Senator Bob Menendez, left, and Congressman Frank Pallone, making like chimpmunks at the 2012 Belmar St. Patrick’s parade. Photo credit Charles Measley
A federal grand jury in Miami is investigating Senator Robert Menendez, examining his role in advocating for the business interests of his benefactor, Dr. Salomon Melgen, and the anonymous allegations that Melgen provided the senator prostitutes while they vacationed together in the Dominican Republic, according to a report in The Washington Post.
Menedez declined to say if he was aware of the investigation, but welcomed being probed.
“I welcome any review, because I believe, at the end of the day, that my actions have been appropriate,” the senator said. “And just as everything that gave rise to this was a smear campaign based on slanders that drove the original story, I believe that when any review reviews the facts, they will determine that I have acted appropriately at all times.”
Menendez told WaPo that he likely would have received an exemption from the Senate Ethics Committee for the two flights he took on Melgen’s private jet in 2010 but did not report until January of this year. He paid Melgen $58,500, which was between 32% and 87% of his net worth, for the flights he thinks the Ethics Committee would let him have gratis because it was the right thing to do.
He said he could have likely received an exemption from the Senate Ethics Committee based on his long friendship with Melgen. “But I said, ‘You know, it’s past, and the right thing at the moment is to pay for it,’ ” he said. “When I learned of the mistake, I did what was right and took care of it.”
The Daily Callersaid that The Washington Post is confusing one prostitute for another in an attempt to debunk the allegations that Senator Robert Menendez paid for sex in the Dominican Republic last Easter.
DC said that the escort whose affidavit that WaPo obtained is not one of the women that the conservative site interviewed via webcam last year. WaPo also is dealing with a different Dominican lawyer than the one who assisted DC with the story.
New Jersey’s main stream media was slow to report the Menendez prostitution allegations, waiting almost three months from the first report until the story graced their pages. They were extraordinarily quick in reporting the Washington Post story claiming the prostitute faked it…the story was posted on NJ.com less than 1/2 hour after WaPo reported it.
Let’s see how they handle Daily Caller defending the story.
Statement from The Daily Caller:
The Washington Post falsely reported a story yesterday claiming our source had recanted her statement, without contacting The Daily Caller for comment before posting. In reality, the prostitute in the Post’s story does not appear to be one of the women we interviewed in 2012. Details provided by the prostitute identified as Ms. Santana in the Post story conflict with the taped interviews The Daily Caller posted on November 1, including the mention of a person whose name would not come to light for months afterward. In addition, Melanio Figueroa, the attorney for TheDC’s sources, has said the Post’s allegations are fabricated and that the affidavit is false. The Post would not provide TheDC with a copy of the affidavit, despite our request. We stand by our reporting.
One of the Dominican escorts who said she was stiffed by Senator Bob Menendez now says she was paid to read a fabricated script and that in truth she has never met Menendez, according to a Washington Post report. (hat tip Star Ledger)
The woman identified a lawyer who approached her and a friend to make the videotape, according to affidavits obtained by the Post. That man has in turn identified another lawyer who gave him a script for the tape and paid him to find women to fabricate the claims, the affidavits say.
The escort was one of two women who taped videos that seems to support a tipster’s allegations that Menendez had patronized prostitutes while vacationing in the Dominican Republic.
FBI agents conducting interviews in the Dominican Republic have found no evidence to back up the tipster’s allegations, according to two people briefed on their work.
Daily Caller, the site that first broke the Menendez prostitution story has yet to report on this latest development. Breitbart, the site that now employs the reporter who broke the story, posted a wire service piece on the escort’s latest claims.
The Menendez for Senate campaign spent $1812 with the flight tracking website, FlightAware, in December, according to the campaign’s year end report with the Federal Election Commission. (hat tip, The Auditor) The expense was listed as a disbursement for the senator’s 2018 primary campaign.
A Premium+ commercial membership to FlightAware costs $39.95 per month. Perhaps Menendez pre-paid for a 45.36 month subscription? More likely, as The Auditor speculated, Menendez was doing a review of the flights taken on Dr. Salomon Melgen’s private jet. In January of this year Menendez reported that he took two flights on Melgen’s jet in 2010 and belated reimbursed his generous benefactor $58,500 for the luxury travel with personal funds. FlightAware offers custom reports in addition to its monthly subscription service.
Menendez must have a memory problem if he couldn’t remember taking the two private flights. Or maybe he files on lots of private jets. Or maybe Melgen was too busy with the FBI to check his records for Menendez on the exact date and time of the flights. Either way, its good that Menendez got the information in preparation for his 2018 primary campaign.
Menendez is taking the 2018 primary campaign very seriously. In addition to his research in to his own travel habits, the Menendez campaign spent $3,978.73 on T-shirts to secure the nomination in five years, according to the FEC report.
One of the reporters who covered Menendez on his “I don’t need any rehabilitating” press day with school kids as props sent a note to correct this post. The senator’s staff only restricted the questions reporters could ask during a conference call about his trip to Afghanistan. There were no restrictions during the press conference about sequestration at Newark Liberty Airport or while Menendez was reading to the children.
Kudos to the reporters for not asking tough questions about prostitutes, sex with children and the ethics of Menendez’s relationship with Dr. Salomon Melgen during the book readings with kids.
Why the kit gloves during the press conference? The reporter said that Menendez did not allow a lot of time for questions and split right before the press conference ended.
It seems to me that the New Jersey press corp is leaving the heavy lifting regarding Menendez to the national media. At least NJ.com and APP ran today’s Associated Press lengthy story about how Menendez sponsored legislation to help Melgen’s investment in a “green energy” company in addition to the Dominican Republic port security deal.
After hiding out in the bowels of the Capitol and the hills of Afghanistan for most of February, Senator Bob Menendez came out to New Jersey’s press yesterday with school kids as props, according to a Star Ledger report.
The senator’s staff laid out ground rules…no questions about flights to the Dominican Republic on Dr. Salomon Melgen’s private jet and no questions about Senate hearings held specifically for Melgen’s benefit. New Jersey’s mainstream media has never bothers to ask questions about prostitutes or sex with underage Dominican girls. It probably wasn’t necessary to deem such questions off limits. From the Star Ledger’s report, it would seem that all the reporters complied with Menendez’s wish that he not be asked “off-topic” questions. Wouldn’t it be nice if the press corp gave Governor Chris Christie the same courtesy.
Menenedez read House Mouse, Senate Mouseto a group of 15 4-5 years olds at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Newark, held a news conference about sequestration at Newark Liberty Airport, and met another group of school children in Lodi.
Asked whether the senator’s packed schedule was intended to rehabilitate his image at home after a month of harsh news coverage, Menendez bristled and said his appearance with the children was part of “Read Across America Day,” which he has participated in for almost 20 years.
“It’s far from rehabilitating,” said Menendez, who has repeadedly characterized the accusations as part of a smear campaign by right-wing forces. “It’s about being able to go ahead and express to kids the importance of reading,”
“And secondly,” he said, “I don’t think I need any rehabilitating.”
Will Senate Democrats continue to give Menendez cover if he lied to them?
The reporter who first broke the Menendez sex scandal storyposted an eyewitness account of Senator Robert Menendez dining with Dr. Salomon Melgen one mile from Teterboro Airport on Easter morning of 2012, while Melgen’s private plane was being refueled for a direct flight to the Dominican Republic.
Menendez has admitted to taking three flights to the DR on Melgen’s jet. One was paid for by the Democratic Senatorial Committee. The other two were reported and paid for personally by Menendez…almost three years after the fact…as a result of NJ State Senator Sam Thompson’s ethics complaint filed in November of 2012. Menendez paid $58,500 for the two flights last month.
The Dominican prostitutes who first fingered Menendez said they met him during Easter of 2012. Menendez’s and Melgen’s friend, Dominican politician Vinicio Castillo Seman admitted that the senator was the Dominican Republic on Easter of last year, according to Breitbart.
In addition, Menendez’s and Melgen’s friend–powerful Dominican politician Vinicio Castillo Seman–recently slipped up and admitted the senator was in the Dominican Republic on Easter Sunday in 2012, at the scene of where the original alleged wrongdoing took place. “I’ve known Menendez as a friend and of my cousin Salomon Melgen,” Castillo said while attempting to defend Menendez amid the scandalous allegations that currently plague him. “No one has come forward on the allegations and evil accusations, we spend every Easter together in Casa de Campo.”
Though it is now known Menendez spent Easter in Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic with Melgen and Castillo, it is unclear how he got there. He and his staff have continually refused to answer that question.
But it has appeared for a long time that Menendez got there via Melgen’s plane. Flight path data obtained by Breitbart News and published in early February shows Melgen’s plane flew from Melgen’s home city West Palm Beach, Florida, to Teterboro, New Jersey, on Easter Sunday morning. It stayed there at Teterboro from its landing at 11:30 a.m. until taking off to head straight to the Dominican Republic at 12:50 p.m.
It is during this timeframe Melgen’s plane was on the ground in New Jersey, refueling and preparing for the flight to the Dominican Republic, that Breitbart News’ eyewitness in the area said he saw Menendez and Melgen brunching together at Arena Diner a mile or so away from the airport.
If Menendez was on the Melgen’s flight to the Dominican Republic last Easter, he’s been lying to the American people, and the Senate Ethics Committee, since early January when he paid $58,500 for the flights he’s admitted to belatedly.
Menendez and his office continue to refuse to answer whether the senator was on that flight, or if he got to the Dominican Republic that Sunday another way.
Fresh from his trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez attended a Black History Month celebration in Trenton yesterday. During his remarks at the Shiloh Baptist Church, the senator invoked the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and the Gospel of Luke to fend off the allegations of financial impropriety, prostitution and abuse of power, according to a report in The Star Ledger.
“Dr. King said that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,’” Mendez said, prompting calls of “alright” from some in the audience at the Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton. “In the end, I believe that justice will overcome the forces of darkness. Scriptures — scriptures tell us that he who ‘puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.’
“I have my hand on the plough,” he said, “and I am going to continue to look forward and to work to make that plough lead us to the fulfillment of educational, economic and health care opportunity in this country.”
You probably won’t read about it in The Star Ledger or The Asbury Park Press, unless The Washington Post or The New York Times picks it up.
The Daily Caller posted another Bob Menendez pay for play story last night. A women in her 30’s, a “professional escort” who travels between Miami and Boston to service her clients told DC that Menendez and several other U.S. senators paid her for sex.
A professional escort who travels the East Coast seeing clients in cities from Miami to Boston has identified a photo of Senator Bob Menendez as a man who paid her for sex. The woman, in her late 30s, told The Daily Caller prior to seeing Menendez’s photo that she had been paid to provide sexual favors to several U.S. senators, including a New Jersey Democrat and other politicians who are no longer living.
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Menendez, she said, is “quite a hobbyist. He sees a lot of girls and doesn’t seem to have the skills to have a relationship.”
“Hobbyists,” she explained, are men who “‘hobby’ in seeing many girls, as many as they can,” referring to escorts who offer companionship and sexual favors in exchange for what they euphemistically call financial “donations.”
If the allegations are true, Menenedez has set a high standard for what should happen:
Maybe he was doing research in the Dominican Republic
U.S. Senator Bob Menendez is co-sponsoring the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act, a bill that would expand comprehensive sex education programs in schools, while ensuring that federal funds are spent on “effective, age-appropriate and medically accurate” programs, according to The Hill.
The Real Education for Healthy Youth Act aims to reduce unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and expand sex education programs at colleges and universities. The bill would also prevent federal funds from being spent on “ineffective, medically inaccurate” sex-education programs.
“Research has shown that programs which teach abstinence and contraception effectively delay the onset of sexual intercourse, reduce the number of sexual partners, and increase contraceptive use among teens,” Lee said. “These programs also reduce unintended pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.”
Senator Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) are the primary sponsors of the legislation.
New Jersey voters either strongly disapprove of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and think he’s dishonest, or they really don’t care much about the news of his ongoing scandals, depending on which poll you trust.
This morning the Quinnipiac Polling Institute released a poll that indicates that Menendez approval rating is down 15 points in one month. By a 44%-28% margin, New Jersey voters say he is not honest or trustworthy. Menendez’s approval numbers are upside down with 41% of voters disapproving of him and only 36% approving.
Just a week ago, Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press released a poll with the headline Sen Menendez Unaffected By Donor Scandal . The Monmouth/APP poll says that 68% of New Jersey voters had heard about “the donor scandal” but that only 24% thought the senator was involved in any wrongdoing. The poll said that 65% either hadn’t formed an opinion or hadn’t heard enough. The Monmouth/APP poll said that Menendez’s approval ratings werre similar to prior ratings over the last two years. Last week, 41% of the voters approved of the job Menendez is doing and only 28% disapproved.
Menendez has been in Afghanistan and out of the news for most of the week between poll releases.
This time around, Murray’s poll release is flawed. His numbers are fine. It’s his spin, which determines how most news outlets report the poll, that is the problem.
to a group of 15 4-5 years olds at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Newark, held a news conference about sequestration at Newark Liberty Airport, and met another group of school children in Lodi.
U.S. Senator Bob Menendez is co-sponsoring the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act, a bill that would expand comprehensive sex education programs in schools, while ensuring that federal funds are spent on “effective, age-appropriate and medically accurate” programs, according to