Menendez, R Sen
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scandal
merri ok
Sen. Menendez found guilty on corruption charges
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an 2 24
Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) blasted his GOP colleagues for their unwavering devotion to Donald Trump while ignoring their critical national security oversight responsibilities, during the House Republicans’ Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on impeaching DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday.
“We have held zero – I repeat – zero full committee hearings dedicated to emergency preparedness, cyber threat, infrastructure protection, transportation security, Department of Homeland Security management or information sharing and intelligence efforts,” Congressman Menendez declared. “With the global dynamic that we have, we have not lived up to our oversight obligation here on this committee because you all are obsessed with the border, because you bend the knee to the ‘Orange Jesus,’ as you refer to him across the aisle.”
“That’s what this is about,” the freshman congressman shouted angrily. “And we have failed, failed, our jurisdiction on this committee, so I’m tired of being lectured. You know, I try to listen here. I try to be a team player. I really do. I try not to engage in the partisanship, but I’ve had it. I’ve listened to a lot of accusations here today. We are here on a sham impeachment hearing, because the partnership of this committee, and enough is enough. Ms. Green asked the American people, the American people are listening. They are and they’re tired of the partisanship of this Republican majority that has failed to get things done.”
The GOP-led hearing lasted past midnight, and resulted in an 18-15 party line vote to advance the highly-controversial articles of impeachment against Mayorkas. A full House vote is expected next week. If successful, Mayorkas would be the first presidential cabinet member to be impeached in nearly 140 years.
Watch below or at this link.
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AN 1 24
In a Sunday, January 7 editorial, The Philadelphia Inquirer urges voters to consider ousting three longtime lawmakers this year over their Donald Trump-influenced lack of "integrity."
The newspaper's editorial board calls out the "disgraced" actions of US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Pennsylvania's own — US Representative Scott Perry (R), as well as State Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin), noting "all three" public officials "are up for reelection this year."
"Unfortunately, Mastriano, Perry, and Menendez know nothing about integrity," the board emphasizes, and "voters should keep that in mind."
Despite the fact Menendez was "charged with taking bribes in return for using his power to benefit foreign governments" in September — and just last week — indicted again on charges alleging he abused "his office to help a New Jersey developer obtain millions of dollars in investment from a fund with ties to the government of Qatar" — the senator says he's "not going anywhere."
The board writes:
*Perry defied a subpoena from colleagues in the House that investigated events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The final House reportmentions Perry 22 times and referred him to the Ethics Committee.
*Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) said Perry sought a pardon from Trump during his final days in office, which Perry denied. FBI agents seized Perry’s telephone, though the congressman said he was not a target of any federal investigation
"Mastriano spread false information about vote totals in Pennsylvania, though like Perry, Mastriano did not challenge the votes regarding his state Senate race. Mastriano used campaign funds to bus protesters to Washington and marched to the Capitol with insurrectionists," the editors note, adding there's "nothing more egregious than a public official participating in a plot to overturn a presidential election."
"None of them have any business serving in a government the authorities say they worked to subvert. Yet, despite allegations that they abused their office, each man continues to pocket their six-figure, taxpayer-funded salaries," the editors emphasizes. "There was a time when disgraced elected officials would at least resign for the sake of the institution and the public they served. But instead, taxpayers are stuck for now."
READ MORE:Scott Perry named on prosecution witness list in Georgia election interference case
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a real estate tycoon caught up in the probe of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has ties to organized crime, reported The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
"The Daily Beast was the first to report Daibes’ entanglement in the latest federal investigation into Menendez, after one of the waterfront developer’s attorneys disclosed in December that his client had retained separate counsel to deal with the Department of Justice," reported William Bredderman.
"Both lawyers declined to comment for this story, but one told the Washington Post earlier this month that his relationship with Menendez dates back a quarter of a century. The paper further revealed Daibes had received a subpoena as part of the inquiry last year. The Washington Postwas one of several outlets to publish stories confirming The Daily Beast’s earlier findings."
"The Daily Beast can now exclusively report that, according to former organized crime investigators, Garden State authorities in charge of tracking members of La Cosa Nostra spied high-ranking mobsters meeting with Daibes repeatedly over the last decade," said the report, noting that the sources wished to remain anonymous.
"However, they identified one of the repeat visitors to the Daibes offices as Michael 'Tona' Borelli, who died in 2020 — but who in life was among the most powerful men in the New Jersey crew of the Genovese family, one of the five Italian mafia clans of New York City."
Borelli, who was known as one of the "three top Genovese operatives in New Jersey," pleaded guilty to state and federal charges connected to unauthorized gambling rings in the 2000s.
New Jersey prosecutors have declined to give any further information about the case, and Daibes denies having any involvement with mob activity, saying his relationship with Borelli was about a "legitimate business" run by his surviving children.
The criminal investigation into Menendez, first made public last year, is looking into if Menendez and his family received gifts including a D.C. apartment and a luxury car. It is not the first time he has landed in hot water. In 2015, Menendez was charged for allegedly giving improper favors to a Florida eye doctor in exchange for gifts and campaign contributions, but that case led to first a mistrial in 2017 and then a partial acquittal in 2018, followed by prosecutors dropping the rest of the case.
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an 10 21
no lnx
Not just Sinema: This Democratic senator took $1M from pharma — and shoots down bill to lower drug costs
Not just Sinema: This Democratic senator took $1M from pharma — and shoots down bill to lower drug costs
Kyrsten Sinema in 2016, Wikimedia Commons
Igor Derysh and Salon October 25, 2021
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., one of the top recipients of campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, said last week that he won't support a House plan to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug costs as part of President Biden's Build Back Better plan.
Menendez told NBC News' Sahil Kapur last week that he is a "no" on H.R. 3, a longtime Democratic priority that was advanced earlier this year by the House Ways and Means Committee. The bill would save $456 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which Democrats hope to use to pay for other priorities in the bill like expanding Medicare coverage and health care access.
Menendez told Salon on Friday that the House bill "does not currently have a pathway to pass the House of Representatives," where Democrats hold a razor-thin majority. He did not rule out supporting legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices and is waiting to see the plan being drafted by Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who announced that he was working on a compromise solution earlier this year amid pushback from lawmakers in states with a heavy pharmaceutical industry presence. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, told Politico that the legislation had already been "eviscerated" in negotiations under pressure from Big Pharma-aligned Democrats.
"Sen. Wyden is working on the Senate proposal, the principles of which he laid out earlier this summer and they are not H.R. 3," Menendez said in a statement to Salon. "I continue to wait to see what proposal comes out of the Senate Finance Committee, which I expect will include language to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. I continue to believe the focus must be lowering patient costs, and that will drive my analysis of any proposal."
Menendez told NJ Advance Media earlier this week that allowing Medicare to negotiate prices would not guarantee that consumers would pay lower costs, saying that his goal was to "ensure that the consumer at the counter gets relief and not just simply the government."
The House proposal was introduced by Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J. In an official statement, the committee pushed back against Menendez's argument that the bill does not provide relief for consumers.
"H.R. 3 would lower prescription drug prices for both seniors on Medicare and Americans with private health insurance," a committee spokesperson told Salon. "It empowers the federal government to negotiate fair prices for Medicare and makes those prices available to private health insurance plans. As a result, consumers would finally pay lower prices at the pharmacy counter."
As the committee statement later emphasized, the CBO has estimated that H.R. 3 would lower both prescription drug prices and health insurance premiums, and that prices would decrease by nearly 55% for the first group of drugs negotiated by the federal government. "It's clear that negotiation is the most meaningful way to rein in out of control prescription drug prices in the United States," the statement concluded.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., a leading proponent of the drug pricing bill and chief deputy whip for the Democratic House majority, told Salon in an interview that the legislation would in all likelihood ultimately include private health plans, thanks to pressure from employers who shoulder a "significant burden" from the cost of prescription drugs. His goal, he said, was to "make certain that employers get premium reductions," but added that applying Medicare costs to private plans could run afoul of budgetary rules.
"I definitely want consumers to get relief, as well as taxpayers and employers," Welch said. "The goal that Sen. Menendez is outlining is one I share."
Welch said H.R. 3 would accomplish that goal but acknowledged that as things stand the bill did not have enough votes to pass both chambers of Congress.
"We're going to have to make some modifications and we're in the process," he said adding that the goal of "having this benefit consumers" was the most important ingredient.
The Senate framework for the final bill is expected to include some Medicare negotiation and a cap on out-of-pocket costs, David Mitchell, the founder of the patient advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, told Salon.
But Politico reported last Friday that pressure from pharma-backed lawmakers, including Menendez, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., and Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., is likely to force Democrats to make major concessions on the number of drugs that could be negotiated.
Welch told Salon that negotiators are trying to address concerns about innovation raised by lawmakers from districts with a large pharmaceutical presence, like Peters, who represents San Diego and some of its affluent suburbs.
Mitchell, however, dismissed those concerns as a Big Pharma talking point. "Pharma itself reports that it expects to spend $300 billion on marketing and advertising," he said. Of the $500 billion in corporate profits that even the most aggressive bill, H.R. 3, might have taken in revenue, pharmaceutical companies "could cover $300 billion of that by reducing marketing and advertising expenditures" and deploying them to research and development.
Lawmakers like Peters and Schrader have lobbied to exclude drugs from being negotiated during their period of exclusivity, which can last as long as 12 years, and to limit the negotiations to drugs listed in Medicare part while excluding Part D, which purchases four times as many drugs.
"This provision would not fulfill the Democrats' promise to help patients and all Americans by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices," Audrey Baker, a spokesperson for Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, told Salon. "It would rob Medicare-negotiation legislation of its impact and would leave patients continuing to suffer from high drug prices.
"To be abundantly clear, a bill that does not allow negotiation on drugs covered by both Medicare parts B and D and on drugs still in their period of exclusivity is not a negotiation bill, and will not deliver the relief patients need."
The final legislation is also likely to drop a proposed excise tax on pharmaceutical companies that refuse to negotiate, according to Politico. Schrader told the outlet that the bill is expected to keep "just a little bit of negotiation."
Menendez and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., previously introduced their own drug pricing plan. While H.R. 3 would cap seniors' out-of-pocket costs at $2,000, Menendez's bill would set a cap at $3,100, but would not allow Medicare to negotiate prices.
The pharmaceutical industry has supported legislation that would cap out-of-pocket costs but would not allow for any price negotiation, which Mitchell called the "pharma scam."
"Pharma and the Menendez-Cassidy bill both aim to do this thing where pharma wants to be able to charge whatever it wants, don't lower prices [and] someone else pays for it," he said. As a result, Mitchell said, consumers would never see how high the prices are, but "the fact is, I will wind up paying for them as a patient, either through higher premiums, higher taxes or less money in our paychecks."
Menendez, whose state is home to headquarters for 14 of the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies and more than 300,000 industry jobs, has been one of the top beneficiaries of Big Pharma's tsunami of campaign contributions over the last two years as the drug bill has moved closer to passing. Menendez has raised more than $1.1 million from the pharmaceutical industry over his career, and leads all senators in campaign contributions from the industry this election cycle, with more than $50,000 — even though he's not up for re-election until 2024.
This spring, as the bill made its way through Congress, Menendez received contributions of at least $1,000 each from the CEOs of eight top drug companies, including more than $5,000 from the heads of Pfizer and Merck, Stat News reported earlier this year. The pharmaceutical industry also spent more than $170 million on lobbying in the first six months of the year, more than any other industry, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
"While it might be true that the Senator has received donations from the pharmaceutical industry, as many other Senators have, it's no secret that New Jersey is considered the 'Medicine Chest of the World,'" a spokesman for Menendez said in a statement to Salon.
"The work the pharmaceutical industry does in the state is vital for the innovation of lifesaving therapies in general and specifically for New Jersey's economy, employing over 300,000 people. In spite of this, the Senator's focus is clear and has repeatedly urged the pharmaceutical companies publicly and privately to be part of the solution when it comes to tackling the high cost of prescription drugs."
Menendez has joined Sinema in opposing the House bill, but while he has left open the possibility of supporting a provision for Medicare negotiation, other Democrats have said that Sinema does not yet favor "any proposal to deal with prescription drugs." Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., one of the driving forces in seeking to slash Biden's $3.5 trillion proposal, has said he supports the Medicare negotiation legislation, telling reporters earlier this month that it "makes no sense at all" that Medicare is not allowed to negotiate drug costs.
Peters and Schrader, two of the biggest recipients of Big Pharma cash in the House, voted against the bill in committee and are pushing their own alternative to drastically cut the number of drugs that Medicare could negotiate and the amount it could save. Sinema, who has raised over $750,000 from the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, has opposed that proposal as well, even though she campaigned for her seat in 2018 on a promise to lower prescription drug costs. "I'm trying to get her to come my way because I think frankly, I think it would just be good to put this issue to rest," Peters recently told Politico.
A spokesperson for Menendez sought to distance him from the other Democrats who are endangering Biden's proposal.
"Senator Menendez has never once said he will oppose allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices in the reconciliation package," the spokesperson told Salon. "Throughout this process he's been clear on his priorities to address this issue in a way that benefits consumers at the pharmacy counter, not just providing savings for the government. He's certainly not one of the Democrats in the Senate threatening to derail the President's agenda and continues to work closely with his colleagues to advance multiple priorities in the reconciliation package to deliver results for New Jerseyans. He remains laser-focused on ensuring this package benefits all of New Jersey."
But pressure from Menendez and others to change the drug-pricing proposal likely means that Democrats will be unable to raise as much revenue as they had hoped to pay for other top priorities.
Doggett, who chairs a Ways and Means health subcommittee, questioned this week whether it was worth passing the legislation at all "if it's going to be some meaningless thing."
Welch said the final bill is also likely to cut revenue significantly for other Democratic priorities.
"The less savings we have, the more difficult it is for us to increase access to health care through lowering premiums and the ACA, expanding Medicaid in states that don't have it, expanding Medicare to include hearing, dental and vision," he told Salon. "The money we save by getting fair pricing in pharma would be immensely beneficial to our prospects of expanding health care."
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why a target?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/29/how-sen-bob-menendezs-corruption-case-could-change-the-way-members-of-congress-do-business/
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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/wall-street-journal-offers-pitiful-defense-rampant-right-wing-corruption-trying
The indictment of Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) on insider trading charges is only the latest in an endless flow of corruption scandals emerging from the Republican Party. But the Wall Street Journal decided to place the blame on a curious place in a new editorial: hypocritical Democrats.
In one of the most pitiful and obvious displays of whataboutism, the Journaltook the opportunity of Collins' indictment to write about the corruption allegations against New Jersey Democrat Bob Menedez. Democrats can't credibly run against the endemic corruption of GOP governance because, the Journal writes, they still support Menedez.
"Democrats and their media echoes aren’t really worried about corruption," it says. "Their pose is a tactic to regain power. Meet the new swamp creatures, same as the old."
Menendez has been accused of serious corruption, but unfortunately for the editorial board's argument, his trial did not lead to any charges. The charges that he received gifts from a friend in exchange for favorable government treatment were unsuccessful, it seems, because the Supreme Court has raised the bar extremely high in order to prove corruption.
Nevertheless, many Democrats have called out Menendez, and many wished his primary challenger could have replaced him. The Journal argues that, with Menendez on the ballot, Democrats should endorse his Republican challenger Bob Hugin.
Hugin is a former biotechnology CEO — and industry that would surely love to have more influence in Congress. But beyond the potential for his own corruption, anti-corruption advocates have a definitive reason to still support Menendez: a Democratic majority in the Senate is the best possible check on the widespread corruption fo the Trump administration.
The allegations against Menendez are troubling and should be taken seriously. But they are, it seems, largely about unscrupulous favors to a friend.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, is making corruption a central facet of governance. And congressional Republicans across the board are committed to defending Trump's right to be as corrupt as possible.
This corruption ranges from the petty and personal — think of disgraced former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price's abusive use of government funds for private jets — to the deeply consequential. Ex-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, for example, was accused of accepting favors from an industry leader with business before his agency, meaning his personal corruption could have a devastating impact on the American people his agency is meant to protect.
Of course, the biggest and most obvious culprit of GOP corruption is Trump himself. From the allegations of Russian collusion to his complex overseas business ties, to his continued ownership of the Trump organization, to his family's myriad of corporate interests, there's no end the amount of corruption that could be ongoing under his watch. And this complete disregard for normal ethical behavior at the top of the administration is clearly flowing down to the other layers of government, of which Price and Pruitt's scandals are only the tip of the iceberg.
But the Wall Street Journal doesn't even mention Trump once — even as it uses his phrase the "swamp" — in its claims about Democrat's "double standard" for corruption. The piece reads less like a thoughtful analysis of the importance of public officials' integrity than a press release for the Republican National Committee.
While the Democratic Party has plenty to address when it comes to public corruption, there is simply no comparison at this point between the ethical scruples of the two parties
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Controversial Daily Caller Editor Admitted to Posing As Radical Animal Rights Activist
mojo
David Martosko said in a sworn deposition that when he worked for a corporate-funded PR shop—before he was a journalist—he used fake online personas to obtain information on activists.
KATE SHEPPARD
MAR. 15, 2013 6:00 AM
David Martosko, the outgoing executive editor of the Daily Caller, is joining the British Daily Mail. Facebook
David Martosko—the outgoing executive editor of the conservative Daily Caller and a prominent defender of the news site's disputed claim that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) paid two women for sex in the Dominican Republic—admitted in a court document obtained by Mother Jones that he used a fake Facebook profile to pose as a "dope-smoking commie" in order to gather information on animal rights activists. The admission came in a May 2011 deposition Martosko gave under oath as part of a defamation case against him and his former employer, Berman and Company, a PR shop that specializes in combating progressive activists who target corporations.
Before Daily Caller Editor in Chief Tucker Carlson hired him in 2011—a controversial choice given Martosko's previous arrests and lack of experience in journalism—Martosko spent a decade working for Richard Berman, a longtime PR operative behind a number of industry-backed campaigns. ...
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/22/daily-caller-robert-menendez_n_2933985.html
NEW YORK -– The Daily Caller’s editor-in-chief, Tucker Carlson, denied Friday that his news site paid Dominican lawyer Melanio Figueroa to find women who would lie about having sex with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), an allegation that had surfaced in a Washington Post article.
“It seems clear to me Figueroa is under pressure to change his story,” Carlson said in a statement provided to The Huffington Post. “What I know for certain is this claim is a lie. The Daily Caller never paid anyone, was never asked to pay anyone and of course never would pay anyone for this story.”
On Nov. 1, The Daily Caller reported the claims of two women from the Dominican Republic on video that Menendez had paid them for sex. But the unsubstantiated allegations against Menendez had initially been pushed more than six months earlier, beginning with an anonymous tipster contacting the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and later operatives approaching several news organizations.
HuffPost has reported that both The New York Post and New Jersey’s Star-Ledgerinvestigated the claimslast summer but did not find enough information to warrant writing stories. CREW, which lacked the resources to adequately investigate the claims, reached out to ABC News, which then tried confirming them to no avail.
On the same day that The Daily Caller — a conservative site co-founded by Carlson in 2010 — interviewed two of the alleged prostitutes by Skype, ABC News reporters spoke to all three. HuffPost has reported that ABC News was approached about doing the interviews in mid-October, and ABC has described those arranging the interviews as Republican operatives. ABC News indicated that it was not convinced by the women’s accounts because “none of the women could produce identity cards with their names, and they all provided the same story almost word for word, as if they had been coached.”
The Daily Caller was supposed to interview a third woman that day, but said it could not because a laptop battery in the Dominican Republic died.
While ABC News didn’t trust the women’s accounts, The Daily Caller quickly completed and published a story. Matthew Boyle, a Breitbart News reporter who wrote the original Menendez piece while at The Daily Caller, began reaching out to the senator’s staff for comment around 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 31, the day of the interviews. The Drudge Report began teasing a supposed “scandal” that evening, with The Daily Caller publishing its Menendez story around 1:40 a.m. on Nov. 1.
Given that the prostitute allegations were never substantiated, many news organizations did not cover them and recent reporting only gives more reason to doubt their veracity.
On Monday, the Associated Press reportedthat “three women were paid to falsely claim in videotaped interviews that they had sex for money” with Menendez, according to a spokesman for the police conducting an investigation in the Dominican Republic. The AP wrote that authorities were seeking to interrogate Figueroa.
The Washington Post reported Friday that Figueroa said a foreign man identifying himself as “Carlos” had “offered him $5,000 to find and pay women” to make such claims against the senator, according to the district attorney for the La Romana region.
“The accusations made Thursday by Melanio Figueroa about The Daily Caller are categorically false,” The Daily Caller said in its own statement on Friday. “At no point did any money change hands between The Daily Caller and any sources or individuals connected with this investigation, nor did anyone named Carlos travel to the Dominican Republic on behalf of The Daily Caller. As recently as two weeks ago, Figueroa was on record with another news outlet as saying the women he represented were telling the truth about their initial allegations against Senator Mendendez [sic].”
ABC News reported Friday that Figueroa “has given contradictory public statements about the incident over the last several weeks,” while also providing more details about the name “Carlos” coming up in conjunction with the Oct. 31 interviews.
When asked about “Carlos” during the interviews, one of the women said, “He says he works for a newspaper or something like that.”
At the time, “Carlos” was described to ABC News by the lawyer Figueroa as an associate who was in charge of organizing the interviews via a Skype hook-up. There was no mention made of any connection between “Carlos” and The Daily Caller.
The Skype address used by ABC News to make contact in the Dominican Republic included the names Carlos and Martinez. A message sent by ABC News Thursday to the same Skype address seeking comment has not been returned.
A Republican operative who insisted on anonymity made the introduction between ABC News and Figueroa and “Carlos.”
The Daily Callerpublished its own story Friday on Figueroa, reporting that the lawyer “blamed four news outlet — CNN, The Daily Caller, Telemundo and Univision — for allegedly encouraging him to fabricate false accusations about Menendez.” According to The Daily Caller’s story, Univision reported Thursday night that Figueroa claimed he had been paid $5,000, which he used to find the three women.
The Daily Caller also included a statement from Univision noting that the Spanish-language network characterized “Figueroa’s claims as absolutely ridiculous, utterly false” and that the network has not had contact with the lawyer.
During an interview last month with HuffPost, prior to reports of the women being paid to make claims against Menendez, Carlson explained why The Daily Caller ran a story on the Menendez allegations and responded to criticism for doing so.
“We interviewed a couple of prostitutes on tape who said they, you know, knew Menendez and he was hiring hookers and having sex with them,” Carlson said. “That seemed like a story to me. I don’t know how you wouldn’t run that. And we were attacked for it. ... I actually don’t care that much, because I just assume that people are going to dismiss some of our reporting because they don’t like my politics. There’s nothing I can do about that, so I try not to pay attention.”
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huffpo BLOG
DEZENHALL
teven Schlein
Senior Vice President, Dezenhall Resources
It is only in the idealized world of crisis management where you can “get out ahead” of a story.
Coming clean to the American public and the media may sound nice, but it is not sound advice in most real crises.
In the real world of crisis management, you sometimes plod along, manage things daily, buy time (which shouldn’t mean lying) as best you can until an opportunity arises, a catalyst forces your hand or the crisis ends for better or worse.
The easiest crises to manage are those in which you have good facts which clearly demonstrate you are the victim. But in a crisis where you have culpability, there are no easy answers. While we don’t know all the facts yet, the current crisis surrounding New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez certainly seems like the latter.
The facts that we do know are unpleasant enough for Senator Menendez. At a minimum we have: undisclosed private flights from a contributor who is facing regulatory issues; not meeting disclosure and reimbursement requirements for more than two years; and, intervening on a regulatory issue on behalf of the contributor. Then there are the salacious reports of cavorting with underage prostitutes.
Menendez is facing ethical, political and potential legal issues that will not go away because he holds a news conference. What particular thing should he get ahead of? What particular thing should he apologize for? And what if the next day someone asks him about some other fact that he didn’t think relevant to reveal but the media does? Should he hold another news conference?
Only Menendez and his attorneys know the full extent of the facts. But if Menendez is smart, and he is, he and his team are prioritizing the issues. For the senator, the most important issue may be legal jeopardy. Does he have any? If so, the tension between lawyers, PR managers and political operatives will be constant. But during an acute character crisis where there is even a hint of legal jeopardy, the lawyers must take the lead. After all, if he spins a good and believable story that somehow makes the media go away (which seems impossible) but it later puts him at risk of going to jail — it was a bad move.
For now, my guess is that the lawyers will advise the senator to say nothing or almost othing. However, the media beast needs to be fed, even if it’s crumbs. You can’t have a politician with a public schedule enduring a relentless spectacle of deflecting questions or running from cameras. This will make him look guilty. So I’m sure he’s being told that the less he says the better and don’t admit to anything. As a result, we get a few remarks in a hallway (the allegations are “unsubstantiated“ and “smears”) and not a long news conference. At a news conference he would take a beating, increase the drama and be judged on his performance and not necessarily what he says.
This is completely unsatisfying for those who think there’s is some perfect formula for managing these situations, but Menendez’s team is worried about the long-term, not getting through the next media scrum.
So for now, all he and his team can do is gather all the facts so that they are not blindsided by media stories; give Senator Menendez a few things to say, a very few, so that he isn’t constantly seen fleeing from the media; and deal with each new fact as it comes up, do not “get out ahead of it.”
As some point, a bolder strategy might be required but many a political figure has muddled through a crisis without evidence of any brilliant PR maneuvers — dramatic news conferences or table pounding denials and the like — and Menendez may as well. Of course, this depends on how bad the facts are.
More: Ethics Robert Menendez Crisis Management Bob Menendez Prostitut
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Menendez
wiki
Robert "Bob" Menendez (born January 1, 1954) is the senior United States Senator from the State of New Jersey. He is a member of the Democratic Party of theUnited States. First appointed to the U.S. Senate in January 2006, he was later elected Chair of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in January 2013.
In 1974, at the age of 20, he was first elected to theUnion City School District's Board of Education and, in 1986, won the election for Mayor of Union City. In 1988, while continuing to serve as mayor, he was elected to represent the state's 33rd district in the General Assembly of New Jersey and, within three years, moved to the New Jersey State Senate, upon winning the March 1991 special election for the 33rd Senate district. By the next year of 1992, he won a seat in the Congress of the United States for the House of Representativesand represented New Jersey's 13th congressional district for six two-year terms, from 1993 to 2006. In January 2006, he was appointed to fill the U.S. Senateseat being vacated by Jon Corzine, (being elected 54thGovernor of New Jersey), and was elected to a full six-year term in November and re-elected following in 2012.
Menendez is one of three Latinos in the Senate; the others – also of Cuban ancestry – are bothRepublicans, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz ofTexas, of which both also announced in April 2015, that they were Republican Party candidates for the office ofPresident of the United States in the 2016 Presidential Election.[2]
In 2015, he was ranked #1 on The Hudson Reporter'sannual Power List of the "Fifty Most Powerful Political Figures in Hudson County".[3]
On April 1, 2015, Senator Menendez was indicted on federal corruption charges in the United States District Court, related to alleged favors he did for Floridaophthalmologist Salomon Melgen and gifts he received from him, including campaign donations and private flights. Melgen was charged as well. Menendez has pleaded not guilty to all charges.[4]
Contents
Early life and education
Robert Menendez (later usually known as "Bob"), was born on January 1, 1954 in New York City, to Cuban immigrants[5][6] who had left Cuba a few months earlier, in late 1953.[7] His father, Mario Menéndez, was a carpenter, and his mother, Evangelina, aseamstress.[8] The family subsequently moved to neighboring New Jersey where he grew up in a tenement in Union City. He attended Union Hill High School, where his speech teacher, Gail Harper, helped the introverted Menendez emerge as a powerful public speaker. Menendez explains, "My mother and Miss Harper made me understand the power of education, what it means to put a premium on learning and working hard."[9][10] While at Union Hill, Menendez became the student body president.[11] He went on to become the first in his family to go to college,[9] attending Saint Peter's College in Jersey City,[9][12][13] where he became a member of the Lambda Theta Phifraternity.[14] He graduated with a B.A. in political science, and subsequently earned his Juris Doctordegree from Newark's Rutgers School of Law in 1979.[9][12][13]
Law practice
Menendez was admitted to the New Jersey Bar in 1980[15][16] and became a lawyer in private practice.[10][17][18]
Early political career (1986–1993)
In 1973, at age 19, while attending Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, he launched a successful petition drive against his mentor, then-Union City Mayor William Musto, to reform the local school board.[citation ^needed] He was elected to the Union City Board of Education in 1974, the youngest ever to do so.[9] He did, nevertheless, stay close to Musto throughout the 1970s and supported him in Musto's re-election to the New Jersey Senate in 1978.[citation ^needed]
Menendez was elected mayor of Union City, the state's 13th most populous locality, in 1986 after an unsuccessful run against the popular Musto in 1982. Menendez served as mayor until 1992 and, following election, in November 1987, to represent the state's 33rd district in General Assembly, continued to fulfill both elective offices until March 1991, when he moved from the General Assembly's 33rd district to the New Jersey Senate's 33rd district, upon winning the special election called following the death of State Senator Christopher Jackman.[19]
U.S. House of Representatives (1993–2006)
Elections
In 1992, incumbent Democratic U.S. Congressman Frank Guarini, of New Jersey's 14th congressional district, decided to retire after redistricting. The district had been renumbered as the 13th district, and reconfigured as a Latino-majority district. Menendez decided to run in the primary—the real contest in this heavily Democratic district—and defeated Robert Haney Jr. in the Democratic primary 68%–32%.[20] He won the general election with 64% of the vote, defeating New Jersey Superior Court Judge Fred J. Theemling, Jr. in the general election.[21] After that, he won re-election every two years with at least 71% of the vote until he was appointed to the U.S. Senate in January 2006.[22]
Tenure
Menendez, who is described as very close to Republicans on foreign policy[23] voted for the failed Kosovo Resolution, authorizing the use of military force against Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War.[24] He was an early advocate of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities, sponsoring the Iran Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1998, which passed the House, but failed to pass in the Senate.[25]
Menendez voted in favor of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, authorizing the President the use of military force in Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.[26] In 2002, Menendez voted against the Iraq Resolution to authorize the invasion of Iraq.[27]
Menendez voted against the United Nations Reform Act of 2005, cutting U.S. funding to the United Nations by 50% over 3 years, and was a sponsor of the Tsunami Orphans and Unaccompanied Children Act of 2005 to provide assistance to victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.[28][29]
In 2001, Menendez voted in favor of the PATRIOT Act, and for its reauthorization in 2006.[30][31]
In the 105th Congress, Menendez voted in favor of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, repealing provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, repealing provisions that limited Investment banks from acquiringInsurance companies or other Commercial banks, and voted in favor of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.[32][33] After the 2001 Enron scandal, Menendez voted with 333 other members of the House in favor of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act.[34]
Although he had sometimes been portrayed as the political boss of Hudson County, he strongly dislikes this appellation, particularly because, according to an anonymous close source quoted in the December 11, 2005 Union City Reporter, "there is no boss of Hudson County".[35] In 2005 a New York Times Op-Ed characterized Menendez by stating, "Since entering politics as a corruption-fighting mayor of Union City, N.J., Mr. Menendez has become a proponent of business as usual. He has long been an entrenched de facto leader of the Hudson County Democratic machine."[36]
On August 27, 2006, two Republican state lawmakers filed an ethics complaint against Menendez, alleging he broke conflict-of-interest rules when he rented property out to a nonprofit agency that receives federal funds. Menendez helped the organization win designation as a Federally Qualified Health Center in 1998. That designation allowed the agency to receive additional federal grants.[37]Menendez allies noted that the organization in question, the North Hudson Community Action Corp., which provides social services and health care to the poor and was founded in 1960, had received federal funding for years before Menendez was in Congress, and receives its funding based on mathematical formulas.[38] Menendez maintains that he rented the property out below market-value because "he was supportive of its work".[39] The total rent collected over nine years was over $300,000.
In September 2006, just a few weeks before the 2006 senate elections, the office of the US District Attorney, Republican Chris Christie, began investigating the rental deal with NHCAC, subpoenaing records from them. Some Democrats criticized the investigation, particularly the timing of the investigation and news leaks, as being politically motivated.[40]
On August 18, 2015, Menendez announced his opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran, saying "President Obama continues to erroneously say that this agreement permanently stops Iran from having a nuclear bomb, Let’s be clear: What the agreement does is to recommit Iran not to pursue a nuclear bomb, a promise they have already violated in the past." ^[41]
U.S. Senate (2006–present)
In January 2006, Menendez was appointed by Governor Jon Corzine to fill the remaining year in the Senate seat from which Corzine resigned upon being elected the previous month as Governor of New Jersey. While several other names had been mentioned, Menendez was the early favorite among pundits for Governor-elect Corzine's replacement to fill the vacancy that would be created when Corzine resigned from the Senate.[42][43] Corzine's decision to appoint Menendez got the support of several Latino groups, including the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.[44]Menendez was the sixth Latino to serve in the United States Senate.[45]
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