Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) gave an emotional speech denying new charges that he accepted expensive gifts in exchange for aiding the government of Qatar, railing against the federal prosecutors who have filed multiple superseding indictments against him since September and asserted he still has no plans to resign.
At one point choking back tears, the senator said in the course of a 20-minute speech that prosecutors were “engaged not in a prosecution, but a persecution.” He added that he’d “received nothing, absolutely nothing from the government of Qatar or on behalf of the government of Qatar to promote their image or their issues.”
Declaring he intended to prove his innocence, Menendez teed up a bitter warning to his colleagues that his case could set a precedent for them. “For the government, the sky is the limit if they want to pursue you,” he insisted.
The new indictment, filed last week by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, alleges that Menendez took bribes—including Formula One Grand Prix tickets and a luxury watch—to make positive public comments about Qatar and help a businessman clinch a deal with a Qatari royal.
“I have criticized Qatar, as I have any other country, when I felt they were falling short of their international obligations and applauded them when they led in ways the United States and the world would commend,” said Menendez, who stepped down as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September. “That give and take, that carrot and stick, that cajoling and rewarding is the essence of diplomacy.”
The lawmaker lamented that prosecutors were continuously filing indictments against him in order to whip up public sentiment. “It allows the government to keep the sensational story in the press,” he complained. “It poisons the jury pool and it seeks to convict me in the court of public opinion.”
The fresh charges add to Menendez’ growing pile of legal woes, with federal prosecutors having alleged in their first superseding indictment in September that he accepted bribes, including gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz, in exchange for political favors. A month later, he was further charged with conspiring to work on behalf of Egypt, including while he was heading the influential Foreign Relations Committee. He has denied wrongdoing in all cases.
Menendez had led the committee since 2021, and has represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate since 2006. Resistant to calls to resign, he reiterated Tuesday that he would not step down.
“I will not step aside and allow those things to happen in the name of political expediency,” he said. “I have never chosen the easy path—never have, never will, and will not do so now. I simply asked for justice to be allowed to work his way.”
