Don’t be distracted by the shiny object.

Or 13 shiny objects — as in bars of gold bullion.

That’s the goal of the attorneys for Sen. Bob. Menendez, the Democrat from New Jersey. The senator is on trial for the second time in less than a decade on unrelated charges.

U.S. senators don’t go on trial very often. The late Sen. Ted Stevens, the Republican from Alaska, was on trial back in 2008. A jury convicted Stevens. Then Stevens had the case overturned. Stevens died in a plane crash after he lost his bid for re-election.

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But who was the last U.S. senator on trial?

Bob Menendez in 2017.

In that case, Menendez was accused of accepting lavish gifts for doing favors for an eye doctor. The case ended in a hung jury.

Menendez torched prosecutors for even bringing that case. And he broke down when the case concluded.

“The way this case started was wrong. The way it was investigated was wrong. The way it was prosecuted was wrong. And the way it was tried was wrong, as well,” said Menendez. “Certain elements of the FBI and of our state cannot understand or, even worse, accept that the Latino kid from Union City and Hudson County can grow up to be a United States senator and be honest.”

Menendez seemingly found redemption upon being given a second lease on his political career.

“Today is Resurrection Day, and I want to thank God once again for allowing me to stand before you, as I walked into this courthouse 11 weeks ago, an innocent man,” Menendez said at the time. 

He then ran for re-election in 2018 and won.

The government says that’s where trouble began.

Menedez is accused of taking bribes from businessmen in the Garden State in exchange for favors. Among them, operating as a foreign agent for Qatar. That’s where the gold bars come in. The feds accuse Menendez of accepting the gold bars from New Jersey businessman Fred Daibes in exchange for using his muscle to help get a deal with a Qatari investment fund.

The goal of Menendez’s defense counsel is to convince jurors there isn’t necessarily a connection between the gold bars and official favors.

Although prosecutors will point out that Menendez did multiple internet searches, trying to determine the worth of gold bars in kilos.

Another charge targets Menendez and the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Investigators claim they were doing the bidding of Egypt. In particular, the feds accuse Menendez of writing shadow letters on behalf of senators, trying to dislodge a Senate holdup on $300 million in military aid targeted for Cairo.

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Prosecutors also accuse Menendez of taking payments to help Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman, score an agreement with the government of Egypt. Hana wanted the Egyptians to certify that his imported halal meat met appropriate dietary guidelines for Muslims.

Menendez argued that working with constituents was just what lawmakers do.

“What a chilling effect on the mere engagements and of these conversations it would be,” Menendez said of lawmakers simply engaging with people who seek government assistance. “The United States Attorney’s Office is not engaged in a prosecution but a persecution. They seek a victory. Not justice.”

Jury selection took place over several days.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., listens during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Dec. 7, 2023, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

On the first day, Judge Sidney Stein dismissed 38 possible jurors outright, then hauled in another pool of 50 prospective jurors. One possible juror cited work at the Rockland County New York Humane Society as a problem with her serving.

Another said she had a non-refundable trip scheduled to Rome. Stein let her go but questioned the validity of the lack of an available refund.

A children’s librarian from Greenwich, Conn., was one of the jury candidates. After she left, Stein opined on that line of work in another life.

“I’m telling you, that’s what I would do. Children’s librarian,” said Stein.

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It’s probably not that different from negotiating terms for a federal trial for a U.S. senator.

One jury candidate told the court about a fear of heights, noting that the courtroom is on the 23rd floor of the Daniel P. Moynihan Courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

Another possible juror announced she just had an ingrown toenail removed and couldn’t serve due to a litany of other maladies.

“I think she’d be too much of a problem,” Stein said after excusing her.

At least it wasn’t a hangnail.

And, after all, the goal of Stein is to avoid a hung jury.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, left, and his wife Nadine Menendez arrive at the federal courthouse in New York Sept. 27, 2023.  (AP Photo/Jeenah Moon, File)

Stein also told potential jurors some of the testimony in the trial may be in Spanish and Arabic, through an interpreter.

Stein also presented a list of various political figures, ranging from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., to Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y. Stein advised the jury candidates they should speak up if they know any of those figures or are familiar with them. Stein didn’t say they would appear as witnesses, but he did say their names may come up in the trial. None are accused of wrongdoing.

At the 2017 trial of Menendez, his Garden State colleague, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., sat in the courtroom on the first day for moral support. Booker testified as a character witness on behalf of Menendez, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

But for this trial, Menendez appears to be on his own.

“I’m not going to follow the day-to-day. I’ll be waiting for the verdict,” said Booker.

Menendez has disappointed Senate Democrats who hoped he would resign. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., often gives a variation of the same pat answer when asked whether Menendez should step down or if the Senate should expel the senator.

“The Senate has standards as to proper behavior. And Sen. Menendez’s behavior has fallen way below that,” replied Schumer.

Menendez will not run for re-election as a Democrat. But he could do so as an independent. In fact, the senator cracked open the door to that possibility. The filing deadline is June 4. The trial could run through mid-July.

When a police department upgrades its guns, what happens to the old ones? A CBS News investigation found tens of thousands of these former service weapons land at crime scenes across the country.

In a 16-year period ending in 2022, the ATF identified more than 52,000 guns recovered from crime scenes that were once used by police agencies. It took a federal court order for the ATF to release that data.

In one case, serial numbers obtained from police mapped a weapon’s path from Newark, New Jersey, through New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, and ultimately to a crime scene in Pittsburgh.

Shots fired in Pittsburgh

On July 14, 2019, 12 shots were fired in the Northview Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Police searched the area and didn’t find anyone shot, but they did find the gun, ditched near Hazlett Street.

An officer wrote that the gun had “numerous scrapes … consistent with it being thrown and sliding across cement,” leading police to believe the person who fired the shots tossed it as they ran away.

According to Pittsburgh Police, the gun was not reported stolen, but they also couldn’t find any record of the current owner. An ATF gun tracing report obtained by CBS shows the gun’s serial number was traced back to the Newark Police Department.

Newark police traded-in guns

Newark Police have proudly taken guns off the street for years through gun buybacks. But at the same time they have inadvertently put their own weapons back in circulation.

The Newark Police Department confirmed that they traded-in about a thousand guns in 2016 and 2017 to a firearms dealer, in exchange for discounts on new guns. That dealer then resells the weapons.

“It makes me feel that money is more important to you than mankind,” said Newark-based anti-violence activist Pastor Jethro James. “Melt it down and make something useful out of it.”

“I don’t blame this mayor because it didn’t start with this mayor,” James said. “However, this is your time to try; step up to the plate and take your swings. You tried and because of your trying, maybe somebody is not dying, somebody’s kid is not dying.”

Many police departments trade-in weapons

Newark Police tell CBS News they have not traded-in guns in years, but they would not say whether they will do it again when it’s time to upgrade.

In partnership with the nonprofit newsrooms The Trace and Reveal, CBS News surveyed 200 police agencies nationwide and found a majority sell their guns when they decide to upgrade their arsenal.

Police in Monroe, New York, trade-in old weapons. Police in Yonkers, New York, trade-in to a vendor that does not sell to the public. In New York City, officers are the legal owners of their guns. When upgrading, they can keep the old weapon for personal use, or sell it.

“I’m not going to penalize or say that’s wrong in any way,” said retired ATF New York Special Agent in Charge John DeVito. “I think we should have satisfactory budgets so these departments and chiefs don’t have to make hard decisions — ‘We have to trade-in these guns, we have sell these guns, in order to equip my officers.’ That’s not a decision a chief should be having to make.”

According to DeVito, ATF agents can trace a gun from one firearms dealer to another, but they can’t see which citizens might later buy them.

Tracing the gun from New Jersey to Pennsylvania

The gun used in the 2019 Pittsburgh incident was sold by Newark police to a company called Atlantic Tactical, according to documents obtained by CBS News.

Atlantic Tactical’s website says their corporate headquarters is in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. However, CBS News found the building for sale and an online announcement said the company sold to Florida-based Safariland in 2015.

That same year, Atlantic Tactical stopped selling guns to the general public, according to their website. They now only sell to current and retired public safety personnel.

No one at the retail store in New Cumberland would do an interview and Safariland did not respond to requests for comment.

Police perspective

“It’s more common for police agencies to do things like buybacks where their objective is to get guns off the street,” said Robert Bradshaw, a crisis management consultant in New Cumberland who works with police departments.

“In my experience, that’s probably where most of the law enforcement officers that I know — that’s how they feel. They feel there’s too many guns on the street already.”

Bradshaw also helped write the fictional book “American Roulette” about the impact of a mass shooting on an American town. The characters he created are police officers, “to highlight the fact that police officers themselves become victims of these events. They become traumatized by it. They’re changed forever.”

An unclear path to Pittsburgh

How a gun sold by Newark Police to Atlantic Tactical landed on the streets of Northview Heights in 2019 is unclear.

In a statement to CBS News, an ATF spokesperson said, “there are a few different scenarios that could have occurred. Given the range of options and not wanting to imply something incorrect, we cannot speculate on what may have led to this particular report.”

“This sounds like it’s part and parcel of a system that is setup with so many holes in it to allow guns to get into the wrong hands,” said Josh Fleitman, the campaign director for CeaseFirePA.

Fleitman said this incident is just one example of why new gun policies should be considered.

However, a Pittsburgh area gun shop owner said he and other owners cannot just sell to anyone and face restrictions.

“We have to ask, ‘mother may I sell this gun?’ to our federal government, and they have to give us an approval number to be able to transfer that item. And then we have to have records of who bought it,” outlined Bruce Piendl, the owner of Allegheny Arms and Gun Works.

As for the gun that traveled from Newark to Northview Heights, Pittsburgh Police never did find its owner and eventually destroyed it in 2021.