Bob Menendez to resign Senate seat following federal bribery conviction

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) plans to resign effective Aug. 20, according to two people briefed on the decision, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The longtime Democratic lawmaker was convicted on July 16 of taking bribes from three businessmen 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 spokesman, Joshua Natoli, declined to comment.

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

In a wide-spanning case of conspiracy to commit bribery, prosecutors laid out how the former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee traded his political influence in for gold bars, stacks of cash and a car to support three local businessmen. In the overlapping bribery allegations, the 70-year-old was accused of passing unclassified but “sensitive” insider knowledge to Egyptian intelligence officials, attempting to derail local criminal investigations and securing foreign deals for the businessmen bribing him.

Two New Jersey businessmen accused of bribing him, Fred Daibes and Egyptian-American Wael “Will” Hana, were convicted alongside him. His wife, Nadine Menendez - who the lawmaker’s defense attorneys painted as the secretive mastermind of the scandal 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.), New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.).

Menendez, who did not testify in his own defense, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 29. He has said that 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 on Tuesday. “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, just 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 nearly 20 years in Congress, Menendez wielded vast influence, helping write the Affordable Care Act and leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Despite his sway, 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, just 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 nonetheless, 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, Democratic congressman Andy 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 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 his 49-page ruling in March.