‘Gold Bar’ Sen. Bob Menendez snarls at Post in defense of wife Nadine — days after blaming ailing spouse for legal woes 

Now he cares about his wife!

Embattled New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez — who blamed his wife for his legal woes in an ongoing high-stakes bribery trial — rushed to her defense Friday after arriving at their Englewood Cliffs home.

“Don’t be such a bloodsucker! She has cancer,” Menendez snarled at a Post reporter there to greet him.

After being driven home from court in a blue Honda Civic, Menendez entered the home carrying two white plastic bags and two notebooks.

It was unclear if wife Nadine Arslanian was inside.

Two days earlier, Menendez’s lawyer insisted in court that the pol knew nothing about gold bars hidden inside the couple’s home — instead blaming the pol’s “dazzling, tall” wife for stashing the trove away without his knowledge.

Menendez’s attorney Avi Weitzman told jurors in Manhattan federal court that Arslanian “sidelined” her hubby — who prosecutors allege took the gold bars, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a Mercedes convertible, in exchange for wielding his influence to benefit three Garden State businessmen and the governments of Qatar and Egypt.

“Where were the gold bars found? [The] gold bars were found in a locked closet. It is Nadine’s closet,” Weitzman said during opening statements, pulling up a photo of the closet, which he said was “filled with [Nadine’s] clothes.”

“The senator did not know the gold bars were there,” he said.

“[Nadine] kept Bob sidelined. Nadine had these relationships long before she met Bob.”

The feds found 13 gold bars worth over $150,000 and nearly $500,000 in cash when they raided the couple’s home in June 2022 — all “fruits” of a corrupt scheme that began in 2018, when Bob and Nadine were just starting to date, prosecutors claimed. 

This is the second federal corruption and bribery trial that the Garden State senior senator is facing in less than a decade, after he dodged a conviction at a prior criminal trial that ended with a hung jury in 2017.

Menendez — who has been free on $100,000 bail — is being tried alongside co-defendants and New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, whose interests the pol allegedly helped advance for wealth and gifts.

Menendez has denied all the charges, and his co-defendants have also pleaded not guilty.

Uribe, a third businessman involved in the alleged scheme, pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the feds.

Arslanian is also facing bribery charges after pleading not guilty and will stand trial separately.