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New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez interceded on behalf of an Ecuadorian woman who was banned from traveling to the U.S. because of allegations she had engaged in visa fraud. The woman, Estafania Isaias, is the daughter of a fugitive from Ecuador convicted in absentia for bank fraud and whose relatives in Florida made significant campaign donations to the New Jersey Democrat's 2012 campaign and the Democratic Party. Current and former U.S. government officials tell NBC 4 New York that Estefania Isaias was barred from traveling to the U.S. in 2007 because she allegedly lied on visa applications to bring immigrant...

Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ) held a meeting in his Washington, DC, office in 2018 with a New Jersey businessman who is at the center of a federal corruption probe into the senator, the Wall Street Journal reported. Southern District of New York prosecutors are investigating Menendez as part of a corruption probe, which reportedly stems from facts similar to a 2015 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against Menendez and Democrat donor Salomon Melgen for conspiracy and bribery. According to the Wall Street Journal: The meeting, which hasn’t been previously reported, came months before the businessman, Wael Hana, secured...

The Justice Department moved on Wednesday to dismiss charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) after a federal judge tossed out several charges against the lawmaker last week. "In light of the Court’s January 24, 2018 Opinion and Order and pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a), the United States of America moves to dismiss the Superseding Indictment," Annalou Tirol, the acting head of the Justice Department's public integrity division, wrote in a motion to dismiss the indictment. U.S. District Judge William Walls moved last week to acquit Menendez and his co-defendant Salomon Melgen on seven of the 18 charges...

Sen. Bob Menendez is appealing to a higher court during his corruption trial — heaven. The embattled New Jersey Democrat gathered with a circle of clergy members in the hallway of Newark federal court on Thursday to pray, moments after being hammered by a damning closing argument by the prosecution. Menendez and his ordained supporters had just heard Justice Department prosecutor J.P. Cooney tell jurors that a wealthy donor had bribed him.

Former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid is expected to be called to testify in the corruption trial of Sen. Robert Menendez, a source with knowledge of the situation told Fox News on Friday. Menendez is accused of accepting campaign donations, gifts and vacations from Florida ophthalmologist Dr. Salomon Melgen. In return, Menendez, D-N.J., allegedly used his Senate powers to lobby on behalf of Melgen’s business interests. Reid's name re-emerged weeks ago in the case, when prosecutors said the former congressional leader was “first enlisted” by Menendez in November 2011 to advocate for Melgen in the ongoing dispute the doctor had...

The upcoming bribery trial for New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez could have damaging consequences for his party whether or not he's convicted, by sidelining him from Congress just as Democrats gear up to fight the Trump agenda. The senator is now pleading with a federal judge to alter the trial schedule on certain days so he can return to Washington to vote. So far, however, the court has rejected these requests, which the Trump Justice Department has decried as a bid for "special treatment." The timing of the trial, set to begin Sept. 6, is critical. It would fall...

Menendez and Melgen in happier times Paul Mulshine of the Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger, the hometown newspaper of Senator Robert Menendez, has penned a column titled, “Will the eye doctor see his way clear to singing on the senator?” It’s about what a judge did in Thursday in Florida. Dr. Salomon Melgen, Menendez’ co-defendant on bribery charges, was supposed to be sentenced for his conviction on separate charges of Medicare fraud. The judge agreed to delay sentencing until after the bribery trial, scheduled for September in New Jersey, suggesting that Melgen may be cooperating with prosecutors and will testify against...

Update: The Palm Beach Post just reported Melgen was convicted of all 67 counts. “A prominent Florida eye doctor has been convicted on all counts in his Medicare fraud trial, raising the possibility he could be pressured to testify in the bribery trial of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez,” the Associated Press reported on Friday afternoon: Jurors announced their verdict Friday for Dr. Salomon Melgen. He effectively faces a life sentence if no deal is struck. Menendez denies any wrongdoing. Prosecutors contended that the 62-year-old Melgen stole up to $105 million from the federal insurance program between 2008 and...

A federal appeals court on Friday refused to drop corruption charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), according to The Associated Press. Menendez's attorneys had argued that his actions on behalf of a campaign donor were protected because he's a sitting senator, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Prosecutors allege that Menendez received bribes from Salomon Melgen, an ophthalmologist and wealthy Florida donor, in the form of campaign donations and extravagant gifts. In return, Menendez allegedly set up meetings with government officials to arrange favors for Melgen. Both men pleaded not guilty last year. In February, Menendez’s...

In a headline today NJ.com asks the question, "How has Menendez Indictment Affected His Senate Duties?" The story details how Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is acting if nothing is wrong, and quotesNLPC Chairman (not executive director) Ken Boehm: A leading Menendez critic said he had no problem with the senator's efforts to carry on as if he did not face criminal charges. "Defendants can act anyway they want," said Ken Boehm, executive director of the National Legal and Policy Center, a Falls Church, Va.-based watchdog group. "I take almost an attitude of, 'It's a free country, he's a free...

It’s been almost a month since the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial titled “The Menendez Indictment.” We responded in a letter to the editor that has not been published. It’s a safe bet it never will be, so we post it here. The Journal got to the point in its opening paragraph: Ill-defined federal laws now reach into virtually every sphere of human behavior, and thus prosecutors can destroy almost anyone they choose. The recent indictment of Senator Robert Menendez on 14 counts of corruption and “honest services” fraud is a troubling case in point that deserves more...

America has an alphabet soup of visa programs for foreigners to choose from: B-1 for business visitors, B-2 for tourists, EB-5 for investors, F-1 for students, and so on. All are overwhelmed, loosely monitored and riddled with fraud and corruption. According to the recently unsealed federal indictment against him, sleazy Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., took it upon himself to add his own very special, crooked path to the U.S. Call it the 36DD Visa. The New York Post recounted this weekend how Menendez and his staff pressured the State Department to expedite the foreign tourist and student visa approval processes...

The Obama Justice Department has filed its much anticipated corruption indictment against Senator Robert Menendez. He is the New Jersey Democrat who, from his powerful senior seat on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, has vehemently opposed President Obama’s negotiations with the jihadist regime in Iran, as well as his outreach to Castro’s Cuba. Two things about the Obama administration cannot be denied. First, the president is desperate to cut a deal with the mullahs on their nuclear program, so much so that he has erased virtually every red line he ever purported to draw and has not been shy about...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) plays a key role in the corruption indictment of Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), handed down by a Newark, New Jersey grand jury. Reid’s involvement centers around efforts by Menendez to intervene with Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius on behalf of his friend and donor Dr. Salomon Melgen in an $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute.The 68-page indictment devotes a full 8 pages to a section entitled “After MELGEN Receives More Unfavorable Rulings, MENENDEZ Enlists the Office of the Senate Majority Leader to Assist MELGEN in His Medicare Billing Dispute.”

Commentators on both the Left and the Right are suggesting that the impending indictment of Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is retribution against Menendez for his recent criticisms of Obama administration foreign policy. While we concur that almost everything that Attorney General Eric Holder does is tainted by politics, a few points about the Menendez case are in order: 1) The reported charges against Menendez, that he tried to interfere with a Medicare fraud investigation of his largest donor, Dr. Salomon Melgen, and that he went to bat for Melgen in the Dominican Republic port security deal, were not cooked...

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is claiming that Cuban intelligence operatives may have planted reports that he patronized underage prostitutes. According to a Washington Post story on Monday by Carol Leonnig and Manuel Roig-Franzia: The alleged Cuba connection was laid out in an intelligence report provided last year to U.S. government officials and sent by secure cable to the FBI's counterintelligence division, according to the former official and a second person with close ties to Menendez who had been briefed on the matter. The Post apparently did not have a copy of the "report," nor could it verify its existence. To...

The South Fla doctor who billed Medicare for $21 million in 2012 alone, is a generous political donor to NJ Sen Robert Menendez, now under investigation by federal public corruption prosecutors. The millionaire surgeon, lives luxuriously in North Palm Beach, Fla, and travels by private jet, to his luxe villa in the Dominican Republic. Menendez took free rides on the doctor’s private jet and stayed at his luxury resort villa in the Dominican Republic. The senator was forced to pay back the cost of the travel under scrutiny. Melgen donated over $700,000 to Menendez's PAC......Menendez made calls on the Melgen’s...

A federal grand jury in Miami is investigating Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), examining his role in advocating for the business interests of a wealthy donor and friend, according to three people aware of the probe. Menendez has intervened in matters affecting the financial interests of Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, seeking to apply pressure on the Dominican government to honor a contract with Melgen’s port security company, documents and interviews show. Also, Menendez’s office has acknowledged he interceded with federal health-care officials after they said that Melgen had overbilled the U.S. government for care at his clinic.

The New York Times has an article today titled, "Inquiry of Democratic Senator Started With Partisan Push." The story by Eric Lipton describes our success in getting media coverage for our original research about Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and his relationship with a major donor, Dr. Salomon Melgen. Lipton then states that to Menendez and his staff our work is "proof that the news media frenzy focusing on his actions to help a Florida eye doctor is at least in part a political smear." The only problem with this story line is that that New York Times approached us shortly...

Embattled New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez visited the swanky Casa de Campo resort in the Dominican Republic in August 2006 and stayed at Dr. Salomon Melgen's posh villa, according to an interview Menendez gave (in Spanish) with the Dominican daily Listin Diario. The news report Aug. 22, 2006 included a photo of Menendez, with the caption: “Bob Menéndez, the senator from New Jersey, gave an interview to Listin Diario at the residence of the Dominican doctor Salomón Melgen, at Casa de Campo, La Romana.” Menendez has only acknowledged visiting Melgen’s villa on three occasions, all in 2010. He paid Melgen...