Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) finally called on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to resign this week after resisting making the call for months.
Menendez, 70, faces spending the rest of his life behind bars after he was convicted Tuesday on all 16 counts he faced in federal court, including charges of corruption, bribery, obstruction of justice, acting as a foreign agent, and conspiracy.
“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.
Schumer had resisted calls to help force Menendez out of office, likely in order to protect Democrats’ razor thin majority in the U.S. Senate.
At least 30 members of the Democrat caucus, including members of the party’s leadership team, had called on Menendez to resign in days following his indictment last year, according to CNN.
New Jersey’s other Democrat senator, Cory Booker, called on Menendez to resign following his conviction, saying that it was “a dark, painful day for the people of New Jersey.”
“When any elected official violates that trust, it is a betrayal of the oath we take to serve the people who’ve elected us,” he said. “Without that trust, our ability to do our work and perform our duties for our constituents is compromised. Senator Menendez was afforded his due process rights and mounted a full defense in a court of law, as every criminal defendant has the constitutional right to do.”
“This verdict means that a jury of Senator Menendez’s peers, sworn to be impartial, reviewed the evidence and unanimously concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that he had broken the law,” he continued. “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. Now, with this conviction, the urgency for Senator Menendez to step down and for the governor to appoint a replacement has even more urgency.”
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