Bob Menendez Is Planning to Throw His Wife Under the Bus in Foreign Bribery Case, Per Court Filing

(AP Photo/Jeenah Moon)

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman who is accused of running a bribery scheme from his powerful perch, appears to be laying the groundwork for a defense strategy in which he throws his wife, Nadine Menendez, under the bus.

Both Bob and Nadine Menendez were indicted for participating in the bribery scheme in which the Department of Justice alleged that Senator Menendez “provided sensitive U.S. Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt” last fall. Included in the indictment were pictures of $480,000 in cash and $100,000 worth of gold bars found in the Menendez home that he is accused of receiving for acting on the foreign government’s behalf.

A superseding indictment later charged Menendez with aiding the Qatari government as well.

According to a filing from Menendez’s legal team, he may be planning on fighting these charges by painting his wife as a deceptive, Lady MacBeth-type who was ultimately responsible for the scheme. The filing suggests that Nadine Menendez “withheld information from Sen. Menendez or otherwise led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place” and makes the case for trying the married couple separately. That latter request has been granted.

While it was originally submitted in March, the filing was kept under wraps because Menendez’s defense team argued its strategy “threatens to bias the jury pool and, consequently, to interfere with Senator Menendez’s and his wife’s right to a fair trial.” The document was made public on Tuesday after a number of media organizations lobbied for it.

Menendez has refused to resign from his Senate seat, although he did step down from his post on the Foreign Relations Committee. He is reportedly mulling an independent bid for a fourth term in the Senate that would help him pay for the significant legal expenses he is incurring.

His trial is set to begin on May 6, while his wife’s trial has been delayed due to a medical condition.