CNN: Justice Dept. will soon charge Sen. Menendez
According to CNN News, the Justice Department will soon present criminal charges against Sen. Bob Menendez alleging that the New Jersey politician used his Senate office to “push” on behalf of a democratic donor and friend in exchange for gifts.
“The government’s case centers on Menendez’s relationship with Salomon Melgen, a [south] Florida ophthalmologist who the senator has called a friend and political supporter. Melgen and his family have been generous donors to the senator and various committees the senator is associated with,” CNN reports.
[For more background on the Menendez/Melgen dealings, click here and here.]
In today’s (March 6) exclusive CNN report, sources close to the case have confirmed that “Attorney General Eric Holder has signed off on prosecutors’ request to proceed with charges.” The CNN report also states that an announcement could come in a matter of weeks. It is important to note that prosecutors, reports CNN, “are under pressure in part because of the statute of limitation on some of the allegations.”
[To read an article that appeared in Progreso Weekly in February of 2013 titled “Everything you’d want to know about the Menendez probe”, click here]
Since reports surfaced of the friendship between Menendez and Melgen, Sen. Menendez has called the allegations part of a smear campaign against him.
According to CNN:
“The government’s case centers on Menendez’s relationship with Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist who the senator has called a friend and political supporter. Melgen and his family have been generous donors to the senator and various committees the senator is associated with.
“Investigators have focused in part on plane trips Menendez took in 2010 to the Dominican Republic as a guest of Melgen. In 2013, after word of the federal investigation became public, Menendez paid back Melgen $58,000 for the 2010 plane trips calling his failure to properly disclose the flights an ‘oversight.’
“Menendez has denied any wrongdoing in his ties to Melgen.”
Sen. Menendez last year lost his chairmanship in the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Democrats lost the majority in the Senate in the November elections. And although he is a Democrat, Sen. Menendez has been a vocal opponent of President Obama on the issues of easing the trade embargo on Cuba and the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, and also on the Obama’s efforts “to engage direct negotiations with Iran over that country’s nuclear program.”
To read the complete CNN report, click here.
