while the defense team for us Senator Bob Menendez wrapped up their case today by trying to contradict several of the claims made by the US justice department prosecutors they brought forward several witnesses including a forensic accountant who made the case that the government cherry-picked pieces of evidence in their presentation and they played pre-recorded testimony for Michael critchley an attorney in a case at the heart of this trial senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan is once again outside of the courthouse to bring us her wrapup now that the Menendez team has wrapped their case Brenda great to see you what did you see and hear in this final stage of the trial well Joanna Senator Bob Menendez did not take the stand in his own defense as the defense his defense to team uh Team rested after two days of of presentations in this trial now this afternoon they tried to continue poking holes in the prosecution's case they wrapped up by uh giving jurors tape testimony of attorney Michael critchley he testified that Bob Menendez did something that was very unusual he called to discuss one specific criminal case and it's the same case that the government's star witness claimed he bribed Senator Menendez to disrupt it's the same case that Menendez um twice allegedly tried to discuss with New Jersey's former Attorney General Gerber greywall greywall flatly refused to discuss the case critchley said that Menendez mentioned uh no specifics in regards to the case and that the senator really had absolutely nothing to do with the more lenient sentence that his client eventually received Joana so Brenda how did menendez's attorneys today try to make the case that evidence was cherry-picked what did they present this afternoon to make that case well they called the forensic accountant as you mentioned and essentially he entered a lot more data into the record there were texts there were emails and there were letters and all of this was supposed to add more context to what the prosecution left out but it was a deluge of information and Joanne I was looking at the jury this afternoon and some of them were taking notes but there were others who were sort of resting their eyes let's put it that way and there were others who just plainly looked exasperated now judge cydney Stein was obviously exasperated as well because he told attorneys during the lunch break and I'm going to quote him here all this could be argued in summation this is unnecessary at this point especially given everyone's desire to move forward Joanna so yes with that desire to move forward how do they move forward Where Do We Go From Here well codefendant Fred D's attorney Cesar de Castro told me that they expected to rest without calling Witnesses he said that they felt no need to because he said the government hasn't uh proved that his client is guilty so that tees up the defense team for wil Hana his big problem is that their crucial witness in this case is Egyptian he is in Egypt and while he was granted a US Visa that Visa still hasn't gotten to him in Egypt and the judge has warned that he is not going to delay this case to wait for this witness to get here and testify next week because we're all off for the holiday weekend they resume testimony on Monday and if he's not here the judge says that the only option the hana's team will have would be to rest their case now we are going to possibly get into summations Tuesday or Wednesday Joanna so after summations Brenda at what point does this go to the jury uh right after I mean the the judge has to charge the jury first and of course that's going to be something that the defense and and the prosecution have to uh discuss with the judge as to what the judge includes and what he leads leaves out yeah and after that it will go to the jury all right Brenda Flanagan Senior correspondent for us great recap as always thanks Brenda thanks Joanna