week two of Senator menendez's Federal corruption trial began and back on the stand is the alleged whistleblower in this case USDA agricultural atache to Egypt Bret Tate the heart of his testimony focusing on the Halal meat export Monopoly prosecutors alleged the senior senator worked to arrange Tate testifying to emails he saw from Menendez to the under secretary of agriculture back in 2019 talking about the Egyptian beef situation Menendez according to prosecutors received bribes from codefendant will Hana to help seal the Monopoly Deal today defense lawyers got their shot at Tate spending much of the day trying to discredit him Ted Goldberg has been in the courtroom all day and joins us with the latest who is this whistleblower Brett Tate and what is his connection to the case hi Raven so Brett Tate was the agricultural attache to the American Embassy in Cairo basically he was a diplomat as acting in America's interests particularly the US Department of Agriculture and the way that he got involved in this case was that he noticed that a monopoly was forming as to the only company that could certify Halal or Kosher meat to Egypt for export remember any meat that's sold to Egypt must be Halal otherwise it's not being purchased and it's not being exported over there so he noticed a monopoly forming in 2019 originally there were four certifiers four American companies that that could provide Halal certificates for meat sold in Egypt but over the course of not a long time it went from four companies to just one company and the one company was not a previous certifier it was iseg Halal a company operated by businessman will Hana that's at the center of this whole Scandal this whole mess and ISC Halal was a company that did not have any previous background in halal Slaughter they did not have any background in halal exporting that was according to Tate's testimony he noticed over the course of 2019 that Egyptian officials and folks who were in charge of the Halal company had a very cozy relationship which he thought was a little suspicious considering he says he never got a good answer from the Egyptian leaders why they wanted a monopoly in importing halal meat and why that company had to be iscg Halal first day the defense had a crack at him Ted what was their line of questioning they were trying to discredit him right there was one big piece of information that they tried to get all over him one of the very first things that Tate testified was that the number of people who work at American embassies is sensitive but not classified information meaning it is not information that they want divulged to the general public Tate mentioned terrorism as a possible reason why that information should be kept secret again sensitive but not classified the defense however contended that if you knew where to look those numbers were available publicly if you went to the right website anybody with an internet connection could have found these numbers now what the prosecution argued and Tate also argued that the numbers of available online were out of date and therefore inaccurate but this was something that the defense had brought up it was part of the indictment that the menendez's had communicated how many people were at the embassy therefore possibly putting lives in danger all right Ted and the Final witness for the prosecution today a lawyer with Will hana's Halo company tell me about that so John moldavon only worked there for 6 months but it was a very eventful 6 months because in that time they went from a startup company that wasn't really doing a whole lot with just a couple of emplo to making more than $300,000 in certificate income the first month that they were operating also according to emails that moldon had sent to the government of Uruguay the Halal company was acting as a government company on behalf of Egypt's government which is something that you know it's been very nebulous in this trial iscg the Hal company at the center of this are they a private company are they part of Egypt's government are they a company acting on behalf of the government if these emails are true and allegedly they were at the request of Mr Hana then that would certainly make it seem like that this is a company acting at the behest of Egypt's government and something that you know could play a very huge role in this trial as it plays out