Federal authorities have indicted Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) with 14 counts of corruption, “including conspiracy to commit bribery and honest services fraud, in connection with his relationship with Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist and political donor. Melgen has also been charged.” The Hill,
The Justice Department alleges that Melgen bribed Menendez with loads of gifts including use of private jets, a Caribbean villa, a luxury hotel room in Paris, an exclusive Dominican resort, we well as donations to his legal defense fund set up to pay for legal fees associated with federal and congressional ethics investigations.
The 68-page indictment charges that Menendez hid a number of those gifts and did not report any that he received between 2007 and 2012.
In return for those and other favors, Menendez allegedly helped Melgen secure immigrant visas for his “foreign girlfriends” and meddled in a multimillion-dollar Medicare overbilling claim concerning Melgen, according to the indictment…
Menendez is also an authority on foreign policy. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the last Congress and its current ranking member, he has opposed the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations with Cuba and strike a nuclear deal with Iran.
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