Politics

Senate Ethics Panel ‘Severely’ Admonishes Democrat Bob Menendez Over Gift Violations

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
Font Size:

The Senate Ethics Committee offered a brutal rebuke of New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez on Thursday, accusing the Democrat of providing political favors for a friend in exchange for expensive gifts and vacations.

“The Committee concludes that your actions violated Senate Rules and related statutes, and reflected discredit upon the Senate,” reads a bi-partisan letter from the ethics panel’s six members.

The committee, with Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson as chair, ordered Menendez to repay the fair market value of gifts he received from his friend, a Florida eye doctor, Salomon Melgen, and to amend his public financial disclosure reports.

“Finally, by this letter, you are hereby severely admonished,” the letter states.

Menendez was tried for bribery in 2017 in federal court over his relationship with Melgen. The lawmaker was indicted on April 1, 2015, on 14 counts of bribery and other charges. A mistrial was declared on Nov. 16, 2017, after a federal jury in New Jersey was unable to reach a verdict.

Melgen was sentenced to 17 years in prison in February in a $73 million Medicare fraud case. Melgen’s scheme involved convincing patients to undergo eye procedures they did not need.

The ethics panel began its investigation of Menendez in late-2012 but put that on hold during the Justice Department’s investigation and trial. The committee resumed its investigation after the mistrial.

“The Committee has found that over a six-year period, you knowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value from Dr. Melgen without obtaining required Committee approval, and that you failed to publicly disclose certain gifts as required by Senate Rule and federal law,” reads the Ethics Committee’s letter, which was signed by three Republicans and three Democrats.

From 2006 through 2013, Menendez accepted private and commercial flights from Melgen, a luxury hotel stay in Paris, and lodging during 19 trips to Melgen’s private villa in the Dominican Republic, the committee found.

“You did not pay fair market value for, or, where required, obtain necessary written approval from the Committee to accept these gifts,” the letter states.

Menendez also failed to list the gifts from Melgen on his public financial disclosure reports, as he was legally required to do.

“During the same time period in which you accepted these gifts, you used your position as a Member of the Senate to advance Dr. Melgen’s personal and business interests,” according to the letter.

Acting on Melgen’s request, Menendez intervened with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services regarding its finding Melgen overbilled Medicare by nearly $9 million, the committee noted.

“This intervention included persistent advocacy before multiple senior CMS officials over the course of three years, reaching, at its height, your meeting with the Secretary of Health and Human Services,” the letter states.

Menendez also helped Melgen in a contract dispute involving a port security company the doctor owned. Menendez met with senior official at the State Department to help Melgen’s company, ICSSI, with a contract dispute with the Dominican government.

Menendez threatened in that meeting to hold a public hearing and call the State Department to testify if the contract dispute was not resolved.

Menendez also asked U.S. Customs and Border Protection to delay a planned donation of scanning equipment to the Dominican government. The delay seemingly helped Melgen’s company profit by selling scanning services to the Dominicans.

Menendez’s assistance for Melgen did not stop there. He also helped foreign nationals obtain visas in order to visit Melgen.

Follow Chuck on Twitter

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel