it appears embattled US senator Bob Menendez will run for reelection despite being in the thick of his Federal corruption trial according to NBC News Menendez has enough signatures to run as an independent in the race the news Outlet cited multiple sources who are close to the 70-year-old Democrat saying he secured the minimum required for his election petition that's 800 signatures but he's working to reach closer to 10,000 by the June 4th filing deadline adding he hopes to use the number of signatures as a statement to show the level of support he still has whether or not Mendez follows through remains to be seen but he's already lost the support of establishment Democrats in the state who've lined up behind candidate and current Congressman Andy Kim bid to replace him the news comes as Menendez enters day 10 of his bribery trial where prosecutors are in the thick of trying to prove he engaged in a quidd pro quo senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan has been inside the Manhattan Federal courtroom all day and joins me now with the latest Bren good to see you as always so they are still sifting through all of these phone records tell me what you learned today hey Bri yes the prosecution again was sifting through phone messages voicemails and what they're trying to do is show jurors and by inference the connection between how Senator Mendez acted to help the Egyptian government and what they got in return which was in the this case gold bars let's talk about this spe specific instance so the chief of Egyptian intelligence is on his way to meet with some US senators this is in June of 2021 and in the meantime a story breaks in the Washington Post saying that human rights groups want want the Congress to interrogate this intelligence Chief because he's supposedly connected to supplying illicit drugs used in the brutal murder of journalist Adnan kosagi now this is something that Senator Menendez sees he sees the article he sends it to naen his wife naen texts this article to the assistant for the intelligence Chief and she says as she's texting it I'm giving you this as a heads up so you can prepare your answers and the assistant answers yes you did and afterwards the assistant tells uh naen you know this was really very helpful and the the meeting went very well and naen kind of Nails it down again the next day she sends a text message saying I truly hope that this information that I sent was helpful in how you were able to form your rebuttal so what happens next yeah what is the defense well yeah what's the defense saying at we we didn't we didn't get to the we didn't get to the gold bars yet I've got gold bars for you here so the the next day will Hana who is a codefendant in the trial very tight with Egyptian connections goes out he buys 10 bars of gold 1 oz bars of gold with a check for $40,800 where do those gold bars end up well they are in photos on a cell phone that were seized during the FBI raid on the Mona's home Briana yeah they keep uh circulating back into the conversation here so okay I'll ask again then how does the defense counter this because uh those are those are pretty damning uh conversations well it's it's tough to draw that a quidd pro quo we don't actually have that yet we have an inference what the defense is trying to do they're questioning this FBI agent and the argument that they're making is the prosecution leaves a lot out in the presentation to the jury they're they're cherry-picking amongst the emails the text messages and the voicemails to essentially put the the worst possible spin that they can put on this narrative and what they're saying is they're trying they're trying to add more context they're bringing more of these voicemails up to the jury's attention to try and and and make it look like it's it's not as evil as the prosecution wants you to think it strikes me Bren that nen Menendez is not on trial here she's not even present and yet so much of this so far has been about her absolutely uh I would you would say she's the proverbial empty chair in in that courtroom physically she's not there however we've heard her voice now you know and and how she does little love love love messages to to Senator Menendez um we've read her voicemails and her text messages she's a presence in this courtroom even though her husband says she's you know being treated for breast cancer and that's why she will be tried but separately and and later on this summer Bri of course uh the testimony continues tomorrow and Brenda Flanagan will be there for us Brenda thanks so much thank you