U.S. attorney says Menendez asked him to review wealthy donor’s case

That all changed after Sellinger took office in December 2021 and was recused from a fraud case against real estate developer Fred Daibes, he testified. Daibes is now a co-defendant in the trial, accused of bribing Menendez and his wife with gold bars and cash.

When Sellinger called Menendez to invite him to his investiture ceremony, the senator flatly turned him down, he testified. They haven’t spoken since.

“He said: ‘I’m going to pass. The only thing worse than not having a relationship with the United States attorney is people thinking you have a relationship with the United States attorney, and you don’t,’” Sellinger recalled Menendez telling him.

Wednesday’s testimony capped a series of witnesses who are key to the prosecution’s case. Sellinger took the stand shortly after Jose Uribe, a New Jersey trucking and insurance executive who said he bribed the senator through his then-girlfriend with a Mercedes-Benz convertible.

Menendez, 70, was indicted on 16 felony counts including bribery, extortion, wire fraud, acting as a foreign agent for Egypt and obstruction of justice. He could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted on all charges. Daibes and the other co-defendant at the trial, businessman Wael “Will” Hana, also could be sentenced to decades in prison if convicted.

The senator’s now-wife, Nadine Menendez, was charged alongside them but is scheduled to be tried later.

Under questioning from Menendez attorney Avi Weitzman, Sellinger said he and the senator had been in discussions about the U.S. attorney position for years. Menendez had told him he would recommend him to the White House in the event Hillary Clinton won the 2016 presidential election.

“I never believed him to be asking me to do anything unethical or improper,” Sellinger testified.

Daibes had been indicted on 14 counts in a bank fraud case from 2018 and faced the possibility of significant prison time. New Jersey federal prosecutors reached a plea deal requiring him to plead guilty to one felony count in exchange for no prison time. A judge threw out that agreement in October.

The December 2020 meeting in Menendez’s office in Washington began with the usual fare, Sellinger recalled. The two men discussed his priorities and vision for the top prosecutor’s job, as well as civil rights, violent crime and candidates for Sellinger’s leadership team. Then Menendez said Daibes “was being treated unfairly” by the federal prosecutors and asked Sellinger to “look at it carefully” if he were confirmed.

In a phone call the next day, Sellinger testified, he told Menendez he would look at all cases carefully, before adding that he might have to recuse himself from the Daibes prosecution. Sellinger said that while in private practice, he had represented a client whose interests were “adverse” to Daibes’s in a civil case.

Though Menendez indicated that he understood, it was only days later that Sellinger got another call from the senator: The White House would not be nominating him, so Menendez would not be recommending him.

Sellinger testified that he’d told Menendez the recusal decision would be made by other officials in the Justice Department. “The process is very clear. … I do not make any decision as to whether or not I should be recused — and I communicated that to Senator Menendez.”

But the candidate endorsed by Menendez and New Jersey’s junior senator, Cory Booker (D), ultimately fell through. In the spring of 2021, Sellinger again expressed interest in the prosecutor’s job. He was nominated and confirmed late that year.

The following March, Sellinger met Menendez’s top political adviser, Mike Soliman, at a Spanish restaurant in Newark.

“At one point in the conversation he says, ‘Let me ask you a question,’” Sellinger testified. “And I said, ‘Let me stop you there.’”

He said he told Soliman, who is expected to take the witness stand later this week: “I want you to know that, as U.S. attorney, I’m not allowed to have any conversations about the business of the office with any federal elected officials or their representatives. … He indicated that he understood.”

Weeks later, Menendez turned down the invitation to speak at the prosecutor’s inauguration ceremony.

Sellinger’s cross-examination is set to continue Thursday.