E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez this month wrote a $58,500 check to a company owned by a South Florida eye doctor and political fundraiser to reimburse him for two personal flights to the Dominican Republic that the New Jersey Democrat did not report on his Senate financial disclosure form, his office confirmed to NBC News Wednesday night.
The disclosure came as law enforcement sources confirmed that FBI agents searched the West Palm Beach, Florida, offices of the doctor, Salomon Melgen, Tuesday night as part of an investigation that includes agents from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Melgen is a major Democratic political donor and fundraiser who together with family has contributed more than $200,000 to Democratic candidates, including $33,000 to Menendez.
Menendez’s office confirmed that the senator — who this week became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – wrote the check to Melgen from his personal account after aides reviewed his flight schedule in response to a complaint that a New Jersey Republican official filed with the Senate Ethics Committee last November. The complaint alleged that Menendez violated Senate Ethics rules by “repeatedly flying on a free jet to the Dominican Republic and other locations” and that the jet was provided by Melgen.
“This was sloppy,” Dan O’Brien, Menendez’s chief of staff, told NBC News about Menendez’s failure to pay for the two 2010 flights at the time. “I’m chalking it up to an oversight.” Asked whether the senator has been contacted by the Senate Ethics Committee about the matter, O’Brien responded: “We can assume the Senate Ethics Committee is looking at the allegation. ”
O’Brien provided new details about Menendez’s relationship with the Florida doctor amid a swirl of media reports about the FBI probe. He said Menendez and the doctor have been longtime personal friends and that the senator has visited Melgen at his home in the Dominican Republican “about twice a year,” including attending Melgen’s daughter’s wedding. He said Menendez has generally flown commercial for those flights and paid for them out of his own pocket.
He confirmed that Melgen has also been an active fundraiser for Menendez, holding events for him at his home in South Florida as well as at a home he owns in Caso de Campo, a Dominican resort.
All told, the senator took three flights aboard Melgen’s jet in 2010 — one of which that May involved a trip to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republican for political fundraisers, O’Brien said. One of those fundraisers was at Melgen’s home in the Dominican Republic, O’Brien said. The May 2010 flight for fundraisers on the two islands was paid for at the time by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which Menendez then chaired.
But after the ethics complaint was filed Nov. 3, his aides conducted what they described as an “exhaustive review of Menendez’s schedule” and found that the senator had taken two additional flights aboard Melgen’s corporate jet. One, from Aug. 6 to Aug. 9, 2010, was from south Florida to the Dominican Republic and back to south Florida. Another was from Sept. 3 to Sept. 6, 2010, was from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to the Dominican Republican and back to New Jersey. In at least one of those flights, Menendez brought along guests, O’Brien said.
O’Brien said that after the review — spurred by the ethics complaint — Menendez wrote the $58,500 to Melgen’s company from his personal account. Under Senate ethics rules, senators are allowed to accept gifts from personal friends, but any valued at more than $250 must be publicly reported and approved by the Senate Ethics Committee.
In a statement earlier Wednesday, Menendez’s office said that: “Dr. Melgen has been a friend and political supporter of Senator Menendez for many years. Senator Menendez has traveled on Dr. Melgen’s plane on three occasions, all of which have been paid for and reported appropriately.”
That statement made no reference to Menendez paying for the trips in January, two months after the ethics committee complaint was filed. Asked about the omission, a spokeswoman for the senator said: “There was never any intention to be misleading.”
The spokeswoman said the senator was not aware of any time requirement for reimbursing for personal trips. She also said Menendez, by reimbursing for the flights, was not claiming the trips aboard Dr. Melgen’s plane was a personal gift. Although personal gifts above $250 need ethics committee approval, Menendez was not claiming the flights as a gift and therefore does not need to seek approval of them from the committee, the spokeswoman said.
Leave a Comment:
I am surprised that, rangle was able make enough room for menedez in pelosi's swamp???
Haha! So he was at least guilty of taking money and favors illegally. Now let's see if he was dipping his wick in the Dominican Republic's finest.
Any mass shootings today? Hell, it's too early for the lazy white trash to be out there. They boozed it up last night while listening to country music. They got their food stamps yesterday and the welfare check tomorrow.
Didn't know that... But, I guess you would know the schedule..
Yhuba, yes there has been a school shooting in Atlanta.. A fifteen year old girl shot in the head by
another student...Now you tell us who this is....OK, miss know it all.
Hello Jean, how are you? Thanks for sharing that terrible news. I guess our gun culture is asserting itself over the Hollywood and NRA video games, every day. Ain't that terrible?
Any mass shootings today? Hell, it's too early for the lazy white trash and their guns to be out there. They boozed it up last night while listening to country music. They got their food stamps yesterday and the welfare check tomorrow.
It didn't sound any less idiotic the 2nd time....
Yhbua, yep you keep repeating yourself...But you sure know the schedule of these events, you must
be in line with them all... Breaking News :School Shooting in Atlanta, fifteen yr old girl shot in the head by a student.
Your family?
Your avatar looks strangley like an ape. Is that so?
Darn, I spoke too soon. These NRA gun suckers ara at it again. Some DA in Texas was shot to death on his way to work.
Fox News reporting that the shooter is an angry person who was a law biding citizen until today. NRA disputed the statement asserting that he had just escaped a mental institution
By Frank Heinz, NBCDFW.com
A Kaufman County, Texas, assistant district attorney was gunned down while walking to work Thursday morning, police say.
The victim, whose identity has not yet been confirmed, was shot multiple times while walking from the parking lot toward the county courthouse at about 8 a.m., officials said. The victim was transported to a nearby hospital where he later died.
No arrests have been reported in connection with the shooting. Police said witnesses have reported two shooters wearing all black, one or both of them possibly wearing a tactical-type vest, and driving an older, silver Ford Taurus.
What's with Texas? Last week shooting at some college in Houston. Don't these folks know that guns could stop a bad guy?
What's with your weak attempt to deflect the conversation from the sordid story of a crooked Demosocialist?
The recipient of the bullet did not have a gun.
The shooter was stopped by an armed police officer on duty at the school.
Offical Dimocrap response-----"What differance would it possibly make if the hookers were of legal age"
FOUR DOMINICAN HOOKERS Confirm They Attended Sex Parties With Sen. Bob Menendez
Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, January 31, 2013, 8:11 AM
The main source in the Bob Menendez underage hooker scandal sent the FBI the names of four hookers who confirmed they had attended sex parties with Salmon Melgen and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in the Dominican Republic. On Tuesday, FBI agents raided the West Palm Beach business of Dr. Melgen who is suspected of providing free trips and even underage Dominican Republic prostitutes to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
."
Also, a Dominican prostitute told investigators that Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) liked the youngest and freshest hookers.
David Martosko and Charles C. Johnson at the Daily Caller reported:
In a little-noticed email published online Wednesday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a young Dominican woman wrote nine months ago that she slept with 59-year-old New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez at a series of sex parties organized by Dr. Salomon Melgen, a longtime Menendez campaign donor.
"That Senator also likes the youngest and newest girls," the woman wrote on April 21, 2002, according to an English translation provided to The Daily Caller by a native Spanish speaker.
"In the beginning he seemed so serious, because he never spoke to anyone, but he is just like the others and has just about the same tastes as the doctor, very refined. I think they were taking us more often to get us checked [medically] because of him."
TheDC is not disclosing the woman's name because she may have been a minor when her alleged sexual encounters with Menendez occurred. Four different Spanish speakers who reviewed TheDC's translation of her letter all said her Spanish writing indicated someone who was very young and unsophisticated.
CREW chose to publish her name, despite her concerns for her safety.
Her account of the sex parties Menendez allegedly attended in the Dominican Republic is the most detailed to surface since TheDC first began reporting on the story in November.
It's allegedly PEDOPHILIA! The bimbo on "MSNBC" right now, has said nothing about it. She is on her CRACKER rant instead. IF IT WAS A REPUBLICAN....
Amazing they mentioned "Democrat" in the 3rd paragraph. They usually wait to the end unless it was a Republican, then it would be in the 1st.
Just need to say Menedez is a DEMOCRAT !!!! ....somehow MSNBC missed that part of his description !!!
Liberal corruption? - Yes - We Lie and it does not matter in Obamanation
Hmmm - the economy - shrank
Go figure
Unemployment rose...go figure.
That stupid Romney...oops its obama...sorry.
What difference does it make now...or so sir hillary said.
Menendez walks a tightrope.. he is a big Latino target with a big bulls-eye on his back. Every ethnic candidate should know this, and do their work accordingly without being careless along the way. This has been true since reconstruction, and the civil-rights clashes of the 50's-60's...!!!!!
pretty expensive pair of flights, ill venture that the only reason he paid them back is that he got caught
which is typical of the criminals we put into the senate and house and then keep re-electing them
The sad part is the Pimp or the girls didn't get paid...Part of the Empty Suit's budget cuts........
maybe next time he will fly coach. its cheaper
Airline tickets from Denver to the Dominican Republic cost about $700.00. Two trips are well under $2,000.00. Whats the other $56,500.00 for? Wink, Wink!
....just another thieving Democrat............
Thank you for having sense.
It's nothing partisan, just another thieving politician. We need watchdogs for the watch dogs.
Menendez is another supporter of AMNESTY for illegals. He needs to be booted out at the next election.
ALL these politicians are a bunch of booty sniffing bottomfeeders so lets get real here! If any of you try to deny it then your dummer then I though and deserve to get raped by all of them...from both sides of the aisle. They are all in it for themselves and could seriously care less about any of us unless we got some coin to toss in their campaign treasure chests.
And there is 11 million more just like him coming ! Nice, real nice.
Laws do not apply to liberal and Democrat politicians.
I do not believe that anything will happen to Menendez.He and his gang of seven are not ever going to be held accountable for any misdeed.
Menendez is one more Dem from New Jersey who is corrupt to the core. This must be something in the water in the so called "Garden State". But watch the liberal press protect him and claim this is a right wing conspiracy against him. And the Congressional Ethics Committee is a farce IMHO