Sen. Menendez will fight corruption charges: 3 takeaways from Monday's response to federal indictment

Defiantly presenting himself as a champion of his constituents and the target of unfair prosecution, Sen. Robert Menendez, who was charged with bribery and corruption in a federal indictment unsealed last Friday, said he would remain in his seat while waging what he called his “biggest fight yet.”

Menendez, a N.J. Democrat, had not publicly addressed the accusation until the press conference on Monday. After delivering remarks in English, he also spoke in Spanish.

1. “I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jersey's senior senator.”

Menendez spoke on Monday from Union City, N.J., where he was mayor from 1986 until 1992. The son of Cuban immigrants, Menendez rose through the ranks of New Jersey’s Democratic machine, earning an appointment to the U.S. Senate in 2006 (Menendez defended his seat in an election later that same year). He is now the state’s senior senator and was, until last week, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Democratic N.J. Rep. Andy Kim has already said he challenge Menendez in the next primary, while Pennsylvania's Democratic Sen. John Fetterman became the first senator to call on him to step down over the weekend. But as Menendez made clear in Monday’s remarks, he will not make it easy to dislodge him.

Read more on Yahoo News:Legal experts weigh in on Menendez indictment, suggest 'monster' charges point to likely conviction, from Fox News

2. “Remember, prosecutors get it wrong sometimes.”

Menendez has been here before, to put it mildly.

During his 2006 race to hold the Senate seat to which he had just been appointed, Menendez was investigated by New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor at the time — Chris Christie, the future governor — of improperly profiting from a lease.

Menendez was charged with bribery in 2015 for allegedly accepting gifts from a Florida ophthalmologist. He fought the charges, despite the seemingly solid evidence federal prosecutors arrayed against him. It was a strategy that bore fruit in 2017, when the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

With his arraignment scheduled for Wednesday, Menendez used the press conference to suggest how he may defend himself against charges that he fell victim to influence from Egyptian officials and New Jersey businessmen, who lavished him and his wife with cash, gold bars and a new Mercedes.

Attempting to explain the envelopes of cash investigators found stuffed into suit jackets and elsewhere during a 2022 raid, Menendez said that he had routinely “withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash,” which he said he kept for emergencies.

“Now, this may seem old-fashioned,” he said, but argued that the income was “lawfully derived” and that the practice stemmed from a fear of “confiscation” his family had experienced in Cuba and brought to the United States.

Read more on Yahoo News: Sen. Bob Menendez faces growing calls from Democrats to resign after being federally indicted in bribery scheme, from CBS News

3. “My record is clear and consistent in holding Egypt accountable.”

As the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Menendez has had enormous influence in debates over funding the war in Ukraine and the long conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He argued that his focus on Egypt was no different.

Prosecutors allege that Menendez was introduced to Egyptian officials through Wael Hana, a New Jersey- based businessman who was also charged on Friday. That indictment alleges that Menendez “provided sensitive, non-public U.S. government information to Egyptian officials and otherwise took steps to secretly aid the Government of Egypt.”

Menendez said he had confronted Egypt on “unjust detentions of American citizens and others, its human rights abuses, its deepening relationship with Russia and efforts that have eroded the nation’s judiciary.”

But text messages between Hana and Nadine Menendez obtained by investigators offer a different story, suggesting a prolonged and successful influence campaign.

Read more on Yahoo News: Menendez indictment looks bad, but there are defenses he can make, from the Conversation