Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) took to the Senate floor Tuesday to push back on the federal superseding indictments against him alleging he acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Qatar and Egypt. 

The embattled senator addressed each indictment separately in his floor speech, which comes just a week after the Qatar charges were filed. Menendez accused the federal government of peddling a “sensational story in the press” in order “to poison the jury pool” and convict him “in the court of public opinion.”

Menendez also used the remarks to go after his congressional colleagues who have called for his resignation, warning lawmakers that they were setting a dangerous precedent by pushing for his removal before he is convicted.

“There has been and will be, at trial, a full explanation of what is the truth about those issues, a truth that proves I am entirely innocent of the charges,” Menendez said. “And that is the problem. Almost everyone, including my friends in the press who have reported on it, haven’t read the indictment. They’ve only taken the government’s sensational narrative of what those accusations are as truth. They haven’t sought facts of the allegations. 

“I’m innocent, and I intend to prove my innocence,” he continued. “Not just for me, but for the precedent this case will set for you and future members of the Senate.”

While he acknowledged that the allegations levied against him could “be a source of concern and content by some of my colleagues, the political establishment, and most importantly, the people of New Jersey,” Menendez maintained that the claims had been put forward by the government “in the most sensational and purposely damning way possible.”

Federal prosecutors have accused Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, of illegally using the senator’s position as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to peddle influence with donors and benefit the Egyptian government in exchange for cash, gold bars, and other valuables. In October, he was also charged with operating as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Egypt.

Menendez, who was required to relinquish his Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship after the September indictment, has dismissed the charges as part of a larger “smear campaign” against him. He has vowed to fight the charges and pleaded not guilty in both cases.

He was charged earlier this month with accepting gifts from Qatar and using his political influence to help its government. He has not yet been arraigned in that case, though he is likely to plead not guilty if his Tuesday speech is any indication.

“The government seeks to use baseless conjecture, not facts, to create the connective tissue to substantiate the allegations,” Menendez said of the Qatar indictment.

Menendez argued that the Qatar charges created problems for his Senate colleagues because they were based in part on his efforts to connect “a constituent to a Qatari investment company.”

“Under the government’s theory, it may be a crime for members of the Senate to make introductions to companies and constituents in their own state to foster investments in their state,” the Democratic senator said. “Investments that create jobs and renewables and revenues and help grow the economy.”

He explained that if such activity is criminal, “then advocating for Boeing aircraft to be purchased by a foreign government, attracting a foreign chip manufacturer to your state, getting a country to buy agricultural products from your state, making technology investments and so many other actions that members of the Congress take to attract investment and economic opportunity to their states would now be a crime.”

On the Egypt charges, Menendez detailed his years of work fighting the Abdel-Fattah el Sissi government to establish human rights protections, pointing to the hold he placed on foreign military aid to the country over his concerns. 

“You can’t challenge the leader of an authoritarian state in public and among other members of Congress and take actions adverse to their interests, and at the same time serve as an agent of that same foreign government,” the senator said. 

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The three-term senator has insisted he will not resign despite calls from his Democratic colleagues for him to step down, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) even pushing for expulsion. While he has predicted he will still be New Jersey’s senior senator at the end of the ordeal, he has not launched his 2024 reelection bid.

Asked by reporters about the speech on Tuesday morning, Fetterman joked that it was a “portrait of courage,” a sign that the remarks did not move him.