Expect a news blackout.
Via Philly Com:
Opening arguments in U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez’s federal corruption trial are set to begin Wednesday, more than two years after the New Jersey Democrat was charged with bribery as part of a scheme to sell his influence in exchange for luxury vacations, gifts, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from a Florida eye doctor.
Menendez, who is up for reelection next year, has unsuccessfully asked the judge to delay the trial and change the schedule so that he could participate in “critical votes” before the Senate, underscoring the larger political dynamics at play. For example, the Republican-controlled Senate in July fell one vote short of proceeding with a plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act.
Also charged is Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist who prosecutors say lavished Menendez with gifts, sometimes on demand, in exchange for the senator’s efforts to resolve a multi-million dollar dispute with the federal government, protect his financial interests in the Dominican Republican, and obtain visas for the doctor’s foreign girlfriends.
Prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section plan to call witnesses such as public officials they say Menendez pressured on behalf of his benefactor, the senator’s staffers, as well as guests and pilots who accompanied and flew Menendez to resorts in the Dominican Republic and a hotel stay in Paris.
The government says testimony will be corroborated by flight manifests, hotel bills, Federal Election Commission filings, credit card statements, and contemporaneous emails exchanged between Menendez, Melgen, and the officials they tried to influence.
One high-profile potential witness: Harry Reid, the former Senate Democratic majority leader, who Menendez enlisted to try to resolve Melgen’s $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute with the federal government.
Menendez concealed the scheme by omitting the gifts on his financial disclosure forms, prosecutors say, and Melgen routed campaign contributions to Menendez through a super PAC and other entities to try to hide the source and beneficiary of the donations.