar in exchange for luxury automobiles, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold, and Formula 1 tickets, among other items.
The motion to sever by Sen. Menendez states, in no uncertain terms, that “he is innocent.” For her part, the motion to sever by Nadine Menendez is slightly more charitable: “Both Mrs. Menendez and Senator Menedez are innocent of the charges.”
