Bob Menendez to resign Senate seat after federal bribery conviction

The longtime Democratic lawmaker was convicted July 16 of taking bribes from three business executives who showered him and his wife with cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz, an extravagant bounty for his help securing deals with foreign officials and trying to derail several criminal investigations in New Jersey. Menendez’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate have implored him to resign in recent days, and his decision to do so allows Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to appoint a temporary replacement to serve until January.

Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) is running as the Democratic nominee in the 2024 election for Menendez’s Senate seat.

Menendez’s spokesman, Joshua Natoli, declined to comment.

Once considered a rising star in his caucus — not only did he chair the Foreign Relations Committee but he also led the caucus’s campaign committee in 2010 — Menendez, 70, ended his career as a political loner.

Senate resignations because of ethical scandals are a political rarity, with Menendez joining a group of only four to leave the chamber in the post-World War II era under corruption clouds. Most recently, Al Franken (D-Minn.), in 2017; and John Ensign (R-Nev.), in 2011, resigned amid ethics committee investigations of sexual misconduct.

A jury in a Manhattan federal court found the senator guilty on 16 felony counts, including bribery, extortion and working as a foreign agent on behalf of Egypt.

In a wide-ranging case detailing charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, prosecutors laid out how Menendez traded his political influence for gold bars, cash and a car in exchange for supporting three local business executives. In the overlapping bribery allegations, he was accused of passing unclassified but what prosecutors said had been designated “highly sensitive” insider knowledge to Egyptian intelligence officials, attempting to derail local criminal investigations and securing foreign deals for the business executives bribing him.

Two New Jersey business executives accused of bribing him, Fred Daibes and Egyptian-American Wael “Will” Hana, were convicted alongside him. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez — who the lawmaker’s defense attorneys painted as the secretive mastermind of a scheme designed to keep up with her expensive tastes — also was indicted, but no date has been set for her trial as she undergoes treatment for advanced breast cancer.

His plans to resign followed immediate calls for him to step down from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Murphy and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.). His criminal baggage had become a distraction for Democrats on the Hill, with one of his colleagues, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), even following him around the hallways at times, yelling at him to resign.

Menendez, who did not testify in his own defense, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 29. He has said he intends to appeal and believes he will win. He could face decades in prison.

“I have never violated my public oath. I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country,” he said outside the courthouse. “I have every faith that the law and the facts did not sustain that decision and that we will be successful upon appeal.”

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said after the conviction that the case had always been about “shocking levels of corruption” that erodes public trust.

Menendez had a long and storied history in New Jersey politics. First elected to the education board in Union City, in 1974, only two years after he finished high school, he moved up to state Senate, and U.S. House, before being appointed to a vacant Senate seat in 2006. In his almost 20 years in Congress, Menendez wielded vast influence, helping write the Affordable Care Act and leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Menendez has been no stranger to controversy.

Shortly after his Senate appointment, a 2006 ethics complaint alleging misuse of federal grant money prompted a federal investigation. No charges were brought. Later, only days before his reelection in 2012, claims emerged that the senator had slept with underage sex workers while out of the country. The FBI never substantiated the claims, but they continued to plague Menendez’s career, appearing in attack ads from a Republican challenger during his 2018 reelection campaign.

In 2015, Menendez faced charges of conspiracy, bribery and honest services fraud after the government accused him of accepting flights, vacations and campaign contributions from a wealthy donor in exchange for political favors. The senator vehemently denied the claims.

“I started in public service fighting corruption in government,” he said. “That is how I began my career, and today is not how my career is going to end.”

The trial ended in a deadlocked jury, and the Justice Department declined to retry Menendez.

After his indictment last year, Menendez declined to seek the Democratic nomination for the 2024 election and pursue a fourth term, opting instead to run as an independent. After New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy suspended her competitive campaign for Menendez’s Senate seat, Kim won his party’s nomination. The primary race fundamentally changed New Jersey politics as a federal judge struck down the state’s unique way of displaying county-endorsed candidates on the ballot, after a lawsuit by Kim and two other Democrats running for Congress charged that the ballot was unfair and unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi sided with Kim and the other plaintiffs and said the system of “bracketing” county-endorsed candidates gave them an unfair advantage over their challengers. The ruling forced New Jersey to redesign its ballots ahead of the June primary.

“Unbracketed candidates tend to occupy obscure parts of the ballot that appear less important and are harder to locate, and may be grouped in a column with other candidates with whom they did not want to be associated,” Quraishi wrote in a 49-page ruling in March.

Paul Kane contributed to this report.