Defiant convicted felon Sen. Bob Menendez won’t say if he’ll resign as Chuck Schumer calls on him to step down
Defiant Sen. Bob Menendez refused to say whether he would resign after his federal conviction on bribery charges Tuesday — even as a chorus of Democrats demanded he step down.
The three-term New Jersey Democrat ignored questions outside Manhattan federal court about whether he planned to leave the Senate — as he insisted, “I have never violated my public oath.
“I’m deeply, deeply disappointed by the jury’s decision,” Menendez said. “I have every faith that the law and the facts are not sustained with that decision, and that we will be successful upon appeal.”
Within an hour of the jury’s decision, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanded Menendez’s resignation.
“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.
Menendez, 70, had chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee until his indictment in September on corruption charges, which expanded in the subsequent months to include counts of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Egypt and Qatar.
Schumer insisted his longtime colleague had “a right to due process and a fair trial” — but accepted Menendez’s decision to step down as Foreign Relations chairman as the case progressed.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who chairs the Banking Committee where Menendez serves, said Tuesday, “I have been clear since last fall that Senator Menendez needs to resign.
“If he refuses to do so, the Senate should expel him,” Brown said.
The chairmen of the other committees that Menendez currently serves on — including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) of the Finance Committee and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who took the Garden State Democrat’s place on the Foreign Relations Committee — did not respond to requests for comment.
But other Democrats, including New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Menendez’s fellow Garden State Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Manhattan Rep. Dan Goldman , also said within a few hours of the verdict that he should call it quits.
“If he refuses to vacate his office, I call on the US Senate to vote to expel him,” Murphy said in a statement.
Booker added on X, “I call on Senator Menendez to resign.
“I originally did so last fall because of the severity of the allegations against him and how they shook the public’s trust,” Booker said. “Now, with this conviction, the urgency for Senator Menendez to step down and for the governor to appoint a replacement has even more urgency.”
It’s unclear whether Schumer will hold a Senate vote to possibly boot Menendez, a move that would require a two-thirds majority to succeed.
The heads of the Senate Ethics Committee. Democrat Chris Coons and Republican James Lankford, said they would complete their own investigation into Menendez “promptly” now that the trial ended — and weigh the “full range of disciplinary actions available.”
Menendez had played coy about his plans to run for a fourth term in office until being roundly defeated by Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) in the June Democratic Party, while also suggesting a potential third-party run as an independent.
The Republican running for the seat, Curtis Bradshaw, said Menendez should step down from his seat, saying the Garden State deserves more than “corruption and made-for-tv political scandals, courtesy of Bob Menendez and the Democratic machine.”
Reps for Menendez did not respond to a Post request for comment.
Menendez was found guilty on 16 counts for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in cash and gold bars while leveraging his committee post to enrich three wealthy New Jersey businessmen and the Egyptian and Qatari governments.
He now faces decades in prison after having evaded earlier federal corruption charges in 2017, when a jury deadlocked and failed to convict him of wrongdoing for allegedly accepting private jet rides and expense-free vacations from a Palm Beach, Fla., doctor.
Menendez is scheduled for a sentencing hearing Oct. 29.
The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was scheduled to head to trial later this year for also allegedly accepting cash and other gifts from her husband’s foreign patrons — including a black Mercedes-Benz convertible. Her case was delayed because of her breast cancer diagnosis, and the judge indefinitely postponed her trial Tuesday, hours before the verdict in her husband’s case.
Two of the businessmen included in Sen. Menendez’s indictment — Wael Hana and Fred Daibes — were also convicted Tuesday.
The third, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty before trial and flipped on Menendez.
