US senator Bob Menendez today revealed the medical condition that caused his wife naen menendez's trial to be delayed in a statement released this morning Menendez said she's been diagnosed with grade three breast cancer and will undergo a myectomy that'll require follow-up surgery and possibly radiation treatment the email went out just as evidence was being presented in his Federal corruption case in Manhattan and a day after the Senator's defense attorneys presented opening arguments where they blamed his wife for his legal troubles Menendez says he disclosed the information at the request of naden as a quote result of constant press inquiries and reporters following her adding they are quote of course concerned about the seriousness and advanced stage of the disease asking for her privacy defense attorneys today continued to argue Mendez was unaware his wife ever accepted Gifts of cash gold bars and a luxury car from Three New Jersey businessmen who were also charged in the case senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan was inside the courtroom today as the first witness and pieces of evidence were presented Hey Bren good to see you so how did the prosecution start this thing off now that the trial is in full swing well Brianna it was a showand tell kind of day for the prosecution today in court the FBI brought out evidence that it had seized when it raided the Menendez family home in Englewood cliff now we started in naen menendez's bedroom closet they went inside and inside of a safe they found gold bars and wad after wad of cash the prosecution wanted to really make an impression on the jury and so they brought these items into court in clear plastic bags they gave them to the jury to pass around and at one point I saw a juror hold up a a plastic bag with a 1 kilo gold bar and go wow so obviously this did make an impression then the jury got to see a duffel bag just absolutely stuffed with cash that the FBI found in Bob menendez's home home Senate Office then they got to see even more cash the FBI went down into the basement and they found Boots jackets just stuffed with cash I mean we're talking clips of 5,000,000 underscoring the shock value how much did they give a sense I didn't get a total but it let's put it this way it was so much money that the FBI agent who was their first the prosecution's first witness in this case at one point said okay wait a minute we've been photographing these bills laying them out on the floor so we can see the serial numbers there's so much money we can't do that anymore so much money I think this might be evidence of a crime and as a result they called in two more agents from Manhattan with money counting machines there was too much to count by hand at that point the defense said objection the judge says sustained but I don't know how the jury is not going to remember that what did the defense have to say for themselves today Bren because we've yet to hear from the codefendants well the attorneys for two codefendants did do their opening arguments today we got to hear from attorneys for will Hana and Fred Davies Hana Hannah's attorney said that Hanah and and naen were like brother and sister that he knew that she was in financial trouble and so he gifted uh I'm sorry he gave her a loan to help with mortgage payments he gave her a job $110,000 a month for three months but then he said she didn't show up to work she didn't want to work and so he fired her Fred Davies says yes I gave uh gold bars to naen Menendez but these were gifts and a gift is not a rbe there's no way that you're going to be able to connect any gifts that Fred Davies gave to nem to an official act performed by Senator Menendez and that is what the prosecution has to prove a quid pro quo that's right very quickly any other pieces of evidence the gold bars the cash we somewhat expected that anything else brought forward they brought up some some cell phones They seized a bunch of cell phones so that may be where they found some of the inrim ating text messages Bri all right Brenda thanks so much for the reporting there [Music]