Senator Schumer Declines to Request Menendez’s Resignation

Seante Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that he is not joining the chorus of elected officials, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who are asking embattled Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to step down amid a federal indictment on bribery charges.

“I’ve known Sen. Menendez a very long time and was truly, truly upset,” Schumer said Tuesday, as reported by The Hill. “But we all know that … for senators, there’s a much, much higher standard. And clearly, when you read the indictment, Sen. Menendez fell way, way below that standard.”

The Garden State’s senior senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, appeared in a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan Wednesday, where they both pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Menendez was released on a $100,000 bond and his wife on $250,000 bond, both secured by the couple’s home.

Three other men are named as co-defendants in the case and have also pleaded not guilty to the charges.

According to the Department of Justice, Menendez, his wife, and the three men engaged in a scheme to use the senator’s “power and influence” to “protect and enrich” the businessmen in return for cash, gold bars, and a luxury vehicle.

“As the grand jury charged, between 2018 and 2022, Sen. Menendez and his wife engaged in a corrupt relationship with Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes — three New Jersey businessmen who collectively paid hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes, including cash, gold, a Mercedes Benz, and other things of value — in exchange for Sen. Menendez agreeing to use his power and influence to protect and enrich those businessmen and to benefit the government of Egypt,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a press release announcing the case Sept. 22. “My office is firmly committed to rooting out corruption, without fear or favor, and without any regard to partisan politics. We will continue to do so.”

More than half of Senate Democrats are calling for Menendez’s resignation from the upper chamber, including the state’s junior senator, Cory Booker.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the No. 2 man for the Democrats in the Senate, said Wednesday that Menendez “should step down.”

This is the second criminal corruption case Menendez has faced. After a similar case from 2015 ended with a hung jury, prosecutors dismissed the charges.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.