seems like something we ought to be discussing. tours to have sex with underage prostitutes by someone with a significant role in the immigrant debate would seem at least as important as a wide stance between consenting adults. and that got a lot of play. of course, Menendez is Harry Reid's "friend."
growing... -- Doctor at center of New Jersey Senate scandal donated to McAuliffe A new connections emerged today between the doctor at the center of a controversy surrounding New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez (D) and Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic Nominee for governor of Virginia. Menedez has been accused of soliciting prostitutes with the help of Solomon Melgen, a Miami doctor and longtime Democratic a campaign contributor. Menendez denies the accusations. Melgen is currently under investigation by the FBI, but has not been charged with a crime. Over the weekend, the Miami Herald, which initially linked McAuliffe and Melgen, outlined the fund raising mechanism Melgen used to support Democratic candidates across the country. While Melgen donated some to candidates directly, the vast majority of his contributions came from his company Vitreo-Retinal Consultants. According to the Herald, some $1.4 million has been spread around the country to Democrats courtesy of the Vitreo-Retinal since 1992. While most of his donations are to Democrats, Melgen has also donated to Republicans, including former President George W. Bush. Among those benefiting from Vitreo-Retinal's contributions? Terry McAuliffe. According to VPAP, In 2009 McAuliffe's gubernatorial campaign received two separate donations from Melgen's company of $5 thousand each. Those are the only two donations Vitreo-Retinal or Melgen has made to a candidate in Virginia directly. McAuliffe took in more than $8 million for his failed 2009 bid from hundreds of donors and the Meglen contribution is rather insignificant in the grand scheme of his funding apparatus. McAuliffe had at least 150 donors who contributed at least $10 thousand to his campaign the last go around. The donation is also insignificant from Melgen's perspective when you consider he donated $700 thousand dollars to the Democratic Senate Campaign's Majority PAC. Money that was largely funneled to support Menendez. But Republicans, as you might expect, aren't buying that argument. "These donations speak to a bigger connection between Terry McAuliffe and Dr. Solomon Melgen than just 'playing golf together,' as Chairman McAullife has claimed," said Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Pat Mullins. "Terry McAuliffe owes the voters of Virginia a detailed explanation of his personal and campaign dealings with Melgen." The McAuliffe campaign remains steadfast in their belief that the connection between Melgen and the Democratic nominee is a thin one. "If there was any wrongdoing Melgen, needs to be held fully accountable for his actions," said Josh Schwerin, McAuliffe's Press Secretary. http://blogs.nbc12.com/decisionvirg...rsey-senate-scandal-donated-to-mcauliffe.html
Another day, another likely basso fail. Escort says Menendez prostitution claims were made up An escort who appeared on a video claiming Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) paid her for sex has told Dominican Republic police that she was instead paid to make up the claims in a tape recording and has never met or seen the senator before, according to court documents and two people briefed on her claim. The woman identified a lawyer who approached her and a friend to make the videotape, according to affidavits obtained by the Post. That man has in turn identified another lawyer who gave him a script for the tape and paid him to find women to fabricate the claims, the affidavits say. The escort was one of two women who taped videos that seems to support a tipster’s allegations that Menendez had patronized prostitutes while vacationing in the Dominican Republic. FBI agents conducting interviews in the Dominican Republic have found no evidence to back up the tipster’s allegations, according to two people briefed on their work. Menendez has denied the prostitution claims and called them entirely false “smears” used by enemies to try to defeat him in his recent re-election campaign and his selection as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It’s amazing to me that anonymous, nameless, faceless individuals on a Web site can drive that type of story into the mainstream, but that’s what they’ve done successfully,” Menendez said last month. “Now, nobody can find them. No one ever met them. No one ever talked to them, but that’s where we’re at. So the bottom line is all of those smears are absolutely false and, you know, that’s the bottom line.” The women’s videotaped claims, with their faces obscured, were played on the conservative Web site The Daily Caller. The news site reported that “the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000-acre resort in the Dominican Republic...They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.” But in an affidavit obtained Monday, one of the women on the tape, who describes herself as an escort, said she and a colleague were offered money by a lawyer to read from a script. The woman said she was surreptitiously videotaped implicating Menendez and Melgen.
It was only a matter of time. Good riddance. Senators Menendez and Torricelli were the epitome of New Jersey corruption. Glad to see that he finally might have been caught.
Props to Holder the head of the Justice Department for going after this. If he's guilty he should be held accountable.
