Sen. Bob Menendez’s corruption trial continues with more FBI testimony about search of home
Gold bars passed around to jurors in Sen. Bob Menendez corruption trial
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A day after jurors held the one-kilogram gold bars seized from Sen. Bob Menendez’s home in their own hands, they heard more from the FBI agent who led the search of the New Jersey Democrat’s home in June 2022.
Lawyers for Menendez continued questioning FBI agent Aristotelis Kougemitros on Friday.
Kougemitros told prosecutors Thursday that his team mostly eschewed the “flashy” FBI trappings when they arrived at the split-level Englewood Cliffs home Menendez shares with his wife, Nadine, to execute a search warrant.
pleaded guilty in March and confessed to buying Menendez’s wife a $60,000 Mercedes convertible to influence the senator. Uribe will testify during the trial.
On Thursday, Adam Fee, a lawyer for Menendez, sought to sow doubt about whether the senator had access to the primary bedroom closet where the safe and gold bars were found, questioning the FBI agent about the location of a blue blazer that prosecutors are connecting to Menendez.
On Wednesday, another attorney for Menendez, Avi Weitzman, said Menendez did not have a key to the closet.
The government’s second witness, Bret Tate, a Department of Agriculture official who was stationed in Cairo until 2019, testified about Egypt limiting the number of U.S. companies who were authorized to certify halal exports.
During a break from witness testimony in the afternoon, Menendez stood in a nearly empty hallway and sang “Amazing Grace.”
Nathalie Nieves contributed reporting.
Caitlin Yilek
Source: cbsnews.com