Bob Menendez poised to blame his wife in bribe case defense

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Bob Menendez is prepared to blame his wife at his bribery trial for withholding information from him about gifts they allegedly accepted from businessmen seeking favors, a newly unsealed court document shows.

The revelation came Tuesday in a portion of a March court filing in which lawyers for the New Jersey Democrat asked a U.S. judge to try him separately from his wife, Nadine. They are accused of accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a car to help three businessmen and the Egyptian government. Menendez, 70, is also charged with acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.

At trial, Menendez may testify about communications he had with his wife regarding their dinners with Egyptian officials and her explanation of why two of the businessmen gave her “certain monetary items,” according to the March filing. But U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein agreed Tuesday to a media coalition’s request to unseal a passage that showed a rift between the couple.

That passage said the explanations and communications “will tend to exonerate Senator Menendez by demonstrating the absence of any improper intent on Senator Menendez’s part.” They may also incriminate “Nadine by demonstrating the ways in which she withheld information from Senator Menendez or otherwise led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place,” according to the filing.

—Bloomberg News

Journalist who accused NPR of liberal bias resigns from the network

Uri Berliner, the veteran NPR journalist who publicly accused his employer of liberal bias, has resigned from the network.

Berliner posted a message Wednesday on the social media platform X with his resignation letter to the public broadcaster's chief executive Katherine Maher.

"I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years," Berliner wrote. "I don't support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems I cite in my Free Press essay."

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