The U.S. Department of Justice, preparing for a retrial of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, and Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, said in a court filing that defense lawyers invited jurors to nullify the law by injecting race and partisan politics into the proceedings.

Steps should be taken to prevent a repeat during the second trial, prosecutors said in a motion to U.S. District Judge William Walls on Jan. 19. The motion also said jurors in the first trial were forced to negotiate a “gauntlet” of relatives, supporters and attorneys for Menendez and Melgen when arriving at the courtroom and asked for “safeguards” to be implemented to prevent such contact. In addition, prosecutors took issue with Menendez's periodic prayer circles with clergy during the trial and his singing of hymns such as “Amazing Grace” in hallways and elevators at the courthouse.

The prosecutors' motion to U.S. District Judge William Walls said defense counsel's references during the two-month trial to the Hispanic heritage of Menendez and Melgen and statements linking the prosecution to President Donald Trump were prejudicial. The motion was filed on the same day that the DOJ announced plans to retry Menendez and Melgen on corruption charges after their first trial ended in a hung jury in November.

Defense lawyers accused the government of racial animus in remarks to the jury, the Department of Justice said, citing statements such as “The government wants you to believe that this entire friendship was a sham. That these men were using each other to get things. That just because of their heritage, that they are somehow corrupt.”

The government also cited a defense lawyer's statement during the trial, which said, “Sal and Bob were part of a fellowship of Hispanic Americans, entrepreneurs, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, politicians. … Their idea was to pay it forward, help young Hispanic Americans improve their lives. Lift up their cultural community. Play a larger role in American society. That's what Dr. Melgen was about. And this case is not only an attack on these two men, it's an attack on that whole group.”

Melgen was born in the Dominican Republic and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. Menendez was born in the United States to Cuban immigrant parents.

Also in its motion, the prosecution took issue with an apparent attempt to link the prosecuting attorneys in the case to the Trump administration, citing a defense lawyer's statement at trial: “When these prosecutors come into the courtroom, they oftentimes say I am here on behalf of the United States or for the United States and they are from the executive branch of government. Their boss is the attorney general of the United States and the president.”

Such references were made to introduce the notion of jury nullification, and the court should “actively safeguard the integrity of its proceedings by precluding such improper comments,” the DOJ motion said. The case “is not about race and it is not a referendum on the current Administration, nor the last. The defendants' racially and politically charged comments have no place in the courtroom and serve only to confuse the issues and invite the jury to nullify the law by reaching a verdict in violation of its oath.”

To prevent the defense from inviting the jury to make improper considerations of ethnicity or partisan politics, the prosecution asked Walls to “prohibit the defendants from making irrelevant and improper arguments or comments at trial based on race, political affiliation, or any other extraneous claims that invite nullification. The Court should also arrange for the jury's private and secure entrance to and exit from the courthouse.”

Menendez has been accused of intervening in a Medicare billing dispute on behalf of Melgen's ophthalmology practice, contacting executive branch officials to discuss regulation of Melgen's port security business, and seeking to expedite visa applications for three of the doctor's women friends.

Prosecutors say that between 2006 and 2013, Melgen donated $700,000 to Democratic political action committees, provided Menendez luxury hotel accommodations in Paris and the Dominican Republic, and gave the senator free flights on his private jet and on commercial airlines.

Kirk Ogrosky of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer in Washington, who represents Melgen, said of the DOJ motion, “We will respond to all written filings by the government, and our filings will speak for themselves.”

Menendez's lead counsel, Abbe Lowell of Norton Rose Fulbright in Washington, did not respond to a request for comment about the DOJ motion.