Former Menendez aide testifies about gamesmanship around NJ’s top federal prosecutor

NEW YORK — One of Sen. Bob Menendez’s former top aides testified Tuesday that the senator was uniquely focused on a criminal case against a real estate developer now accused of bribing him.

Michael Soliman, a key political adviser to the senator for over a decade, said the only criminal case Menendez ever asked him to talk to a prosecutor about involved the developer, Fred Daibes.

Menendez and Daibes are now co-defendants in a sprawling federal corruption trial underway in New York federal court.

Federal prosecutors say Menendez tried to disrupt a 2018 bank fraud case against Daibes because Daibes bribed the senator and his wife with cash, furniture and gold bars.

As part of that scheme, prosecutors allege that Menendez recommended President Joe Biden nominate the current U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Philip Sellinger, for the post in an attempt to influence the outcome of the Daibes case.

Prosecutors’ theory is that Menendez originally wanted Sellinger, a close friend, for the job but then sidelined him because Sellinger said in late 2020 that he might have to recuse himself from the Daibes case. While in private practice at a major law firm, Sellinger had worked on what was basically a lawsuit against Daibes’ real estate interests.

Menendez’s defense team has suggested Sellinger was sidelined because Biden’s transition team was looking for diverse candidates.

But Soliman testified Sellinger had always been Menendez’s first choice until Sellinger and the senator had a falling out.

While Soliman didn’t know what the falling out was about at the time, prosecutors are counting on jurors to fill in the blanks.

Soliman testified that on Dec. 17, 2020, Menendez texted him looking to recommend someone other than Sellinger. That’s the day after Sellinger told Menendez he might have to recuse himself from the Daibes case, according to Sellinger, who took the stand before Soliman.

It was only months later, after Menendez came to believe that Sellinger would not have to recuse himself, did the senator recommend Sellinger for the U.S. Attorney job, according to prosecutors.

In the meantime, Menendez had decided to back Esther Suarez, a local prosecutor, but her candidacy flamed out and Sellinger reentered the picture.

Here Soliman’s testimony conflicted with Sellinger’s about the substance of a key phone call when it was clear Suarez was doomed.

According to Sellinger, Sellinger used a call with Soliman to explain the process he might have to go through to recuse himself.

According to Solimon, Sellinger was more pointed in the conversation. Soliman testified that Sellinger “wanted me to let the senator know that he checked with [the Department of Justice] and that in fact he did not have to recuse himself from an issue.”

Soliman said he passed on the message to Menendez, though Soliman didn’t know until January 2022 — after Sellinger had taken office in December 2021 — that the message had been about the Daibes case.

By then, though, Sellinger did end up having to recuse himself from the Daibes case — which Soliman said left the senator confused and inquisitive about what Sellinger had said about not having to recuse himself and, eventually, frustrated with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

But, on the stand, Soliman had trouble recalling the exact nature of a key text message he sent the senator after he talked with Sellinger about recusal. In the message, Soliman wrote to Menendez that “you’ll be comfortable with what he says.”

Prosecutors have suggested this was about recusal — but Soliman said he wasn’t sure and it might have referred to something else.

That failure of recollection is something of a blow to prosecutors’ case. They found the statement so compelling that they included it in their indictment as a key piece of evidence about the alleged scheme.

But while Menendez may have had that legal victory on Tuesday, some of Soliman’s testimony and the evidence that accompanied it could hurt Menendez’s bid to hold onto his seat by running as an independent.

In particular, Soliman portrayed the senator’s publicly reported intentions of recommending to Biden a diverse candidate for U.S. Attorney as a head fake.

Before mid-December 2020, for instance, Menendez had privately dismissed the idea that he would be recommending a Hispanic candidate to Biden.

In an email sent before the 2020 election, the senator said he worried that David Wildstein — the admitted architect of the infamous Bridgegate scandal, who now runs a political news website in New Jersey — would publish a story that suggested Menendez would help Biden nominate a Hispanic candidate for U.S. attorney.

“I hope he doesn’t write the Hispanic idea,” Menendez wrote in an email to Soliman, “as it will only add pressure for me to do something which I don’t intend to.”

Eventually, Menendez would recommend a Hispanic candidate, Suarez, but only after he abandoned Sellinger in mid-December 2020.

That’s when Menendez texted Soliman to do a little checking around about “Salas,” which may have been a misremembering or misspelling of "Suarez."

After that, Wildstein’s site reported that Suarez was under consideration along with other names, including Jamel Semper, a prominent Black federal prosecutor.

Soliman testified that other names, including Semper’s, were floated so Suarez wasn't alone in getting scrutiny at the time. Soliman already expected she would get scrutiny for her handling of a politically sensitive investigation involving a former aide to Gov. Phil Murphy.

But the plan didn’t work, because Saurez’s candidacy went down in flames amid press scrutiny. And floating Semper’s name even backfired when a group of Black ministers came out in support of Semper — who, Soliman testified, Menendez was never serious about recommending to Biden for the U.S. Attorney job.

Soliman said Semper’s name was floated because Wildstein had suggested the list of names Menendez’s team was floating wasn’t diverse enough.

Prosecutors showed an email from Menendez that seemed to confirm Soliman's account.

“This is just great,” the senator wrote Soliman after the Black ministers came out in support of Semper, calling it a “lesson why you can’t let Wildstein drive your decisions.”

Menendez’s defense team tried to suggest these unguarded messages were taken out of context and asked questions to suggest that Menendez did want to see Semper advanced either through promotion within the prosecutor’s office or by getting a federal judgeship, which Semper later did with Menendez’s help.