THE MENENDEZ TRIAL: Connectivity Issues
NEWARK – Struggling to hear her boss over a horrible cell phone connection and the din of children playing in a suburban Maryland Gymboree, a former staffer for Sen. Bob Menendez said she was not completely sure what her instructions were when she reached out to the Department of Homeland Security on the senator’s behalf.
Kerri Talbot, Menendez’s immigration expert and chief counsel, testified for the defense that when the senator called her cell phone on Jan. 11, 2013, she was working from out of the office and with her 2-year-old. The call that followed was “one of the worst connections I ever had.”
“It sounded to me like he was concerned there was a security issue, drug traffickers or something else, but again it was really difficult to hear,” Talbot testified.
Nonetheless, Talbot drafted an email to her contact at Customs and Border Patrol, asking about a rumored shipment of port security screeners the State Department was supposedly gifting the Dominican Republic government. Talbot said Menendez urgently wanted a briefing and asked CBP to “please consider” “holding off” the shipment.
Talbot warned that elements “possibly criminal” might want the screeners donated because they were easier to bypass.
The day before, Menendez had been in the Dominican Republic with his friend Dr. Salomon Melgen, who owned the company holding an exclusive security contract for the nation’s ports. Melgen stood to make millions from the deal, but the contract’s enforcement had been stalled by Dominican authorities for years.
The free screeners turned out to be phantoms, and CBP notified Talbot within hours nothing of the sort was planned. She forwarded the email response to Menendez.
Talbot sparred with prosecutor Amanda Vaughn over whether her email contained Menendez’s exact words. Talbot said she only used the word “urgent” to get the agency to respond within a day, and only wanted the shipment held so Menendez could be briefed.
“My understanding is he wanted a briefing on the matter before they went ahead with their decision, so that’s what I asked for,” Talbot said.
Over the objections of Menendez defense attorney Jenny Kramer, Vaughn introduced Talbot’s March 2015 grand jury testimony, where Talbot had agreed the “substance of the email” was what Menendez said during the cell phone call.
Talbot said she had never heard of Melgen’s company ICCSI which held the contract and denied being part of a “coordinated” effort by the senator’s staff and Melgen’s camp to conceal from the press Menendez’s lobbying on Melgen’s behalf.
“They’re alleging it’s coordinated,” she said when shown an email query from a New York Times reporter. “But I didn’t think it was coordinated and I don’t think so now.”
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