NBC 4 NY: New, expanding criminal investigation into Menendez

FEDERAL PROBE INTO MENENDEZ IS WIDENING

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Grand Jury Investigating Menendez

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.”

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Oxley to get his hearing

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 Ledger is 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.

Posted: February 4th, 2013 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Bob Menendez, Joe Oxley, NJ Media | Tags: Dr. Salomon Malgen, Joe Oxley, Soloman Dwek, Star Ledger | 2 Comments »

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Congressman Sires Says Castro Is Out To Get Menendez

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.

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Menendez-Melgen Relationship: It’s more than plane trips and hookers.

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.

Maybe Reid will take The New York Times more seriously.

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.

Menendez abusing the powers of his office on the behalf on campaign contributors or out of personal vengeance is not news to regular MMM readers. Over the years we’ve written about how he and other Democrats in the New Jersey congressional delegation pressured the FDA to approve a faulty medical device, how he blocked the appoinment of a federal judge whose boyfriend investigated him as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and how he used Senatorial Courtesy to end the career of a distinguished diplomat at the behest of campaign donors.

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

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What if Menendez resigns or is expelled from the Senate?

Don’t count on it happening.  Senator Bob Mendendez as already survived a recall effort, an FBI investigation while Chris Christie was U.S. Attorney, Tom Kean JR and Joe Kyrillos.  There’s little reason, so far, to think Menendez won’t survive his latest scandals involving illegal campaign donations and gifts, a sex offender illegal immigrant intern and allegations of engaging with prostitutes and underage girls in the Dominican Republic.Why would Menedez resign? It’s not as if he tweeted nude pictures of himself, or anything as bad as that.

For a senator to be expelled requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate.  The Senate Select Committee on Ethics has not responded to State Senator Sam Thompson’s complaint about Menendez filed last November.  There is no reason to think the Democratically controlled Senate will even consider censuring Menendez, much less expelling him, unless the FBI’s current investigation results in an indictment and/or conviction.

But if Menendez’s seat in the Senate were to become vacant this year, it would put New Jersey politics into a fabulous turmoil that would be fun to cover and generate unprecedented blog traffic.  “Peter Williams,” if you’re reading, please cooperate with the FBI and bring the Domincan girls with you to the USofA!

Read the rest of this entry »

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Menendez Ponies Up $58,500 For Two Flights To The Dominican Republic

Embattled U.S. Senator Bob Menendez reimbursed his friend and campaign contributor, West Palm Beach eye doctor Salomon Melgen $58,500 for two flights to the Dominican Republic on Melgen’s private jet almost three years after the flights took place, according to reports in The Star Ledger and The Daily Caller.

Menendez’s spokesman Paul Brubaker told the Ledger that the senator, prompted by the ethics complaint filed by NJ State Senator Sam Thompson last November,  reviewed his travel and discovered that he should have paid Melgen for an August 2010 flight between Florida and the Dominican Republic and a September 2010 flight from Teterboro to the DR.  Menendez paid Melgen $58,500 for the flights on January 4, 2013.

T.J.Hooker is selling flights from Miami to Punta Cana for $446.

Menendez’s chief of staff, Dan O’Brien told NBC News that the over two year gap in paying for the flights was an office mistake, according to Daily Caller.

“This was sloppy,” O’Brien conceded about two 2010 flights. “I’m chalking it up  to an oversight.”

No one has reported what, if anything, Menendez reimbursed Melgen for his food, lodging and party favors on the trips.  Senate rules prohibited members from accepting gifts valued at more the $250 without prior permission from the ethics committee.  We’d call Brubaker, but he stopped returning our calls last summer during the senator’s campaign.

Menendez finally denied he had sex with prostitutes while in the Dominican Republic, saying the charges were manufactured by a right-wing blog. Presumably he’s referring to Daily Caller.

FoxNews reported last night that Menendez cleared his Washington schedule yesterday.  He cancelled a meeting with Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew and skipped John Kerry’s fare well speech on the Senate floor.

On the home front however, it was politics as usual for Menendez.  Yesterday afternoon he sent out a fundraising email asking his supporters to thank Hillary Clinton for her years of service.

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