Nadine Menendez’s finan­cial trou­bles are at heart of bribery scan­dal

Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors spent the past two days lay­ing out the ori­gin sto­ry of Sen. Bob Menendez’s (D‑NJ) alleged years­long bribery scheme to a Man­hat­tan jury.
The gov­ern­ment claims Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez’s, dire finan­cial sit­u­a­tion was the cat­a­lyst for what they said was a five-year bribery con­spir­a­cy. 

Sen. Bob Menen­dez (D‑NJ) leaves the Man­hat­tan fed­er­al court after the sec­ond day of jury selec­tion in his tri­al, Tues­day, May, 14, 2024, in New York. The Demo­c­rat has plead­ed not guilty to bribery, extor­tion, fraud, and obstruc­tion of jus­tice, along with act­ing as a for­eign agent of Egypt. (AP Photo/Stefan Jere­mi­ah)

A fed­er­al indict­ment accus­es the one-time pow­er cou­ple of accept­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in bribes, includ­ing gold bars, fur­ni­ture, and wads of cash, in exchange for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic senator’s will­ing­ness to grease the wheels in deals that ben­e­fit­ed three busi­ness­men and the gov­ern­ments of Egypt and Qatar. 
Menen­dez is on tri­al with two of the New Jer­sey busi­ness­men, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes. They, along with the Menen­dezes, have plead­ed not guilty. A third man has plead­ed guilty and is sched­uled to tes­ti­fy. Nadine Menendez’s tri­al was post­poned until July after she was diag­nosed with breast can­cer.
The sen­a­to …