while the prosecution in US senator Bob menendez's trial continued their questioning today of another key witness Sarah Arkin she served as a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and she shared more details today about secret meetings held between Senator Menendez and members of the Egyptian government her testimony part of the prosecution's attempts to connect several dots that they say prove a quid pro quo between New Jersey senior senator and codefendant turn star witness will Hana these new allegations all tying back to earlier in the trial when prosecutors made the case that Menendez helped Hana secure a halal meat deal here to help us connect those dots is senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan who was in the courtroom once again Brenda what were some of the more significant points that Sarah Arin made on the stand today Joanna it was a real fencing match today as you said on the stand was the government's witness Sarah Arkin now she's a staffer at the Senate Foreign relation committee where she worked for Bob Mendez and she has testified she thought that some of his meetings with Egyptian officials were set up in weird and unusual ways now she engaged in some verbal sparring with Avi whitesman he is the defense attorney for Senator Menendez and he's trying to show jurors that essentially this is just the senator doing his job that there was nothing weird about it so during cross-examination he's trying to get Arin to give simple yes or no answers to questions and she's refusing saying some of these questions are just too complicated Joanna she's saying that when you're talking about Egyptian foreign policy and committee protocol it goes beyond yes or no answers and it got so combative that at one point whitesman asked her look did the prosecution advise you to avoid yes and no answers when you were going uh into into testimony today Joanna well Brenda she was calling some of those meetings we right said that they were not scheduled she also provided some detail about naen Menendez on some of these trips with Senator Menendez what did she offer Joanna she called naen mandez quote challenging she said that the Senator's wife went with them on what's called a codell which is a Congressional Delegation trip to Egypt and that naen allegedly wanted to shop and hit some vacation spots like charmal shake or even go on a trip to Lebanon and that Arin kept naen on a tight leash naen apparently complained to staffers and according to her testimony Arin says when Menendez heard about that he backed up his staffers not naen and that kind of falls into the defenses narrative which says that it was naen who was stirring the pot not the senator he was just doing his job okay so Brenda how did prosecutors connect uh what we hear from s Arin about these secret meetings to what they presented earlier in the trial about will Hana and this halal meat deal how do they make that connection here well we had her testimony about how Senator Mendez wanted to help his codefendant in this trial will Hana established this Monopoly on certifying Halal meet for Egypt and so what the uh prosecution is claiming is that the senator did a favor for Egypt by urging the Department of State the state department to get involved in these delicate um diplomatic negotiations over a hydroelectric Dam on the Nile River Egypt opposed the dam but the defense today argued that Menendez didn't do a favor he was acting out of alarm basically because of the Trump Administration who they directed to handle this tricky diplomatic situation was treasury secretary Steve minuchin and that the Senators felt that this was not a guy who had sufficient resources or experience to wade into this really it's a flash it was a flash point on the Diplomatic map at that point Joanna okay so when we look at how the prosecutions laid out their case we know they were expected to wrap up tomorrow does it look like they're on track here it does not look like they are on track it looks like we are going to be going into the middle of July before the jury gets this case Joanna all right senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan great wrap up as always thank you so much thank you