Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., leaves federal court in New York, Tuesday, July 16, 2024. Menendez has been convicted of all the charges he faced at his corruption trial, including accepting bribes of gold and cash from three New Jersey businessmen and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s Senate career came to a close Tuesday, capping roughly five decades in Democratic politics that took him from the local school board to chair of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, just over a month after a jury convicted him on federal bribery charges.
Menendez signaled his resignation would take effect at the end of the day Tuesday in a letter last month to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who said Friday he’s tapping a former top aide to succeed the three-term incumbent.
George Helmy will succeed Menendez until the November election results for the Senate seat are certified late in the month, the governor said. At that point, Murphy said Helmy will resign and he’ll name the winner of the election to the seat.
The stakes in the Senate election are high, with Democrats holding on to a narrow majority. Republicans have not won a Senate election in Democratic-leaning New Jersey in over five decades. His resignation also comes as Democrats gather in Chicago for their national convention to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris to be their standard bearer nationally in November
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim and Republican hotel developer Curtis Bashaw are facing off in the general election.
Helmy, 44, served as Murphy’s chief of staff from 2019 until 2023 and currently serves as an executive at one of the state’s largest health care providers, RWJBarnabas Health. He previously served as Sen. Cory Booker’s state director in the Senate.
Menendez, 70, was convicted on charges that he used his influence to meddle in three different state and federal criminal investigations to protect the businessmen. Prosecutors said he helped one bribe-paying friend get a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund and another keep a contract to provide religious certification for meat bound for Egypt.
He was also convicted of taking actions that benefited Egypt’s government in exchange for bribes, including providing details on personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators regarding lifting a hold on military aid to Egypt. FBI agents also said they found stacks of gold bars and $480,000 hidden in Menendez’s house.
Menendez denied all of the allegations, and in a letter to Murphy last month, he said he’s planning to appeal the conviction.
On Monday, he filed paperwork with the court seeking an acquittal and new trial, arguing that prosecutors presented speculation and that they violated his right as a lawmaker to protected speech and debate.
The resignation appears to mark the end of a nearly lifelong political career for Menendez, who was first elected to his local board of education just a couple of years after his high school graduation. He was also elected to the state Legislature and Congress before heading to the Senate.
Menendez was appointed to be a U.S. senator in 2006 when the seat opened up after incumbent Jon Corzine became governor. He was elected outright in 2006 and again in 2012 and 2018. He served as chair of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee beginning in 2013, but lost that post after the earlier indictment. He regained the position after federal prosecutors did not renew charges in that case, which ended in a mistrial.
Menendez is the only U.S. senator indicted twice.
In 2015, he was charged with letting a wealthy Florida eye doctor buy his influence through luxury vacations and campaign contributions. After a jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict in 2017, New Jersey federal prosecutors dropped the case rather than put him on trial again.
He served as a Democrat in Congress but decided not to run in the primary this year as his court case was unfolding. He filed to run as an independent in the fall, though he withdrew his name from the ballot on Friday, according to a letter he sent to state election officials.