Senator Menendez to resign in August following bribery and corruption conviction

(CN) — Freshly convicted New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez will step down from the seat he has held since 2006, after a jury in Manhattan federal court found him guilty on all counts of bribery and corruption of his public office a week ago.

Menendez told staffers Tuesday that he will resign effective Aug. 20, leaving New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to appoint a replacement to fill the remainder of Menendez’s term, which runs until Jan. 3, 2025.

“While I fully intend to appeal the jury’s verdict, all the way and including to the Supreme Court, I do not want the Senate to be involved in a lengthy process that will detract from its important work,” he wrote in a letter to Murphy Tuesday afternoon.

The Garden State governor acknowledged his receipt of Menendez’s letter announcing his resignation.

“I will exercise my duty to make a temporary appointment to the United States Senate to ensure the people of New Jersey have the representation they deserve," Murphy said in a statement Tuesday.

Representatives for Menendez did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Menendez, who began his career in New Jersey politics in 1974, had already announced that he would not run for reelection as a Democrat. Instead, he filed paperwork to run as an independent candidate pending the outcome of his criminal trial in the Southern District of New York.

The 70-year-old senator’s hopes for an acquittal were dashed on July 16, when a 12-person jury convicted him along with his two co-defendants — bribe-payers Wael Hana and Fred Daibes — on all counts brought by federal prosecutors.

Dozens of Senate Democrats called for Menendez to step down in response to the verdict, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“In light of this guilty verdict, Senator Menendez must now do what is right for his constituents, the Senate and our country, and resign,” Schumer said in a statement issued just minutes after the jury’s verdict was announced.

Menendez was not required to automatically resign from the Senate due to his criminal convictions, but another senator could have potentially brought forward a resolution to expel him, which would have required a vote of two-thirds of the Senate.

News of Menendez’s imminent resignation came one day after a unanimous vote by the Senate Ethics Committee on Monday to initiate an investigation into Menendez’s possible violations of Senate rules.

He is set to be sentenced for his convictions on 16 criminal counts Oct. 29, one week before the November general election.

Menendez pleaded not guilty to all charges in connection with the federal bribery and foreign agent counts. His defense directed the culpability to his wife Nadine, who they alleged was making deals behind the senator’s back because of her own shaky finances.

Earlier in the week, Menendez pushed back against reports that he had begun notifying Senate colleagues he was going to resign in the wake of Tuesday’s verdict.

“I can tell you that I have not resigned nor have I spoken to any so-called allies,” he told CBS News after the conviction. “Seems to me that there is an effort to try to force me into a statement. Anyone who knows me knows that’s the worst way to achieve a goal with me.”

Menendez had ignored calls for his resignation since he was first charged in September 2023 on federal counts that placed him at the center of a conspiracy to accept bribes of cash and gold from New Jersey businessmen with ties to the governments of Egypt and Qatar, in exchange for official acts.

During an FBI search of Menendez’s New Jersey home in 2022, investigators seized more than $100,000 in gold bars and $480,000 in cash, some of which was hidden in the inside pockets of a jacket emblazoned with the Senate seal and the senator’s name.

During a two-month trial in Manhattan federal court two years later, prosecutors showed jurors evidence detailing how Menendez and his wife received luxury gifts, including a new Mercedes convertible, from men who sought the Democratic senator’s aid in tamping out several state and federal investigations.

Electronic communications and search history records entered into evidence at trial showed the lawmaker also conducted multiple web searches for the current price of “one kilo gold” after returning from a trip to Qatar and Egypt in 2021, the indictment said.

Speaking to reporters outside of the Manhattan federal courthouse directly after the verdict came down, Menendez did not respond to questions about calls for his resignation but did give a brief statement to reporters in which he denied any wrongdoing and pledged to prevail on appeal.

“I have never violated my public oath,” he said. “I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country. I have never, ever been a foreign agent.”

He added: “The decision rendered by the jury today will put at risk every member of the United States Senate in terms of what they think a foreign agent would be.”

NBC News reported later that day that he had begun to formally resign from his Senate seat, citing “two unnamed sources ‘directly familiar with those conversations.’”

The gold bar bribery indictment was Menendez’s second criminal bribery case in a decade. The lawmaker was the subject of a similar indictment in 2015, but charges against him were dropped in 2017 after a jury was deadlocked.

Menendez faces up to 222 years in prison for the numerous counts he was convicted of, though prosecutors are unlikely to seek the statutory maximum punishment.

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