Senator Menendez pleaded not guilty for a fourth time because he was re-indicted by prosecutors who expanded the charges against him from earlier indictments. So every time there's a new indictment he has to appear in court again to plead guilty or not guilty. And what was the expansion? It expanded the number of counts in the indictment from four to 18 and substantively what it did was added an obstruction of justice charge against Menendez because prosecutors say that he instructed his lawyers to falsely tell prosecutors that he had repaid a businessman who gave him Mercedes. The prosecutors say was a bribe. Menendez claimed that the payments that that businessman made on the car that that was alone.

I mean you hear all the time about people being charged for lying to the FBI. But this is he lied to his attorneys which is confidential communication and his attorneys then unknowingly lied to the prosecutors. It seems like there are too many steps to get to his act. Have you heard of a charge framed in this way before?

It's a very unusual charge and I have not heard of that. It could have a chilling effect on lawyers who communicate with their clients. The indictment says this was his former legal team and there's also another unusual charge in this case which had previously been brought that he conspired to act as an agent of Egypt and that's apparently never been brought against a sitting member of Congress. Are

these new charges being brought basically because one of the businessmen who was charged with Menendez flipped on him? I

think there's an aspect of that. They added the obstruction charge after the guilty plea of Jose Uribe who admitted in his guilty plea a few days ago that he bribed Senator Menendez and his wife through the gift of this Mercedes Benz and then he made payments on the car. So the new indictment very closely tracks what Jose Uribe admitted to in his guilty plea and Uribe is now cooperating with prosecutors and that gives them an insider account of this corruption plot. That plea

is a game changer I take it.

I would imagine that it is not helpful to Senator Menendez. It's always good for prosecutors to have insiders who can describe how a scheme work. Now I would say that Uribe pleaded guilty to several charges in addition to bribery including tax evasion and obstruction of justice himself so that the defense lawyers could challenge his credibility when he testifies as a prosecution witness against Menendez at trial. This is the

fourth superseding indictment. Tell us about the initial charges.

The initial charges were three conspiracy to commit bribery charges and they were all essentially dealing with the same set of facts but with different iterations of the law and those showed the world that FBI agents seized gold bars at his house hundreds of thousands of cash and this Mercedes Benz and it essentially laid out several overlapping bribery plots in which prosecutors allege that Menendez accepted bribes in exchange for doing favors from three New Jersey businessmen who were seeking his help. Now there is less than two months before trial.

Menendez asked to delay the March 6 trial date today. He

did. Well he has previously asked to delay it on a number of grounds but one of them is that as a member of Congress he's protected by the speech or debate clause in the U.S. Constitution which covers legislative acts and if he loses that motion to dismiss the indictment on the speech or debate clause grounds he has an automatic right of appeal before trial which would certainly postpone the trial beyond May 6. I should say that he was previously indicted in New Jersey in 2015 and he raised a speech or debate clause motion at the time and the judge denied that. The senator then appealed it to the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals where he lost and then he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take it up and the Supreme Court declined to take the case. The whole process took about 18 months and then he finally went to trial in 2017 on unrelated corruption charges and the jury deadlocked on those charges and the Justice Department ultimately dropped the case.

It's a delay tactic if nothing else but explain exactly what his claim is under the speech or debate clause.

He's saying that all the actions that the prosecutor's alleged were corrupt were in fact routine legislative matters that are protected as part of his job duties under the speech or debate clause of the Constitution.

His wife also pleaded not guilty today. Are they being represented by the same attorney, different attorneys and are their defenses the same?

Senator Menendez and his wife Nadine have separate lawyers and they have both said that they should have separate trials because their defenses would run against each other's interests and that they each have a spousal privilege and that if they had to testify against each other that would harm their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

So has the judge decided about

that? The judge has not decided on that aspect yet. There are several motions that are still pending. I should say that Judge Stein has ruled against the defense on a number of motions so far. You would

think that that's something they need to know whether they're going to have separate trials before preparing for the trial that's coming up. I'm surprised the judge hasn't made that decision already considering it's less than two months to trial and it surely will make a difference from the defense standpoint whether they're tried together or separately.

Yes, he has a number of motions outstanding and he has denied other motions to dismiss the case based on improper search warrants so that the defense just keeps coming and obviously it's their right to challenge the evidence and the law.

He didn't say anything to the media who were waiting and what he said in a statement was what this latest charge reveals is that the prosecutors are afraid of the facts scared to subject their charges to the fair-minded scrutiny of a jury and unconstrained by any sense of justice or fair play. What does he mean? They're going to a jury, right?

Yes, I think his general objection is that he believes that the superseding indictments are piling on, that the government just keeps coming with new charges and allegations and I think he believes that that's unfair. I should say that after the hearing today several reporters asked the senator if he was going to run for re-election because his popularity has plummeted since his original indictment in September. He faces a primary election if he were to choose to do so in June. He has not said yet whether he will run for re-election and today in the hallway outside the courtroom he said I wouldn't be announcing it in a courtroom.

And just to follow up on that a mom-moth university poll found that 63 percent of New Jersey residents think he should resign and 75 percent say he's probably guilty of federal bribery charges he faces. It's a contrast to the first time he was tried and then one re-election but this case appears to be weightier than the first case against him.

I would say that I covered the first trial every day and I would say that there's more substantial evidence against him this time and having Yuribé plead guilty and agree to testify against him is going to be a substantial burden for Menendez and you can't underestimate the shock value of the photographs of the cash in the gold bars that agents seized in a raid on the house where he and his wife live in New Jersey.

And how has his role in the Senate diminished since these

charges?