Disgraced former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., on Tuesday reported to a federal prison where he will begin serving an 11-year sentence.
Menendez in 2024 was convicted of accepting bribes in exchange for acting in the interest of the Egyptian government. He also provided favors to some New Jersey businessmen, the court determined.
He will serve his sentence at Federal Correctional Institution Schuylkill in Minersville, Pennsylvania.
After being convicted in 2024, Menendez argued all sitting U.S. senators could also be considered guilty of his same offenses.
“I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country,” he said. “I have never ever been a foreign agent and the decision rendered by the jury today would put at risk every member of the United States Senate in terms of what they think a foreign agent would be.”
In June he issued a lengthy statement via X continuing to deny responsibility.
“Prosecutors broke the law to make sure they convicted me, by loading unconstitutional evidence onto a laptop they gave to the jury,” he wrote. “The illegal evidence, that the Judge had ruled inadmissible, violated the Congressional immunity clause of the Constitution.”
“The SDNY prosecutors effort to uphold the conviction, in the appeals court, is an effort to reduce Constitutional immunity for government actors,” he added. “These are precisely the same laws relating to presidential immunity that came up in DJT’s case. This is a threat to Presidential immunity.”
Source: KEPR