On Tuesday, prosecutors with the Department of Justice rebuffed arguments from Menendez’s legal team that the delay was necessary because the discovery process — which involves obtaining evidence from phone records, hard drives and the like — would be overly complicated due to the “volume and timing of the government’s disclosures, and the significant motion practice ahead.” According to The Messenger, those arguments didn’t pass muster with the DOJ.
“The schedule was and remains reasonable, and in accord with the strong public interest in a speedy trial,” the DOJ’s Tuesday filing read. “Nothing in the defendants’ request for an adjournment, made more than two months after the schedule was set, justifies a material deviation from this considered schedule.”