United States Senator Bob Menendez has announced that he will resign next month following his conviction on corruption charges, including bribery and acting as an agent for Egypt’s government.
The decision on Tuesday came as Menendez’s fellow Democrats piled pressure on him to step down or face becoming the first politician to be expelled from the Senate since 1862.
“I will be resigning from my office as the United States Senator from New Jersey, effective on the close of business on Aug. 20, 2024,” Menendez’s letter said.
“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,” the letter added.
Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy will appoint a replacement for Menendez, who has represented New Jersey in the Senate since 2006 and served as chairman of the influential Foreign Relations Committee before giving up that post after being charged last year.
Menendez’s current six-year term ends on January 3.
Murphy said in a statement he had received the letter but did not provide details on when he would finalise a decision for naming Menendez’s temporary replacement.
Menendez, 70, was found guilty on July 16 by a jury in a Manhattan federal court on all 16 criminal counts he faced – also including obstruction of justice, wire fraud and extortion – after a nine-week trial. Two co-defendants also were convicted.
The case centred on what prosecutors called bribery schemes in which the senator and his wife Nadine Menendez accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and car and mortgage payments from three businessmen. In exchange, Menendez steered billions of dollars in US aid to Egypt and tried to influence the criminal prosecutions of two of the businessmen, prosecutors said.
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