Bob Menendez Pleads Guilty, Facing Calls to Resign

(RepublicanJournal.org) – A disgraced New Jersey senator is coming under pressure to resign — from his own party. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has faced a string of corruption allegations stretching back 18 years. He’s just been found guilty of acting as a foreign agent, and now the Democrat leadership says it’s time for him to go.

Menendez has held a New Jersey Senate seat since he was appointed in January 2006, after representing the state’s 13th Congressional District in the House for 13 years. In August 2006, just months after he entered the Senate, two New Jersey state lawmakers filed an ethics complaint against him. That was the first in a series of complaints that led to him being indicted for bribery, fraud, and making false statements in 2015. He was severely admonished for breaking Senate rules at that time.

It doesn’t look like he learned his lesson though, because in late 2023 Manhattan federal prosecutors indicted him and his wife in a new corruption case. As well as bribery, extortion, conspiracy, and fraud charges, he was accused of acting as an agent for the Egyptian government. On July 16 he was convicted on all 16 charges he faced.

Minutes after the jury delivered its verdict, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on Menendez to “do what is right for his constituents, the Senate, and our country, and resign.” Schumer has criticized Menendez before, saying he’d acted in ways that were “unbecoming” for a senator. However, this is the first time he’s openly said the controversial senator should quit.

So far Menendez insists he’s innocent and plans to appeal his conviction. He has reportedly told his allies that he may be resigning. It’s unlikely Schumer will be the only one to call on him to step down. Menendez is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — and a conviction for acting as an agent for a foreign power seriously dents his credibility in that job. With this being the second major corruption scandal he’s been involved in, he’s definitely on thin ice now.