Defiant convicted felon Sen. Bob Menendez won’t say if he’ll resign as Chuck Schumer calls on him to step down

A defiant Sen. Bob Menendez declined to say whether he would step down following his federal conviction on bribery charges Tuesday — as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats demanded his 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 (D-NY) said in a statement within an hour of the guilty verdict.

Menendez (D-NJ) had chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee until his indictment last 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.

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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 about Menendez.

The three-term Democrat ignored questions from reporters about whether he planned to resign from the Senate outside Manhattan federal court Tuesday afternoon — as he insisted “I have never violated my public oath.”

Menendez, 70, was found guilty on 18 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.

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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 accepting private jet rides and expense-free vacations from a Palm Beach, Fla., doctor.

“I’m deeply, deeply disappointed by the jury’s decision,” Menendez said when addressing reporters outside the court after the verdict. “I have every faith that the law and the facts are not sustained with that decision, and that we will be successful upon appeal.”

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 chairmen of the other committees where Menendez currently serves — 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.

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Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Manhattan Rep. Dan Goldman within a few hours also called on Menendez to leave office.

“The people of New Jersey, and the United States Senate, as an institution, deserve better. This guilty verdict — with charges of acting as a foreign agent, bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, among others — make Bob Menendez wholly unfit to serve,” Welch said. “In light of his conviction, I once again call on Senator Menendez to resign.”

“Senator Menendez was entitled to due process to determine whether he committed a crime, and now an impartial jury of 12 of his peers has unanimously found him guilty,” Goldman (D-NY) said. “Senator Menendez should now resign.”

Menendez is scheduled for a sentencing hearing on Oct. 29.

The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was scheduled to head to trial later this year for also accepting cash and other gifts from her husband’s foreign patrons — including a black Mercedes-Benz convertible. Her case was delayed due to her breast cancer diagnosis, and the judge indefinitely postponed her trial on Tuesday, hours before the verdict.

Two of the businessmen included in the indictment — Wael Hana and Fred Daibes — were also convicted on Tuesday.

The third, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty before trial and flipped on Menendez.

Reps for Menendez did not respond to a request for comment.

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