WORTH A SHOT

Bob Menendez Files Long-Shot Motion to Have Bribery Charges Chucked

The New Jersey senator’s lawyers called the government’s case against their client a distortion of reality and “rotten at its core.”

Attorneys for Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) on Wednesday asked a federal judge to dismiss an indictment against him, arguing that he is innocent of charges of bribery and acting as a foreign agent.

The motion to dismiss, lawyer Adam Fee said in a statement, was filed to expose that “the government’s case is rotten at its core.”

Heaping new accusations on the embattled New Jersey lawmaker just last week, federal prosecutors have thus far accused Menendez of taking bribes—including gold bars and fancy cars—to do favors for businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, something his lawyers stressed again on Wednesday.

“The government’s accusations in this case—that he sold his office and even sold out his nation—are outrageously false, and indeed distort reality,” they wrote. “Every official act the senator took represented his good-faith policy judgments.”

The motion comes a day after the senator delivered a fiery, sometimes teary speech accusing prosecutors of persecuting him and warning his colleagues that they could be next.

“For the government, the sky is the limit if they want to pursue you,” he said.