New Jersey’s former attorney general, Gurbir S. Grewal, took the stand on Thursday afternoon in Senator Robert Menendez’s bribery trial, becoming the most prominent official to testify against the senator, a fellow Democrat.
Mr. Grewal was expected to offer details about telephone calls from Mr. Menendez and a brief meeting the two had in September 2019 in the senator’s office in Newark.
Being called as a witness in a criminal trial was an unusual role for Mr. Grewal, a former federal prosecutor who now leads the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division. Mr. Menendez turned to look directly at Mr. Grewal as he walked slowly to the stand.
Prosecutors have said that Mr. Menendez contacted Mr. Grewal on behalf of an ally, Jose Uribe, who had sought help from the senator in an effort to quash an insurance fraud case the attorney general’s office was pursuing against two of Mr. Uribe’s associates. Mr. Uribe, who was charged last year in the alleged bribery conspiracy, pleaded guilty in March and is now cooperating with prosecutors.
Mr. Grewal was expected to become the second witness to testify about a direct conversation with Mr. Menendez — exchanges that go to the heart of prosecutors’ claims that the senator used his political clout on behalf of people who rewarded him and his wife, Nadine Menendez, with bribes.
Mr. Uribe admitted in court during his guilty plea that he had provided a Mercedes-Benz convertible to Ms. Menendez in an effort to influence the senator.
The insurance fraud investigation appeared to consume Mr. Uribe, according to text messages he sent to Ms. Menendez and a businessman charged in the conspiracy, Wael Hana.
Mr. Menendez placed his first call to Mr. Grewal on Jan. 29, 2019, according to evidence introduced Wednesday to jurors. The call lasted roughly seven minutes.
Months later, Mr. Uribe was still concerned about the investigation.
“I need peace,” Mr. Uribe wrote in a text message to Ms. Menendez on Sept. 3, 2019, at 10:17 p.m. The next morning, Mr. Menendez placed a second call to Mr. Grewal.
Three days later, Mr. Menendez and Mr. Grewal met in the senator’s office in Newark. Mr. Grewal brought his first assistant, Andrew J. Bruck, to the sit-down, which did not appear on Mr. Menendez’s official calendar.
Mr. Uribe seemed to be aware of the meeting, according to a text message he sent Ms. Menendez that morning. “Thank you for everything you do for me. I am praying,” he wrote, “today’s meeting is in GOD’s hand.”
Mr. Grewal’s appearance comes in the fourth week of the trial of Mr. Menendez, Mr. Hana and another businessman, Fred Daibes, in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Ms. Menendez also was charged in the case, but her trial was postponed by the judge, Sidney H. Stein, because she is being treated for breast cancer. All four defendants have pleaded not guilty.
The senator’s lawyers have sought to distance their client from Ms. Menendez, suggesting that she kept her dire financial situation — as well as her requests to friends for money — a secret from her husband. Prosecutors have sought to undermine that strategy, and Mr. Grewal appears to be a central aspect of that, given that the government says Mr. Menendez personally called the attorney general and later met with him in an effort to meddle in a criminal investigation.
