Senator Menendez

[Trades]

How is it possible that we haven't discussed Senator Menendez yet? Underage prostitutes? Government favor for friends off shore businesses? Oh wait he is a democrat, nothing to see here.

If this doesn't show media bias what does? Menendez was on ABC and he wasn't even asked about any of this. They talked about immigration. Yet some dumb ass republican makes a stupid remark about rape and the media acts as though every republican agrees.

Posted on Thu, Jan. 31, 2013
Long before FBI raid, Sen. Menendez tried to help donor’s Dominican Republic business

By Marc Caputo and Melissa Sanchez
mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com


J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE / AP
Sen. Bob Menendez

Sen. Bob Menendez used his influence to advocate for a Dominican Republic business deal that helped a longtime friend and donor whose South Florida office was raided by federal agents this week. Menendez questioned Obama administration officials at a July hearing about what it was doing to help U.S. businesses that he felt were being unfairly treated by the government of the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries.

One company Menendez was apparently referring to: ICSSI, acquired the year before by Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Palm Beach County eye doctor and friend. The firm was seeking to enforce a contract it had won to X-ray Dominican Republic port cargo, that could be worth $500 million to $1 billion over two decades.

“You have another company that has American investors that ... has a contract actually given to it by the — ratified by the Dominican Congress — to do X-ray of all of the cargo that goes through the ports,” Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, said at the July 31 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. “And they don’t want to live by that contract either.”

Menendez didn’t mention ICSSI by name in talking to Francisco J. Sánchez, the Commerce Department’s undersecretary for international trade and Matthew Rooney, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs for the State Department.

Menendez’s office said the senator did nothing improper. Senators, especially on the Foreign Relations Committee that Menendez will soon chair, frequently advocate for U.S. business abroad.

In addition to trade, the senator’s office said he was concerned about fighting drugs.

“Senator Menendez has over the last few years advocated for more attention to the spread of narco-trafficking throughout Central America and the Caribbean,” chief of staff Danny O’Brien said. “It is an issue of protecting our national security, and these drugs end up on our streets and in our communities, fueling crime and addiction.”

Still, Menendez’s close ties to Melgen have been under a white-hot spotlight ever since federal agents raided the eye doctor’s West Palm Beach office on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The raid included agents from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which are investigating the doctor for alleged Medicare fraud.

At the same time, the FBI is conducting a separate corruption probe of the doctor and his relationship with Menendez, including trips they took to the Dominican Republic.

The FBI began examining the two last year after the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington forwarded a batch of emails from a shadowy tipster who claimed Menendez and Melgen had hired underage prostitutes at the ophthalmologist’s Dominican home — charges both deny.

An FBI agent tried, but failed to meet with the tipster, who refused to even phone the agent.

As the conservative press began circulating the reports about the two, the New Jersey Republican Party filed a complaint against Menendez for flying on Melgen’s private plane to the Dominican Republic but failing to disclose the gifts.

Menendez’s office checked his schedule and realized the senator had flown twice on Melgen’s plane without paying for it in 2010. On Jan. 4, Menendez cut a check for $58,500 — the air-charter rate for the pricey flights —to fully settle the matter.

Menendez’s chief of staff, Danny O’Brien, said the senator maintains his innocence and has taken responsibility for his error in failing to pay for his charter flights with Melgen, a longtime friend.

“The Senator realized it was an oversight, that it was sloppy,’’ O’Brien said. “It was junior varsity at best.’’

By reimbursing Melgen for the flights, Menendez effectively undercut a standing ethics complaint and the possibility he’d face something more serious: a possible federal charge.

“It’s technically a federal crime to not report gifts on a federal financial-disclosure form,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW.

The flights, however, would no longer be considered a gift because Menendez just paid for them. And it doesn’t matter that he took the then-freebie flights more than two years ago, in 2010.

Menendez would have been required to disclose the flights on his federal financial disclosure forms if the trips were considered gifts that he didn’t pay for.

Menendez’s office said the senator could have claimed the flights as gifts, however, because Melgen is a longtime friend and would qualify under a type of friendship exemption concerning gifts to sitting members of Congress.

Melgen’s a big supporter of the senator, too.

Melgen and his family contributed $33,700 to Menendez, and another $60,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which Menendez chaired from 2009 to 2011, when he took the trips.

About that time, Melgen used a West Palm Beach-based company to buy a 50 percent share in ICSSI.

For more than a decade, the company had held a port-security contract in the Dominican Republic. But it had never gone into effect because of protests from a former Customs agency director who said the deal unfairly benefited the company.

Meanwhile, the country’s business community also complained that the contract would increase fees and hurt trade.

Last month, the president of country’s shipping association told Hoy newspaper that the industry couldn’t afford to pay additional fees to X-ray cargo.

“The problem here is that we’re looking at a contract that looks unfair because it was signed several administrations ago and that it essentially creates a monopoly in all the ports,’’ said association president Teddy Heinsen.

But Melgen’s supporters in the Dominican Republic charge that opposition to the deal is also rooted in the drug trade. The more port security and the more X-rays, they say, the more authorities will be aided in combating drug trafficking.

Menendez, when he spoke at the July hearing in Washington, didn’t sound more concerned about ICSSI than other companies. He mentioned a road builder by name that he thought was being unfairly treated. And he also brought up a dispute involving textiles.

© 2013 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/3...#storylink=cpy

[AlbanyJet]

Because he belongs to the political party identified with expected and acceptable abject failure, the Democrats.

[32green]

Originally Posted by Trades

If this doesn't show media bias what does? Menendez was on ABC and he wasn't even asked about any of this.

Last weekend he was on This week with George whatshismname and they never mentioned it. Meanwhile I read about the FBI investigation at least a week before and the morning "This week" aired.

Amazing.

-

[palmetto defender]

What's the problem? Is this more racism because Menendez is Hispanic?
And the underage girls were Dominicans, not Americans so where's the problem? Drugs? They should be legal, right?
Let's see. Menendez, Corzine, Torricelli, Harrison Williams (jail). A fine group of senators from the Garden State. Plus of coure, the "I am a gay American", governor Jim McGreevey who had a long list of corrupt events.

[cr726]

The Daily Caller has been covering Menedez DR trips since before the election.

[Jungle Shift Jet]

There is a US law that Mendacious voted for as a Rep, the PROTECT Act of 2003 that would result in fines and/or imprisonment for up to 30 years if he could ever be convicted.

[Frequent Flyer]

Originally Posted by Trades

How is it possible that we haven't discussed Senator Menendez yet?

Democrat Politician from NJ using taxpayer funded private jets to screw teenage hookers from a 3rd world nation----

This isn't a scandal, this is business as usual in NJ.

And the voters here love it.

[DDNYjets]

I was going to make a thread about this last week. Shocking () that we haven't heard much about this from the MSM. I guess they are "vetting" the sources to be sure before they run the story.

I thought only conservatives treated women poorly?

[OBENjet]

Turns out the "MSM" didn't cover this story because it's a fabrication.

Guess the "liberal media" does have better standards than the daily caller...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...b9d_story.html

[MnJetFan]

Originally Posted by Frequent Flyer

Democrat Politician from NJ using taxpayer funded private jets to screw teenage hookers from a 3rd world nation----

This isn't a scandal, this is business as usual in NJ.

And the voters here love it.

Chicago East!

[quantum]

So the hookers recanted

Because in 3rd world countries, its not like some bad people would visit you and threaten you to recant or else. That NEVER happens. NEVER.

[Bonhomme Richard]

Originally Posted by quantum

So the hookers recanted

Because in 3rd world countries, its not like some bad people would visit you and threaten you to recant or else. That NEVER happens. NEVER.

She was probably paid off. Money is more important to her than taking down a politician who has no bearing on her life.

[cr726]

Originally Posted by Bonhomme Richard

She was probably paid off. Money is more important to her than taking down a politician who has no bearing on her life.

So she was paid off twice?

[chiefst2000]

Originally Posted by cr726

So she was paid off twice?

The woman that "recanted" today was not one of the two original accusers. Daily Caller already addressed this.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/05/wa...z-allegations/

The Post has already quietly changed their story as well.

[Ernie]

Whether or not she recanted or made the whole story up, the fact remains that the MSM did not push the issue with Senator Melendez. They didn't even ask a question to allow him the opportunity to deny, which if it was all made up he certainly would have done willingly.

[cr726]

Originally Posted by Ernie

Whether or not she recanted or made the whole story up, the fact remains that the MSM did not push the issue with Senator Melendez. They didn't even ask a question to allow him the opportunity to deny, which if it was all made up he certainly would have done willingly.

The FBI is currently investigating Menedez, I guess we will have to wait and see.

[cr726]

Originally Posted by Ernie

Whether or not she recanted or made the whole story up, the fact remains that the MSM did not push the issue with Senator Melendez. They didn't even ask a question to allow him the opportunity to deny, which if it was all made up he certainly would have done willingly.

Uh oh.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - A Dominican prosecutor says a local attorney told him that someone claiming to be with the conservative website The Daily Caller paid him to find prostitutes who would lie about having sex with U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez from New Jersey.

Jose Polanco told The Associated Press on Friday that attorney Melanio Figueroa said he was promised $5,000 by someone named "Carlos" to find prostitutes. Polanco said Figueroa told him in an interrogation late Thursday that he was paid only $2,000 after finding the prostitutes.

Daily Caller Editor Tucker Carlson disputed Figueroa's statements, calling them "a lie."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/po...ostitutes.html

[Apache 51]

I can't stand that little troll.