An official at US Customs and Border Protection told jurors at Sen. Bob Menendez’s federal bribery trial Thursday that she received a “somewhat odd” request from the New Jersey Democrat’s staffer on January 11, 2013, asking the agency to hold off delivering cargo scanning equipment to the Dominican Republic.
The request itself was “unusual” the official said, but the jury also learned that one day earlier, Menendez had been golfing in West Palm Beach with Dr. Salomon Melgen — the person who stood to benefit financially from the delay, according to testimony and exhibits presented in court.
As the fourth week of the high-profile corruption trial came to a close Thursday, prosecutors began the task of trying to establish a “quid pro quo” between the two men by directly tying the political favors Menendez did for Melgen with the benefits the senator allegedly received in return. The men deny any wrongdoing.
Jurors heard testimony earlier this week that Melgen had acquired a lucrative contract with the government in the Dominican Republic for screening cargo at the island’s ports, but the agreement had turned sour. Menendez later sought out assistance from a high-ranking official at the State Department in May 2012 to help resolve the contractual dispute and threatened to hold a congressional hearing if the issue wasn’t resolved, according to testimony from the former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.
Todd Robinson, a long-time diplomat and recent US ambassador to Guatemala, explained to jurors that lawmakers often make inquiries about American companies’ business disputes in foreign countries, but “none” he knew of carried the threat of a hearing.
On cross-examination, however, Robinson acknowledged that he was never personally threatened and did not shy away from an email describing a “very nice chat” he had with Melgen about the contract. He also admitted that even if he had known more about the nature of the close relationship between Melgen and Menendez — including the fact that Menendez was flying for free on the doctor’s private jet — he wouldn’t have acted any differently in relation to the request for help.
Later Thursday, with the assistance of a large whiteboard, prosecutor Amanda Vaughn began to weave testimony about Menendez’s efforts on the port screening contract into a chronology corresponding to political donations Melgen made at the senator’s request.
For example, email correspondence from May 12, 2012, shows Melgen’s representative agreeing to donate $60,000 to Menendez’s legal defense fund and the New Jersey Democratic State Committee — the same day that Menendez requested a meeting with Ambassador William Brownfield about Melgen’s cargo screening contract.
In turn, the lack of any corrupt intent has proved to be an emerging theme from the defense team — as it sought to illustrate through cross-examination of several witnesses that Menendez was legitimately concerned about security of cargo entering the US and preventing drug smuggling at ports, and never hid his friendship with Melgen.
‘A polite way of telling us what to do’
But the senator’s seat on the finance committee, which shares oversight responsibility for Customs and Border Protection, proved to be a double-edged sword Thursday when lawyers questioned Stephanie Talton, a 12-year employee of CBP, about the cargo screening issue.
When asked about her response to the Menendez staffer asking CBP to “consider holding off” shipping scanning equipment to the island, she told the jury she found the request “somewhat odd.”
“I found it to be odd because it’s somewhat unusual to have a senator or member of Congress ask us to stop doing our law enforcement mission. If we had deemed it necessary to provide this equipment, I found it odd a senator would tell us to stop doing that,” Talton explained.
After Menendez attorney Raymond Brown suggested that the staffer’s request had been polite and used the word “please,” Talton stuck to her guns.
“When something like that comes from a staffer for a member that sits on a committee as powerful to us as the Senate Finance Committee,” Talton said, “it’s just a polite way of telling us what to do.”