Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey has ended his campaign as an independent Senate candidate, days before he was due to resign from the seat.
In a brief note sent Friday to the New Jersey Division of Elections, Menendez asked to be pulled out of the running for the November general election. He was hoping to get re-elected in a political Hail Mary after his bruising conviction on more than a dozen bribery and corruption charges.
“By means of this email please be advised that as an Independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in this November’s election I am advising you that I wish to have my name withdrawn from the ballot,” he wrote.
Menendez was convicted on 16 counts in a federal corruption trial in Manhattan this summer where prosecutors accused him of accepting bribes that included gold bars from three businessmen and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government.
Menendez, previously the Democratic chair of the Senate’s foreign relations committee, was due to resign on Tuesday.