Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and two New Jersey businessmen have asked a federal judge to overturn their convictions or grant them a new trial.
The request comes amid Menendez’s resignation from the Senate, which takes effect on Aug. 20.
A jury convicted Menendez on 16 counts on July 16. The charges included bribery, conspiracy, extortion, acting as a foreign agent, and obstruction of justice.
However, in filing his motion for acquittal on Aug. 19, the senator claimed prosecutors failed to prove their case against him.
“The government said it would prosecute Sen. Menendez for his alleged agreements to sell official acts in exchange for bribes. But despite a 10-week trial, the government offered no actual evidence of an agreement, just speculation masked as inference,” the motion states.
Menendez’s attorneys also argued that the government “walked all over” his rights under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which grants limited immunity to congressional lawmakers for their speech.
Prosecutors accused the Democrat and his wife of accepting more than $400,000 in bribes—including cash, gold bars, and a car—from New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana, Fred Daibes, and Jose Uribe.
In exchange, the government said Menendez used his office to benefit the businessmen’s interests and those of the Egyptian government—a claim the senator says they failed to prove.
“Simply put, the government did not show any use of Sen. Menendez’s official powers to benefit any of the supposed bribe givers, let alone an agreement to do so in exchange for bribes,” Menendez’s attorneys wrote.
Holding that the senator’s convictions “will make terrible, dangerous law,” his attorneys argued that they must all be reversed.
Alternatively, they suggested the judge order a new trial.
Hana and Daibes were convicted at trial alongside Menendez. They are also seeking to have their guilty verdicts tossed. Uribe pleaded guilty.
Nadine Menendez, who began dating the senator in 2018 and married him in 2020, is currently undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Her trial has been postponed indefinitely.
On July 23, following his conviction, Menendez announced that he would step down from his long-held seat in the Senate.
He was first elected to the upper chamber in 2006 after serving 13 years in the House of Representatives.
A former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has also served in the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly and as the mayor of Union City, New Jersey.
