Sen. Bob Menendez to resign next month following corruption conviction

Sen. Bob Menendez — who was found guilty earlier this month on all 16 counts in his corruption trial — said Tuesday he will resign from office effective Aug. 20, ending a 50-year career in politics that reached the heights of power on the world stage.

“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,” Menendez said in a letter processed in the Senate and obtained by POLITICO.

On Monday, the Senate Ethics Committee said it would begin an “adjudicatory review” of alleged violations by Menendez that’s necessary when considering actions such as “expulsion or censure.”

The New Jersey Democrat, the state’s senior senator, will exit the Senate after chairing the powerful foreign relations committee — while, the jury found, accepting bribes to act on behalf of the Egyptian government. It marks a swift and stunning end to a political career that began helping send his mentor to prison and finished convicted as a powerful senator on the take.

Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said Tuesday he would name a "temporary" replacement "to ensure the people of New Jersey have the representation they deserve.” When asked Monday whether he was vetting names, Murphy told reporters: “I have no news at all to make on that front.”

His wife, first lady Tammy Murphy, had sought the Democratic nomination earlier this year but said Tuesday she does not want to be considered for the vacancy.

“While I’m grateful for the humbling support and outreach I've received since last year, I want to reiterate that I will not accept an appointment to the U.S. Senate,” Tammy Murphy said in a social media post Tuesday afternoon. The first lady said she is focused on her work to improve infant and maternal health.

Phil Murphy is said to be considering several people to replace Menendez, including Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas and Nina Mitchell Wells, a former secretary of state in former Gov. Jon Corzine’s administration. All are women of color. George Helmy, the governor’s former chief of staff, is also being considered.

Rep. Andy Kim, the Democratic nominee for Menendez’s seat, is heavily favored to win in November against Republican Curtis Bashaw. People close to Murphy have said he is unlikely to name Kim and he’s faced calls from Republicans — including his predecessors Tom Kean and Chris Christie — to appoint someone who will not run for the seat in order to avoid influencing the election, or at least the appearance of it.

Menendez, 70, has filed to run for reelection as an independent but has until Aug. 16 to withdraw from the November race.

He will leave office after being dogged by corruption investigations or charges almost continuously since 2006, when he was plucked from the House to fill a vacancy in the Senate. He has always claimed they were politically motivated and shown his trademark defiance. And, critically, he maintained the support of the New Jersey political establishment that fostered his rise to power.

But that quickly evaporated after his September indictment. The guilty verdicts on 16 federal felony charges will certainly overshadow his lauded three-decade career in Congress, which includes advocating for major infrastructure projects, immigration reform, autism research and federal aid for his state following Hurricane Sandy and during the pandemic.

Menendez got his start in elected office as a 20-year-old school board member in Union City. The densely populated city is known for its large Cuban-American population and is located in Hudson County, notorious for hardball politics and political corruption.

In 1982, Menendez was a government witness in the federal corruption trial of his political mentor, Union City Mayor William Musto, which burnished Menendez’s reputation as a political reformer (Musto helped mobsters and contractors receive taxpayer dollars intended for schools). Media reports say that Menendez was so worried about testifying at the time that he wore a bulletproof vest under his trenchcoat.

Menendez was elected mayor of Union City in 1986, a position he continued to hold after he was elected to the state Assembly and then the state Senate. He won a seat in the U.S. House in 1992 and became a statewide figure with his appointment to the Senate by Gov. Jon Corzine at the beginning of 2006.

He was under scrutiny by federal prosecutors ever since.

In 2006 — in the heat of his contested Senate campaign — then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie subpoenaed a Hudson County nonprofit that rented property owned by Menendez. As a member of the House of Representatives, Menendez had steered funds to the nonprofit.

The subpoena was a bombshell in the Senate race between Menendez and Republican Tom Kean Jr., and Democrats accused Christie of using his office to influence the election. The probe never led to charges against Menendez, and the U.S. Attorney’s office in 2011 took the rare step of telling Menendez’s attorney that the case was closed.

But shortly after the 2011 letter, Menendez was once again in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors. In 2015, federal prosecutors indicted him on corruption charges, alleging that the he accepted campaign contributions and luxurious travel accommodations from Salomon Melgen, a longtime Menendez friend and Florida eye doctor.

In exchange, prosecutors said, Menendez tried to influence Medicare reimbursement policies that would be favorable to Melgen and obtain travel visas for Melgen’s girlfriends who were not U.S. citizens.

Jurors deadlocked in that trial, with a 10-2 majority favoring acquittal according to a juror at the time. Federal prosecutors declined to move for a retrial, allowing Menendez to leave the courthouse a free man, then run for reelection and win.

Shortly after that, prosecutors say, Menendez began a yearslong scheme with his wife and a trio of businesspeople to trade his influence for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and other gifts.

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.