Posted on 06/22/2013 7:16:58 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
WASHINGTON — Senator Robert Menendez sought to discourage any plan by the United States government to donate port security equipment to the Dominican Republic, citing concern that the advanced screening gear might undermine efforts by a private company — run by a major campaign contributor and friend of his — to do the work.
The intervention with the Department of Homeland Security last month came even though Mr. Menendez has publicly chastised the Obama administration for not doing more to combat the surging drug traffic moving through Dominican ports.
And it came shortly after the senator’s friend, Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, arranged to meet with a senior State Department official, accompanied by a former aide to Mr. Menendez, in a related push to protect the port security contract, which is worth as much as $500 million over 20 years.
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department declined to comment on the matter, with a State Department official citing an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee into related matters.
Mr. Menendez has broadly rejected any suggestion that his official actions have been driven by an effort to favor Dr. Melgen, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist who has repeatedly flown the senator on his private plane and has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Democrats in the Senate as well as Mr. Menendez’s re-election campaign.
Nobody has bought me, No. 1. Nobody. Never,” Mr. Menendez said in an interview late last week with Univision, the Spanish-language news station. “In the 20 years that I have been in Congress, never has it been suggested that this could even be possible.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Is this the big scandal.
This is nothing.
Every politician on the Hill does crap like this.
Look at Maxine Waters and her husbands bank.
The ethics Committee almost gave her a medal for it.
I don’t think this is it.
I would venture a guess that this is the same guy who was procuring 8th graders for Menendez’s rapist outings in the DR, what think you, Venturer?
in my family, if anyone ever did anything illegal or sleazy like giving money to a politician to get him to do something underhanded, they would feel the wrath of the rest of the family.
somehow im guessing dr Sols family is not going to be too upset about it.
Still, this will not become a scandal. Our attorney general gave assault rifles to Mexican drug lords which they then used to kill a border agent.... nobody cared.
Maybe this will give Whorealdo some ammunition if he runs against the creep, but I don’t want that bastard in the senate anyway.
Don’t have a clue as to this new “scandal”, but I do know it won’t bother him.
These guys are untouchable, look at Weiner, A beard for a homo, took pictures if his crotch and sent them out and is now running for Mayor of New York.
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