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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.’ ”
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.