A Teary Bob Menendez Denies Bribery Allegations on Senate Floor

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.

Read more at The Daily Beast.