Menendez Will Resign From Senate, Avoiding an Ugly, Intraparty Battle

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey told members of his staff on Tuesday that he planned to resign from Congress in late August, bowing to intense pressure from Democratic colleagues who had pushed him to step down or face an expulsion vote after his federal bribery conviction.

Mr. Menendez’s decision to quit months before the end of his third term will likely allow Democrats to avoid a potentially ugly intraparty fight at a highly fraught political moment. New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy, is expected to appoint a replacement who would serve until January.

Mr. Menendez, 70, has insisted that he is innocent and vowed to appeal the guilty verdict. But his resignation almost certainly represents the final collapse of a five-decade political career that saw him rise from mayor of his hometown, Union City, N.J., to one of the most powerful foreign policy voices in Washington as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The decision, first reported by The New Jersey Globe, was described by four people familiar with Mr. Menendez’s remarks who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. One of them said Mr. Menendez planned to step down on Aug. 20 and could announce the decision publicly as soon as Tuesday afternoon.

The senator’s office did not immediately comment.

By waiting until August, Mr. Menendez will ensure that he receives at least another month of his Senate salary and health insurance, crucial lifelines at a time when his finances are crumbling and his wife, Nadine Menendez, is undergoing cancer treatment. His resignation would not immediately affect his federal pension, but the senator could stand to lose it under a federal anticorruption law if his conviction is upheld.

Though many called for Mr. Menendez’s resignation after his indictment last fall, demands that he step aside intensified quickly after a jury in Manhattan found him guilty of taking bribes and acting as an agent of Egypt.