The soon-to-be former CEO of now-bankrupt Steward Health Care is responding to a criminal contempt referral authorized by the U.S. Senate with a lawsuit against the members of the congressional committee behind the underlying contempt resolutions.

According to the lawsuit, filed Monday, Dr. Ralph de la Torre has been unfairly targeted, in part for invoking his rights.

“Defendants are collectively undertaking a concerted effort to punish Dr. de la Torre for invoking his Fifth Amendment right,” de la Torre’s lawyers told a U.S. District Court in Washington D.C.

The doctor, his attorneys assert, founded Steward with the goal of providing physician-led care and “cost-effective services” to communities across the country.

Despite his best intentions, his lawyers wrote, the company did not succeed. Members of Congress then used the company’s failure as an excuse to take aim at de la Torre, his lawyers told the court.

“Since Steward’s bankruptcy announcement, members of the Committee have painted Dr. de la Torre as a villain and scapegoated him for the company’s problems, even those caused by systemic deficiencies in Massachusetts’ health care system,” the doctor’s lawyers wrote.

De la Torre is potentially facing criminal charges after the full Senate gave unanimous consent to two contempt resolutions which had passed with bi-partisan support through the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. Those resolutions, according to lawmakers, came in response to de la Torre’s failure to appear in answer to a congressional subpoena.

“I am calling for the United States Senate to hold him in contempt,” said U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a HELP committee member, said after de la Torre did not appear.

William “Bill” Burck, one of the doctor’s legal representatives, said in a statement that de la Torre’s circumstance is very different from that of Steve Bannon or Peter Navarro, a pair of former Trump Administration officials who were also referred for criminal charges after failing to answer a subpoena.

“This is not Bannon or Navarro who tried to use ‘executive privilege’ as a shield against congressional subpoenas,” he said in a statement.

“By contrast, Dr. de la Torre has invoked his inalienable rights under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, which no one — not the Congress, not the President, not the Judiciary — has the right to deprive him of while he faces the criminal accusations the Committee has hurled at him,” Burck said.

De la Torre’s lawyers told the committee that he was not authorized to speak on behalf of Steward while the company is navigating the bankruptcy process. His attorneys sought a delay, and also made clear that the doctor had no intention of incriminating himself to satisfy lawmakers’ hunt for answers.

De la Torre’s invocation of his rights, according to his attorneys, should have been enough to halt the proceedings. Since they weren’t, de la Torre is suing.

“No one can be compelled to testify when they exercise this right under these circumstances,” Burck said.

De la Torre, on Friday, announced he would be stepping down from his position as Steward’s CEO as of October 1.