In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez asserted his innocence and denied federal charges against him alleging that he took bribes from Qatar in exchange for a friend to get a lucrative contract. The Democratic senator said he was facing “persecution” by the Justice Department rather than prosecution, and defiantly declared he did nothing wrong.

Menendez, the former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was hit with a three-charge bribery indictment in October for allegedly acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. Earlier this month, hit was hit with new charges alleging that he took bribes from the Qatari government to help a friend. Menendez said in his floor speech: “Why did the government not proceed with all of these accusations from the beginning? The answer is clear to me. By filing three indictments … it allows the government to keep the sensational story in the press. It poisons the jury pool and it seeks to convict me in the court of public opinion.”

Menendez accused prosecutors of wanting a judicial victory rather than legal justice, and questioned the foundation of the Justice Department’s case against him.  He decried that some already have judged the case “despite my innocence and before a single piece of evidence has even been introduced in a court of law.”

Menendez is up for re-election this year; if the case proceeds to trial, it will be the second time in his career Menendez will face off against federal prosecutors. Bad in 2017, a jury deadlocked on charges that he accepted gifts from Egypt as an unregistered foreign agent (those charges were dropped after the trial).

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