LOS ANGELES — The wife of U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry provided several explanations Thursday, March 24 about why her husband may not have heard or understood warnings in a June 2018 cell phone call — warnings repeated at least three times — that his re-election campaign had received illegal contributions during a fundraiser two years earlier.

Celeste Fortenberry testified that on June 4, 2018, both she and her husband were exhausted after a long flight home from Finland.

Not only were they exhausted, but they were also stressed out because one of their daughters was slated to have serious surgery in a couple of days.

The Representative's wife of 26 years also said the congressman "loathed" fund-raising calls, leaning him to do other chores like cooking, cleaning, yard work, or walking the dog while he was making such calls "on autopilot."

Background noises during the June 2018 call indicated to her that there was a "high degree of probability" that her husband was performing another task during the call.

Celeste also remarked that the couple has poor cell phone reception in their Lincoln home. "We live in Nebraska," the wife told jurors. "The state has kind of lousy cell phone service."

All of such testimony served to strengthen the defense's case that the congressman did not lie to federal investigators but instead, either didn't hear, didn't comprehend, or didn't recall what was said in the June 2018 phone call.

The 61–year-old Republican is charged with lying to agents in two interviews in 2019. He is also charged with attempting to conceal the L.A. donations by not amending his federal campaign reports. Fortenberry faces up to five years in prison on each felony count.

The congressman, on Thursday morning, informed the court that he would not be testifying on his own behalf.

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