Sen. Bob Menendez will blame his wife in upcoming corruption trial

Sen. Bob Menendez may plan to blame his wife for actions that led to a federal bribery case against him, a newly unsealed court filing suggests.The senator’s legal team plans to try to show the “absence of any improper intent on Senator Menendez’s part” by “demonstrating the ways” in which his wife, Nadine Menendez, “withheld information from Sen.

Menendez or otherwise led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place.”In a mid-March legal filing, Menendez’s legal team tried to keep those exact words under seal because they believed having that defense strategy public would taint the jury pool. But a reporter at NBC New York and then a coalition of media organizations, including POLITICO, fought to make those sentences public. On Tuesday, federal judge Sidney Stein ordered their release.

Previously, Menendez’s legal team said having this particular defense strategy public “threatens to bias the jury pool and, consequently, to interfere with Senator Menendez’s and his wife’s right to a fair trial.”The language it sought to redact came in part of a larger 50-page legal filing that argued the senator and his wife should have separate trials.

Menendez’s attorneys said spousal privilege — which prevents one spouse from being forced to testify against another and allows one spouse to prevent the other from testifying — would complicate his defense against the federal charges.