The scrutiny that his relationship with Dr. Salomon Melgen was getting didn’t keep U.S. Senator Bob Menendez from using his power as an advocate for his benefactor last month.
Menendez intervened with the Department of Homeland Security in January, asking that they not provide port security equipment to the Dominican Republic. Menendez was concerned that the advanced screening equipment would undermine the efforts of Melgen’s company that has a $500 million contract with the DR for port security operations. Dominican customs officials have been trying to cancel the contract with Melgen, citing its excessive cost, over the objections of Menendez.
Melgen has been a friend and contributor of Menendez’s for over 20 years. After being caught failing to disclose flights to the Dominican Republic on Melgen’s private plane, Menendez paid Melgen $58,500 in January for two flights that occurred in 2010. Melgen’s eye care clinic was raided by the FBI in January. Media reports say the eye doctor is being investigated for $8.9 million if Medicare/Medicaid fraud and that he owes the IRS $11 million.
Menendez has also intervened with federal health care officials regarding Medicare/Medicaid billing on behalf of Melgen.
U.S. Senator Bob Menendez told The Star Ledger last night that he will not step down from his new appointment as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the NY Times has called for him to do.
“I have no intention of doing that whatsoever because I don’t believe anything rises to the need to do so,” Menendez said tonight at a ball for D.A.R.E. New Jersey.
Menendez said he forgot to pay the $58,500 for two flights on his friend Dr. Salomon Melgen’s private jet because he was busy.
He said his intervention with the State Department on behalf of Melgen’s Dominican port security company…..he held a Senate Sub-Committee hearing for Melgen’s company…was no different than his advocacy on the port security issue domestically and abroad.
“The bottom line is I was advocating for ports to have screening just as I’ve advocated and helped pass amendments here in the United States,”
Menendez said his intervention on Melgen’s behalf with federal health care officials was a matter trying to clear up ambiguities on the governments part in how Melgen’s eye care clinic should submit bills for Medicare and Medicaid patients.
On the Medicare billing, Menendez said he was telling officials “there are ambiguities in the process by which you are telling providers what you should or should not do.”
“I would just also note that nothing of the questions that have been raised ended up being of any benefit – of any benefit – to the doctor.”
Melgen is accused of defrauding $8.9 million of government health care payments and owes the IRS $11 million.
The Senator said that the allegations that he had sex with prostitutes and teenagers at Melgen’s Dominican Republic mansion were politically motivated “smears.”
“It is no coincidence that it was being pedaled before the elections. No coincidence that it gets pedaled again as I assume the chairmanship. No coincidence that we have someone who’s never willing to meet anyone in the press or otherwise… You have to question what is the nature of the drive,” said Menendez.
Another Star Ledger article posted early this morning outlines how Melgen’s political contributions to Menendez coincided with the senator’s actions on behalf of his friend.
In a scathing editorial that did not mention the prostitution and pedophilia allegations against U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, The New York Times has called for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to remove New Jersey’s junior senator from his newly acquired post as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator Robert Menendez was never a distinguished choice for chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the position he ascended to this month by virtue of seniority. Concerns about that quality gap have sharply escalated amid new disclosures about Mr. Menendez’s use of his position to advance the financial interests of a friend and big donor. Instead of trying to protect Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, needs to remove his gavel, at least pending credible resolution by the Senate Ethics Committee of the swirling accusations of misconduct.
The editorial goes on the summarize how Menendez abused his power as a Senator on the behalf Dr. Salomon Melgen, his friend and benefactor. Menendez held a Senate Sub-Committee hearing, where he was the only senator present, to pressure the State Department to prevail on the Dominican Republic to enforce a contract for port security with a company that Melgen has an ownership interest in. In 2009 and 2012, Menendez contacted federal health care officials to question their rulings that Melgan had over-billed the government $8.9 million in Medicare and Medicaid payments to his Florida eye care clinic.
The editorial concludes,
It appears Mr. Menendez has learned little from his own previous ethics issues or from the fall of a former New Jersey senator, Robert Torricelli, who decided not to run for re-election in 2002 amid allegations that he had inappropriately aided a big donor and accepted expensive gifts. It is unclear whether the Senate Ethics Committee has initiated a formal inquiry into Mr. Menendez’s conduct, but a prompt and thorough review is surely called for. In the meantime, Mr. Menendez needs to relinquish his leadership role, at least temporarily.
When Robert Menendez arrived in the U.S. Senate in 2006, he was a relative pauper in a chamber often called a millionaires’ club. The New Jersey Democrat ranked 97th out of 100 senators in terms of his personal wealth, according to financial records filed that year and compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
So Menendez’s decision last month to use his personal funds to reimburse a prominent political contributor $58,500 for two flights to the Dominican Republic came at a major cost. The repayment amounts to between 32 percent and 87 percent of the assets Menendez reported holding in bank accounts and stock, according to his latest financial-disclosure form, which was filed last year.
Menendez repaid Florida eye doctor and political donor Salomon Melgen only after his free flights aboard Melgen’s plane became public and the subject of a Senate ethics complaint. A local New Jersey Republican group filed a complaint last November, alleging the senator had broken Senate rules by “repeatedly flying on a private jet to the Dominican Republic, and other locations.” Menendez reimbursed Melgen the $58,500 two months later, on Jan. 4, according to his office.
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Government watchdogs are dubious. They say Menendez’s financial situation adds fuel to questions about his motives and whether the free flights he accepted were a simple oversight.
“For a senator that’s not a Rockefeller, that’s real money,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “It kind of makes you wonder.… If he knew in advance that the trips were going to cost him $60,000, would he have done it?”
In the years after the Jack Abramoff scandal, which involved trips abroad for politicians, McGehee said it “stretches credibility” that Menendez was unaware he was receiving a gift while boarding a private flight to a Caribbean island. “You’re about to walk on a private plane, and you’re a public official—and that doesn’t occur to you?” she said.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, another watchdog group, was even less charitable.
“He waited until he was caught to pay them back,” she said. “If you rob a bank—and you’re caught—you don’t say, ‘Take the money back and forget about it.’ ”
Media bias evident when contrasting coverage of allegations against Oxley to allegations against Menendez
Former Monmouth County Sheriff Joe Oxley will finally get a hearing on his nomination to become a Superior Court Judge.
The Star Ledgeris reporting that Senate Democrats have reached a “blockbuster deal” to hold hearings on 20 judicial nominations, including Oxley’s, this week. The Senate Judiciary Committee has been sitting on these nominations with no action for months and New Jersey’s court system is backed up due to 55 judicial vacancies on the Superior Court level.
The Ledger is characterising Oxley’s nomination as “controversial” based upon their own report of a leaked deposition transcript wherein convicted fraudster Soloman Dwek said that Oxley gave him insider information regarding foreclosures in exchange for campaign contributions. The FBI investigated Dwek’s allegations and like many other of his tales, found that they were without merit.
The Ledger obviously thinks nothing of smearing a Republican’s good name based on allegations that have been investigated and dismissed, yet as we have seen since early November, they’ve been hiding from the public Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez alleged ethics violations and patronage of underage victims of prostitution.
Is Soloman Dwek a more credible source than State Senator Sam Thompson? Thompson filed an ethics complaint against Menendez on November 3rd, 2012 yet there was no mention of it in the Ledger until last week after the FBI raided the office of Menendez’s friend and campaign contributor Dr. Salomom Malgen in Florida.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and much of the left stream media has justified their lack of coverage of the Menendez scandal because of “the source,” the conservative website The Daily Caller. MMM has learned that The Daily Caller’s source shopped the Menendez story to The Star Ledger before going to The Caller.
There would be no controversy over Oxley’s nomination had The Star Ledger declined to turn a politically motivated leaked of Dwek’s allegations into a salacious story.
Shame on The Star Ledger for smearing the good name and threatening the career of Joe Oxley based on the word of Soloman Dwek while ignoring the words of Sam Thompson and giving Bob Menendez political cover.
Surprisingly, 2010 congressional candidate Scott Sipprelle was leading the poll by a wide margin before we took it down this morning. Sipprelle had 39% if the votes, followed by State Senator Joe Kyrillos with 19%. Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno and Congressman Chris Smith each had 12%. Here are the results of the original poll.
We’ve added former Highlands Mayor Anna Little’s name to the mix because we had a couple of complaints that she was excluded.
Congressman Albio Sires (D-NJ-8) told The Star Ledger that Cuban government could be out to smear Senator Bob Menendez’s good name.
“I won’t even be surprised if somehow the Cuban government is involved in this to try to damage Bob Menendez because he’s been so steadfast against the Castro government. He’s been a critic all his political life,” Sires said in a phone interview. “I would not be surprised if they are behind some of this stuff, some of these allegations. The Dominican Republic has a lot of relationships with Cuba.”
Hmmm. I wonder how Castro tricked Menendez into getting onto Salomon Malgen’s private plane. The Cuban spys must have put something in the senator’s cigar to make him forget to report the flights for two years.
As the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee for the Western Hemisphere, Sires is in the perfect position to get to the bottom of this and clear his friend Menendez’s name. I’m sure the committee chairman, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ), would be very interested in conducting a hearing into how the Cuban government is interfering in the business of the United States Senate.
While they’re at it, they should also investigate Dominican port security.
The New York Times reported yesterday that Malgen, Menendez’s friend and campaign contributor whose Florida office was raided by the FBI this week, is an owner of a DR port security firm. Dominican officials have been resisting honoring their contract with the firm. Menendez has intervened with the State Department to try to get the $50 million contract honored.
Aides acknowledged on Wednesday that Mr. Menendez had spoken to State Department officials about the contract. And at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere last July, he questioned two administration officials — Francisco J. Sánchez, the undersecretary for international trade at the Commerce Department, and Matthew Rooney, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs for the State Department — about why the United States government had not been more aggressive on the issue. The senator said more security was needed given the drug trade on the island.
Maybe Cuba is trying to smuggle drugs, rum, sugar,cigars and teen aged girls into the United States through the Dominican Republic and have paid off the DR customs officials to stop the cargo from being screened by Malgen’s company.
Sires should get to the bottom of this. He has the power.
NY Times exposes Menendez using his power to steer millions to donor
In defending his friend, Senator Bob Mendendez, against the salacious charges of sleeping with underage Dominican girls for money, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid dismissed the allegations because they originated with the conservative website, The Daily Caller.
Two years ago, Dr. Melgen, despite an apparent lack of experience in border security issues, bought an ownership interest in a company that had a long-dormant contract with the Dominican Republic to provide port security. Mr. Menendez, who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that holds sway over the Dominican Republic, subsequently urged officials in the State and Commerce Departments to intervene so the contract would be enforced, at an estimated value of $500 million.
We’ve been little more than an annoyance to Menendez. But now that the mainstream media is putting the senator under a microscope, he could be in real trouble. Yesterday I wrote that Menendez would probably survive his recent scandal unless he was indicted or convicted. Now I’m not so sure. At the very least, his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee could be at risk. There is one Democrat, Barbara Boxer of California, with more seniority than Menendez on the committee. Two Democrats, Robert Casey, Jr of Pennsylvania and Ben Cardin of Maryland have the same Senate seniority as Menendez. They must have ambitions and friendships with Harry Reid too
Even the liberal media is smelling blood in Senator Bob Menendez’s water. Sometimes a week really is a lifetime in politics.
MSNBC political analyst Steve Kornacki went on the Rachel Maddow Show to talk about the potential political fallout of Menendez scandal.
Kornacki said that Jets owner Woody Johnson would likely be Governor Christie’s choice to fill Menendez’s seat should the senator leave office this year in time for a special election in November.
In defending his friend, Senator Bob Mendendez, against the salacious charges of sleeping with underage Dominican girls for money, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid dismissed the allegations because they originated with the conservative website, The Daily Caller.