Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey has privately told allies that he is considering resigning from Congress after his conviction in a sweeping bribery scheme rather than face a potential expulsion vote, according to three people familiar with his remarks.
Two of the people, who were not authorized to discuss the conversations, cautioned that Mr. Menendez has not made a final decision and could still fight to serve out his term. Publicly, he has maintained his innocence and vowed to appeal Tuesday’s guilty verdict on 16 felony counts.
“I have never been anything but a patriot,” Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, told reporters in New York after conviction.
But the comments he made in phone calls with close associates in the hours after he left the Manhattan courthouse suggest for the first time that Mr. Menendez has absorbed how rapidly his political path forward is crumbling — and may be looking to avoid further public humiliation.
He was under intense pressure from fellow Democrats in New Jersey and Washington. In a series of interviews and statements after the trial’s conclusion, longtime friends in the Senate said one by one that they could no longer tolerate his presence on Capitol Hill and were prepared to vote to expel him if he did not leave voluntarily.
Perhaps most significantly, Senator Cory Booker, a fellow New Jerseyan who has called Mr. Menendez a friend and mentor, volunteered to lead the expulsion effort.
“For New Jersey, this is a painful day of real heartbreak and frankly just deep disappointment,” Mr. Booker said on MSNBC, pleading with Mr. Menendez to resign. “If he refuses to do that, many of us — and I will lead that effort to make sure that he is removed from the Senate.”
Mr. Booker indicated later that he was in touch with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, about proceeding with an expulsion resolution if needed after Congress returns from its recess for the Republican National Convention. Mr. Schumer called on Mr. Menendez to resign on Tuesday but has not explicitly sanctioned a push to expel him.
NBC News reported earlier Wednesday that Mr. Menendez had told allies he would resign. Two of the people who spoke with The New York Times said Mr. Menendez was still considering his options, while a third suggested he had reached a decision to resign.
In an interview with CBS News on Wednesday evening, Mr. Menendez pushed back on the suggestion that he had made up his mind.
“I can tell you that I have not resigned nor have I spoken to any so-called allies,” he said, according to the network. “Seems to me that there is an effort to try to force me into a statement. Anyone who knows me knows that’s the worst way to achieve a goal with me.”
Robert Kelly, Mr. Menendez’s chief of staff, did not respond to several calls and texts seeking comment on Wednesday. The senator’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment either.
As he weighed a possible resignation, it remained unclear whether Mr. Menendez would continue running for re-election this fall as a political independent. He would have almost no chance of winning, but doing so would allow him to continue raising funds to spend on his legal defense.
Democrats, though, fear his candidacy could siphon enough votes away from their nominee, Representative Andy Kim, to hurt him in a close race against the Republican nominee, Curtis Bashaw, in November.
The Constitution does not bar felons from serving in Congress or running for re-election, even after they are sentenced. Nor is there another automatic mechanism that would strip Mr. Menendez of his committee positions or right to vote in the Senate. Those decisions are left to colleagues.
Expulsion is considered the Senate’s most serious punishment and requires a two-thirds vote to succeed. It has only been used rarely in the chamber’s 235-year history, largely to remove members who supported the Confederacy during the Civil War.
But a growing group of Democratic senators said it would be a fitting punishment if Mr. Menendez does not resign first. The New York jury found him guilty of every charge related to selling out his office while he was the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to aid Egypt, Qatar and New Jersey businessmen in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold and a Mercedes-Benz convertible.
There are reasons to believe Mr. Menendez may dare his colleagues to act before he sidelines himself. Over half a century in political life, he has earned a reputation as the ultimate political survivor, unafraid to buck his party and disappoint even his closest allies. And since he was first indicted last fall, he has been steadfast in asserting his innocence.
But he may now be weighing other considerations, from the added humiliation of a rare expulsion vote to his own financial security. With the government trying to seize hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets related to the bribery charges, Mr. Menendez has a keen interest in retaining his Senate salary and health insurance as long as possible but also doing whatever he can to protect his federal pension.
If Mr. Menendez does step down or is expelled from office, it would be up to Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey to fill his seat through the end of the year, when the senator’s term ends.
The post Menendez Tells Allies He Is Considering Resigning After
Conviction appeared first on New York Times.
