Judge refuses to throw out case against Sen. Bob Menendez

The judge at Sen. Bob Menendez's corruption trial refused to throw out any of the charges against the New Jersey Democrat on Monday in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling narrowing the definition of bribery.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Williams Walls was a major defeat for Menendez and a huge victory for prosecutors, who warned that dismissing the charges would torpedo nearly all other bribery cases and open the door wide to graft.

Walls rejected defense lawyers' arguments that the allegations against Menendez didn't meet the new, narrower definition of bribery under a 2016 Supreme Court ruling that reversed the conviction of Republican former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia.

In recent months, the McDonnell ruling led judges to throw out bribery convictions of at least three other former public officials, including a Pennsylvania congressman.

Federal prosecutors in the Menendez trial rested their case last week. The defense will now begin presenting its case.

Is Medicare the Democrats' slush fund?

Ex-Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who retired last year, was just fingered.....colluding to get Sen Menendez off the prosecutorial hook........conspiring to derail a federal Medicare probe of Menendez's pal, eye doctor Melgen (currently in jail).

Harry loves that Medicare money. Here's how Harry handed Democrats $4.3 billion tax dollars.......by attaching it to a Medicare bill.....flaunted as getting then-Louisiana Sen Mary Landrieu's yes vote on Obamacare. (Yet another indictment of the Obamacare atrocity).

The payoff to Landrieu should be investigated as an indication of how EVERY Democrat came to vote for Obamacare.

BACKSTORY In the fall of 2009, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was trying to get the necessary 60 Dimocrat votes to pass the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Reid needed every Dim on board, which gave waffling senators a great deal of leverage.

In Landrieu's case, she connivingly saw that selling her aye vote could get her maybe $200 million federal dollars. Obama complied--- Reid chalked up another vote for Obamacare---but $4.3 went to Landrieu not the $200,000 she had bargained for.

<><> Was Landrieu the baglady for buying other Democrats' yes votes? <><>

THE LANDRIEU PAPER TRAIL IS HUGE Landrieu sold her aye vote for a "price." Landrieu was bought off in what Forbes Magazine dubbed "The 'Louisiana Purchase" that included a massive $4.3 Billion to Landrieu.

FORBES REPORTED the Democrats’ nailed Landrieu’s support for Obamacare w/ a greenback bribe. Landrieu, critics believe, pledged her vote in exchange for some $200 million more additional federal funds for Louisiana.

Except that, due to a (cough) "drafting error," Reid's law ended up giving Landrieu $4.3 billion attached to a Medicare bill: more than twenty times the assigned amount.

MORE HERE http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

POLITICO revealed that Menendez's co-defendant, Dr Melgen, assiduously courted President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but that Melgen was unhappy with the return on his campaign donation "investments."

After meeting briefly with Obama at a 2010 fundraiser that Dr Melgen paid $30,400 to co-host, the eye doctor complained that “Obama didn’t even give him the time of day,” according to a source who travels in the same Miami political circles as Melgen.

The source said Melgen also expressed frustration that he couldn’t take his concerns about his questionable Medicare billing practices directly to Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius.

“He was ranting about HHS and Sebelius not understanding and not wanting to listen to him and not giving him a hearing,” said the source, who did not want to be identified WRT revealing the contents of private conversations.

Dr Melgen and friend.

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