Disgraced former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was convicted of multiple federal crimes last year -- including bribery, conspiracy, corruption, extortion, acting as a foreign agent, obstruction of justice, and more -- along with others in a scheme in which he used his political power and influence to benefit his friends and associates.

In January, Menendez was sentenced to serve 11 years in prison, and he was scheduled to turn himself in on Tuesday to begin serving that sentence, according to the Washington Examiner.

The former senator, who pleaded not guilty to the plethora of charges and remains insistent that the Justice Department was "weaponized" against him for political purposes, tried but failed to convince President Donald Trump to grant him a pardon or commute his sentence.

Convicted and sentenced

According to a January 29 DOJ press release, a federal district judge sentenced former Sen. Menendez to serve 11 years in prison following his conviction in July on a host of federal corruption and obstruction charges.

A jury had found Menendez guilty of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes -- in the form of cash, gold bars, a luxury car, home mortgage payments, home furnishings, and a job for his wife, among other things -- in exchange for using his considerable influence and power as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to pull favors for his friends and provide sensitive information to the Egyptian government.

Convicted along with Menendez were businessmen and co-conspirators Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, who were sentenced to eight and seven years, respectively, and the former senator's wife, Nadine, who will face sentencing later this month.

Tried and failed to get clemency from Trump

NBC News reported in May that, since President Trump took office in January, Menendez launched a multi-pronged effort to plead for clemency from the president, either in the form of a full pardon or at least a commutation of his prison sentence.

Those efforts included making overtures through mutual friends and allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jewish leaders in New York and New Jersey, and even Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Unfortunately for Menendez, none of those he approached felt compelled to intercede on his behalf, and while unnamed sources told NBC News that Trump had not entirely ruled out the possibility of granting clemency to Menendez, such mercy was highly unlikely given the fact that the former Democratic senator was a partisan adversary who twice voted to convict the Republican president during his two impeachment trials in his first term.

Menendez claims he's the victim of weaponized justice

Having tried and failed to convince any mutuals to take his plea for clemency directly to President Trump, Menendez also tried an indirect route with multiple social media posts that sought to compare his federal prosecution under a Democratic administration with that of Trump.

At the time of his sentencing, Menendez insisted in an X post that he'd been the target of a "political witch hunt" by partisan prosecutors at the DOJ's Southern District of New York, whom he alleged violated his rights and the court's rules in their zeal to obtain a conviction.

"Welcome to the Southern District of New York, the Wild West of political prosecutions," he wrote at the time. "President Trump is right. This process is political and has been corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system."

In late May and again in early June, Menendez also posted a couple of threads explaining how, because of his outspoken opposition to some of former President Barack Obama's policies, namely on Cuba and Iran, the DOJ had been politically weaponized against him -- ironically also using federal prosecutor Jack Smith, then employed at the DOJ's Public Integrity Unit, to build up a false case against him that ultimately failed.

As for the more recent charges that did stick and resulted in a conviction, Menendez launched a furious attack last week on the lead prosecutor in that case, former U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, whom he accused of using the prosecution as a base from which to launch a future political career.