Senator Bob mendez's corruption trial date is set a Manhattan federal judge on Monday scheduled the trial for New Jersey's senior US senator his wife nen arsenian Menendez and three other codefendants for May 6th just weeks before voters head to the polls for the state's primary election where menendez's seat is on the ballot political analysts say that'll likely hurt his odds if he seeks reelection Menendez and his wife are accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollarss of bribes from a trio of businessmen in exchange for official acts taken by Menendez using his high-ranking Senate position he and the four other defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges and Mendez has so far refused to step down from his seat despite mounting pressure from State and National Democrats meanwhile State Senate Republicans are looking to launch an investigation into allegations that Menendez used his influence to disrupt a Case by the Attorney General's office against one of his co-defendants as senior political correspondent David Cruz reports those hearings would be on a collision course with another critical Statewide election tying the alleged Menendez corruption to state level Democrats up for election in the fall is a challenge Republicans have accepted and the angle of their most vigorous effort is the conversations Senator Menendez may have had with either the former attorney general grair greywall or a high-ranking member of the AG's office about Menendez codefendant Jose urbe Senator Mike Testa is one of the members of the GOP caucus who signed on to a letter calling for the Senate Judiciary Committee to convene with a special counsel and subpoena power to look into the AG's office and that's something that is really concerning to me that either the attorney general or a member of the office of attorney general would meet with the United States Senator and even entertain a conversation at an attempt at an intervention into a pending criminal investigation or criminal charges the indictment mentions the meetings doesn't suggest a quit proquo but notes that the meetings were never reported to Federal prosecutors and that urbe took a plea deal the resolution of which says the indictment was quote more favorable for the New Jersey defendant than the prosecutor's initial plea offer earlier in the case typically there are what are called escalating plea offers so it it's odd to me that somehow The Plea offer got better as time went on rather than having an escalated plea offer which is which sort of is how uh the modus operandi of most prosecutors offices in the state of New Jersey and certainly in dealing with with the Feds that raises some concerns it also you know what raised concern for me is Senator Menendez alleged um take from those meetings and you and that he said it was a good meeting and he thought that the meeting went very well we didn't hear back from the Attorney General's office for this story but AG Matt platkin was pretty adamant in the hours after the indictment came out releasing a seemingly preemptive statement that said quote the conduct alleged in the indictment occurred prior to my tenure as attorney general and involved a matter that was resolved prior to my time in office platkin first came to wide attention for his role in the early days of the Murphy Administration you remember the who hired Al Alvarez hearings Republicans like him as a target for their Jabs Judiciary member John bramnick isn't expecting to see an investigation anytime soon but he says the message should be clear under no circumstances does an elected official call a prosecutor's office for any reason except to report a crime that's unethical there's no reason to call because if you're calling about anything except reporting a crime the inference is you have a stake in the outcome on either side of it which state Republicans hope you will think is obvious and blame the other party for not getting it also no word from the Senate President on whether hearings are on the horizon I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News