Breaking news tonight, U.S.

Senator Bob Menendez will resign from the U.S. Senate on August 20th, giving up the seat he's held since 2006.

Menendez His letter of resignation has now officially been entered into the Senate record.

The announcement comes exactly one week after the jury in his federal corruption trial found Menendez guilty on all 16 counts against him.

Those counts brought by the U.S. Justice Department include bribery, obstruction of justice, acting as a foreign agent and acting in the interests of his co-defendants.

Fred Daibes and Wael Hana.

Senator Menendez is facing up to 20 years in prison, although he's promised to appeal his conviction.

But just yesterday, the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee voted unanimously to open an investigation into his potential violations of Senate rules and to consider his expulsion.

Here to talk about the timing and the significance of this news is Chris Gramiccioni former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, and Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.

Micah, I'm going to start with you.

This is just such a huge, significant political moment in New Jersey.

Senator Menendez has remained defiant throughout the case, even after the conviction and maintaining his innocence.

Are you surprised by this announcement?

Yeah, quite frankly, I didn't think he had it in him.

I it looked like you're exactly right when you say the word defiant.

I thought he was going to try and stick it out, try and run down the clock on his term, which expires at the end of the year.

It looked like he wasn't going anywhere.

He was settling in.

I think what must have changed, obviously it goes without saying, is that the Senate timetable launching their investigation, making it clear that there was going to be a quick investigation and then they could move ahead with their vote to expel.

That made it clear to him that he really had no choice.

This is the only face saving move for him was to resign.

I think if he thought that there was any choice in the matter, that they were going to stay out on break, that they weren't going to come back, they weren't going to get around to it, he probably would have to stick around.

Is there any dignity left that he can hold on to in making this decision?

No, probably not at this point.

But I think, you know, it would be even more humiliating, I think, to be expelled by his colleagues.

I don't think he wants to put them through that.

I don't think he wants to have that embarrassing vote.

So does he get a modicum of dignity?

Sure.

But does it make any difference?

Does it change any outcome?

No, he's leaving the Senate.

But I guess maybe you can say it's this would have been an especially humiliating thing to be expelled.

Chris, we know that he is planning to appeal.

Sentencing is on October 29th.

How likely is it that his case could win on appeal, given what we know about the Supreme Court in recent decisions, including one a few years ago with former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who had a similar type of charge reversed?

I, I think generally it's difficult to overturn cases on appeal because the trial judge at the trial level, including with jury findings which are held in, you know, in high regard in appellate review, it's really difficult to overturn that.

Now, the defense attorneys went to great lengths to preserve these objections.

A lot of the evidentiary objections, the judge is going to be afforded a high standard on that.

It's abuse of discretion to overturn it if they do have a chance to overturn the case on appeal.

I think it kind of hinges on this concept of Article two speech and debate clause or the defense counts on this.

And in particular, Senator Menendez, his attorney, was claiming that his speech and his actions were protected under Article two.

And therefore, he's got immunity from any prosecution, whether it's civil or criminal.

The difference is right in the Constitution, it clearly says that there's exceptions for treason or felonious behavior.

And the government is going to say clearly this is this is felony type behavior.

The jury convicted him on every single count we brought.

So I think it's a really it's an uphill battle.

And obviously, those appeals cannot occur until the case is final, which occurs after sentencing and the judgment of conviction is entered.

And, of course, acting as a foreign agent was one of the charges he was found guilty on.

Does the appellate court, Chris, ever kind of punt back up to the U.S. Supreme Court in cases where the Supreme Court has set precedent?

We I mean, I guess that's the thing about Supreme Court precedent.

If it's clear enough for a circuit to be able to conclude that a case ought to be affirmed or overturned, then they rely on that Supreme Court precedent.

The Supreme Court's goal is to provide guidance to the lower courts so they don't have to run everything up to the top of the proverbial flagpole.

And that's kind of the situation.

If there is something that the defense can raise that is so fact specific, like several years ago, the governor of Virginia, McDonnell, did.

That's a different situation.

But here they follow the guidance of the Supreme Court in that McDonnell case, and they established a specific quid pro quo and things of value being received in exchange for official influence being exercised.

And the jury came back resoundingly agreeing with that with those charges.

So I think it's an uphill battle.

It remains to be seen, and I'm sure you'll see every appeal filed.

But before that, they'll they'll probably move to, you know, not for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, to throw out the jury's findings.

And there'll be some legal maneuvering before the case goes to sentencing.

Micah we know that the senator's been able to fund his legal battle using his Senate war chest.

Now that he is resigning, if he continues and moves forward with appeal, does he have access to those funds?

Well, yes.

I mean, within within reason, he there many, many years ago you were able to take them actually out for whatever was left you could take for personal use.

You could convert to personal use.

That hasn't been the case for a very long time.

He can continue to use them for his legal appeal.

He could donate them to another campaign.

He could use them for this independent campaign.

Presumably, there won't be an independent campaign if he's resigning from the Senate.

Presumably that candidacy comes to an end as well.

But he had drawn down the vast majority of that 8 million he had before this whole struggle.

He was down to about the last million or two.

I think by the time all is said and done, that will probably be spoken for as well.

There comes the issue of timing now and what happens to fill his seat.

His resignation letter says effective August 20th.

Micah Governor Murphy now has the ability, the responsibility to appoint his replacement.

Who does it?

Who does he appoint?

And what do you believe that timing looks like?

Yes.

So if we take the model of what happened with Congressman Payne, the determination was made both by Governor Murphy and by the congressional leaders, Democratic congressional leaders, that they did not want to leave a vacancy for very long, because in these closely divided chambers, every vote counts.

And you don't know when you're going to have a close vote and you're going to need that vote.

So I would expect that there will be pressure if he talks to Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate in Washington, that they will want this seat to be filled.

And so that begs the question, well, who?

I think there are several paths that he could take.

He could he could appoint and he can give him a jump on seniority.

But I think that there's probably some personal misgivings about that, some personal bad blood there.

In addition, we have two Republican governors, former governors Kane and Christie, who have asked them not to do that because that would be tantamount to maybe an advantage in the upcoming election.

And so then we look at the caretaker route and we start to look at could it be Dick Codey?

Could it be Loretta Weinberg?

Could it be former federal Judge Sallis, somebody like that pretty much stature.

Could it be Tammy Murphy?

I suspect no.

I suspect that that question politically has been answered and asked.

I think the public has weighed in.

The public has rendered a judgment.

I think doing that would appear pretty tone deaf given what we've been through this year with this campaign already.

We just have about a minute left, Chris, I want to ask you about sentencing.

We know it's coming on October 29th, as I said.

Is this likely to be he faces up to 20 years.

Is this federal prison?

Could this be house arrest?

What could it look like?

Well, it's completely up to the sentencing judge.

The U.S. sentencing guidelines is that they basically codify a certain prison arrange for the convictions that were that were finalized and confirmed against Senator Menendez.

But those sentencing guidelines are only advisory.

So I kind of did a quick calculation.

And of all the convictions, the one that exposes him to the greatest period of incarceration under the guidelines is the Hobbs Act.

Extortion under 18, USC Code 1951.

If you kind of try to do a rough advisory sentencing guidelines calculation, it's a it's a level 34, which doesn't make a lot of sense until you read the publication.

And the proposed range under the guidelines is 150 to 180 months.

So that just gives you like in terms of the greatest exposure of all the counts for which he was convicted, that one gives him the greatest punitive exposure.

A lot of these counts, probably all of them are going to merge for sentencing purposes.

But to get to your point like this, I guess technically there could be an argument for some non-custodial term house arrest.

But if the judge is giving credence to the advisory sentencing guidelines as they're supposed to, it's a long stretch from, you know, 150 months down to house arrest.

So I personally I obviously can't read the future, but I think this is a custodial case, especially because the conduct is pretty egregious.

But at the same time, there's you know, there's a whole history of behavior as a statesman.

They're going to introduce a bunch of mitigating evidence about Senator Menendez.

He obviously has until now, no criminal history.

So all of these factors will tack in favor of him as well.

And the judge is going to have to decide what balance the right factors and come up with the appropriate sentence.

All right, Micah Rasmussen, Chris Gramiccioni thank you both for your insight as always.

Good talking to you both here.