Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), under investigation for bribery and obstruction of justice charges, said he won’t seek reelection.

Menendez will not submit his resignation despite the allegations.

However, a source close to the New Jersey Democrat told the New York Post “he will not be running.”

The New York Post reports:

In an interview with Forbes published Thursday Menendez said he would not resign, but when asked if he would be running for re-election, he said, “Ah, that’s another question.”

Menendez has been under pressure to resign from both fellow Democrats and Republicans, with progressive Rep. Andy Kim and New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy waiting in the wings to take his place in the deep-blue state.

A Farleigh Dickinson University poll of New Jersey Democrats released last month put the senator on just 9% support in the primary, with Kim on 32% and Murphy — a political neophyte who was previously a registered Republican — on 20%.

On Monday, Murphy won the endorsement of Democrats in Bergen County, the state’s largest.

“He can’t run without creating a two-front battle where both have his career on the line,” said Thomas Anderson, who heads up The Black DC, a good government blog. “It takes massive resources for that and he no longer has the support he once had, looking at his latest financial disclosures for his legal defense fund.”

Menendez raised just under $16,000 in the last few months of 2023, while Murphy raked in $3.2 million and Kim took in $1.8 million, federal filings show.

Menendez and his wife face allegations of accepting gold bars, cash, and a luxury car in exchange for the senator utilizing his power and influence to benefit three businessmen.

They were charged with obstruction of justice crimes in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Democrat Senator And Wife Hit With Obstruction Of Justice Charges In New Indictment

Per Fox News:

Menendez, 70, has maintained his innocence, calling the additional charges "a flagrant abuse of power."

After his fall arrest, Menendez was forced to relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but said he would not resign from Congress.

The senator and his wife are scheduled to go on trial in May on an array of corruption allegations. Among other things, Menendez is accused of taking actions that benefited the governments of Egypt and Qatar as a way of helping two New Jersey associates get financial deals linked to those two countries.

According to an indictment, Menendez and his wife accepted gold bars and cash from a real estate developer in return for the senator using his clout to get that businessman a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund.

Menendez was charged with helping another New Jersey business associate get a lucrative deal with the government of Egypt.

“Gold Bar Bob may be out of the race, but that does not absolve the Democrat Party in New Jersey and nationally from enabling and supporting his corruption for years. In fact, corruption and cronyism is a way of life in New Jersey politics, where some party bosses and their favored politicos run the table against the choice of county committee members and voters for the sake of power, and then pursue policies that damage the very people they pretend to represent," Mendham Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner, the GOP frontrunner for the U.S. Senate seat, said in a statement.

"That’s why I am running to restore integrity to New Jersey’s seat in the U.S. Senate. The Democrat candidates are showing their penchant for dirty politics while I am working hard to return power to its rightful place –– the hard-working men and women throughout New Jersey. You know, the ones who are struggling under the disastrous Biden-Menendez-Murphy-Kim economy, fearful of rising crime and fentanyl poisonings in their communities, and mad as hell over the open border the Democrats have facilitated," she continued.

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