No Jurors Seated on First Day of Menendez Corruption Trial

Senator Robert Menendez is charged with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars in exchange for political favors at home and abroad.

Jury determination started on Monday in the government debasement trial of Congressperson Robert Menendez, Democrat of Unused Shirt, who is charged with tolerating hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars in trade for political favors at domestic and abroad.

By the conclusion of the day, no attendants had been chosen for the trial, which is taking put in Manhattan and is likely to final until almost the Fourth of July.

Mr. Menendez has spoken to Modern Shirt in Congress for three decades, but the debasement case was brought by prosecutors in the Southern Locale of Unused York. The members of the jury who will be inquired to weigh the prove against him and two Modern Shirt businessmen, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana, will be from Manhattan, the Bronx or a few districts north of Unused York City.

All three men have argued not guilty.

At 7:30 a.m., correspondents and planned members of the jury carrying blue summons envelopes lined up exterior the Daniel Patrick Moynihan government courthouse holding up for the entryways to open to the public.

Inside the courthouse, fair some time recently 8:30 a.m., Mr. Menendez strolled through security, wearing a dull blue suit and striped ruddy tie, his Senate stick unmistakable on his lapel. He welcomed court officers with a grin as he passed through the metal detector.

Two hours afterward, he stood confronting scores of imminent attendants as they recorded into a wood-paneled court. He showed up loose as the continuing proceeded, inclining back in a chair with hands clasped either at his midsection or close his chest.

Mr. Menendez, 70, and the two businessmen sat discreetly talking with their legal counselors whereas the judge, Sidney H. Stein, went through most of the day, off the seat, addressing planned members of the jury who had said that they would be incapable to serve for the term of the trial; generally three dozen would-be members of the jury were expelled after an introductory screening by the judge, and an extra 50 individuals were called into the room.

The addressing is likely to proceed on Tuesday, maybe pushing the lawyers’ opening articulations to Wednesday.

Mr. Menendez has said that he anticipates to be absolved and has cleared out open the plausibility of running for re-election in November.

“I appreciate the jury’s give up, their time and commitment,” Mr. Menendez said after taking off the court for the day.

He and his spouse, Nadine Menendez, were charged in a September 2023 prosecution with being at the center of a bribery conspire that endured for about five years.

Mr. Menendez, the previous chairman of the persuasive Senate Outside Relations Committee, is blamed of directing government help and weapons to Egypt, making a difference Mr. Hana’s company win a profitable imposing business model and interfering in criminal examinations in Modern Shirt on sake of his allies.

In return, prosecutors have said, the representative and his spouse acknowledged a Mercedes-Benz convertible, domestic contract installments, a moo- or no-show work for Ms. Menendez, cash and gold bars. Examiners who looked their domestic in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., in June 2022 found much of the cash reserved in coat pockets, boots and a safe.

Ms. Menendez, 57, will be attempted independently, in July. Her legal counselors have said that she was as of late analyzed with a genuine restorative condition that will require surgery and, conceivably, follow-up treatment and a long period of recuperation. She did not go to the to begin with day of jury selection.

The members of the jury, situated eight to a push, wore a ocean of colors and designs — oranges and greens, plaids and stripes — that differentiated strongly with the staid blue and dark suits of the respondents and their lawyers.

Judge Stein started by expressing gratitude toward them for their benefit, recognizing the strain that a long trial, in the center of the summer, might cause. He cited John Adams, the moment president of the Joined together States who made a difference type in the Affirmation of Autonomy and too worked as a lawyer.

“John Adams composed that agent government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty,” Judge Stein told the potential members of the jury. “I immovably accept that, and if you are chosen to serve as a member of the jury on this trial, you will be portion of that more than 250-year tradition.”

The trial is anticipated to final six or seven weeks, but might run longer.

“Trials in reality are not run the way they are on television,” Judge Stein said. “Things cannot be predicted exactly.”

A jury expert, Justin Kelly, sat at the defense table with Mr. Menendez’s legitimate group. His firm, DOAR, was paid $150,000 for lawful administrations in Walk by Mr. Menendez’s Senate campaign account, government investing reports show.

This is the moment time in seven a long time that Mr. Menendez has been on trial after being charged with open corruption.

The to begin with trial, in U.S. Area Court in Unused Shirt, finished with a hung jury in November 2017. A judge at that point rejected a few of the charges, and prosecutors afterward expelled the rest of the charges in January 2018.