FBI Raid Shines Light on Senator’s Hooker Scandal

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez’s Dominican prostitute scandal has finally caught the attention of the mainstream media because the FBI raided the office of the shady doctor friend that reportedly furnished the hookers, but it’s hardly the first time the New Jersey Democrat is embroiled in illegal behavior.

In fact, Judicial Watch has for years reported the newly reelected senator’s many transgressions. As far back as 2007 JW wrote about a federal grand jury investigation into Menendez, a former member of the U.S. House, illegally steering lobbying business to a girlfriend that also served as his chief of staff. The former aide/girlfriend built an unusually successful lobbying firm in a very short time after leaving Congress thanks to Menendez, according to news reports.

In 2010 Menendez and his colleague in corruption, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, allocated $8 million for a public walkway and park space adjacent to upscale, waterfront condos built by a developer that had donated generously to their political campaigns. The veteran legislators received about $100,000 in contributions from the developer, according to federal election records. In 2012 Judicial Watch put Menendez on its list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.”

JW is also investigating whether the Obama administration recently blocked the deportation of an illegal immigrant sex offender who worked for Menendez to dodge a scandal that could cost the politician reelection this past November. A national newswire broke the story of how the White House apparently protected Menendez from yet another public relations crisis by delaying the removal of the illegal immigrant from Peru with an expired visa (like the 9/11 hijackers) and a criminal record for sexual assault.

The whopper of Menendez scandals was exposed last fall by a conservative website that published a piece in which two prostitutes offered alarming details about the senator paying them for sex in the Dominican Republic, which he visits frequently with a doctor pal who’s a big political donor. For months the mainstream media ignored the story as it often does when Democrats are embroiled in bad behavior, but this week’s federal raid has left them no choice.

The FBI descended upon the South Florida ophthalmologist’s (Salomon Melgen) office and spent two days confiscating boxes of files and records. Local news reports say Melgen owes Uncle Sam more than $11 million in unpaid taxes and is being investigated for Medicare fraud. The eye doctor, who is Dominican, may have blown off the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) but he still managed to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians, both Democrats and Republicans.

Menendez has received tens of thousands of dollars from Melgen and has flown to the disgraced doctor’s luxury Dominican estate in Casa de Campo on his private jet several times. That’s where the men reportedly engaged with prostitutes, though, like all sleazy politicians, Menendez strenuously denies it of course. Remember Bill Clinton and John Edwards vigorously denying their extracurricular sexual escapades?

What about this statement, issued by Menendez’s office this week: “Any allegations of engaging with prostitutes are manufactured by a politically motivated right-wing blog and are false.” This brings back memories of Hillary Clinton shamelessly blaming a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for fabricating her hubby’s real-life White House sex scandal with an intern.

Besides the fact that hiring underage prostitutes in a third-world country (or any country, for that matter) is illegal and unbecoming of a United States senator, this can present other obvious problems. Menendez will soon take over as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which helps shape the nation’s foreign policy, and he’s taken the lead as a national figure in the immigration debate.