Hackensack NJ, Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive health network, hosted U.S. Senator Robert Menendez at the network’s Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI), where leading researchers are developing a rapid response test to diagnose the coronavirus known as COVID-19 , which is sweeping the globe and has reached California.
Sen. Menendez (D-NJ) toured the CDI with Hackensack Meridian Health experts who are also preparing for potential cases in New Jersey. The virus has spread to 48 countries and federal health authorities have warned Americans to prepare for major disruptions in the U.S. while President Trump this week appointed Vice President Mike Pence to oversee the nation’s response to a potential outbreak.
Newark NJ, the U.S. Department of Justice says that it intends to retry Sen. Robert Menendez’s bribery case, which previously ended with a hung jury.
In a letter the DOJ wrote to the U.S. District Court of New Jersey, “The United States files this notice of intent to retry the defendants [Menendez and Dr. Salomon Melgen] and requests that the court set the case for retrial at the earliest possible date.”
Both Menendez and Melgen, a longtime friend of the senator, were on trial last year after being accused of running a bribery scheme between 2006 and 2013 in which Menendez allegedly lobbied government officials on Melgen’s behalf in exchange for luxury vacations and flights on Melgen’s private plane.
Menendez also was charged with making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms.
At that time jurors were unable to come to a unanimous verdict after about a week of deliberations.The judge then declared a mistrial.
Sen. Robert Menendez ongoing corruption case could upend the New Jersey Democrat’s reelection bid in 2018, with the longtime politician scheduled to go to court this fall.
The Supreme Court delivered another blow this week to the embattled senator when it refused to dismiss the case. The trial is scheduled to begin about a year before the midterm elections.
Federal prosecutors charged Menendez, who has pleaded not guilty, in April 2015 on 14 criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery.
Menendez is expected to head to trial on Sept. 6,facing a potential criminal conviction even as he would normally be preparing a re-election bid.
“It makes it very difficult to campaign if you’re on trial,” said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University.
Washington (CNN)Federal prosecutors indicted Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez on corruption charges on Wednesday for allegedly using his Senate office to push the business interests of a friend and donor in exchange for gifts, according to the Justice Department.
The case, brought by the Justice Department’s public integrity unit, sets up a high-stakes battle between a New Jersey senator who has fought off investigations for years, and federal prosecutors and the FBI who have spent years pursuing him.
Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.) on Monday dismissed speculation that he would step down as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because of pending Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal corruption charges against him.
“You know what? I haven’t been charged with anything, so you guys are way ahead,” he told a mob of reporters.
He also shrugged off suggestions by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and others that the corruption charges against him are political retribution for opposing the White House’s negotiations with Iran.
“That’s their speculation, not mine,” he said.
Menendez said Friday that he was not “going anywhere” despite reports that DOJ was moving to bring criminal corruption charges against him, likely concerning allegations that he used his office to advocate for an ophthalmologist friend from whom he had accepted plane trips to the Dominican Republic.
file photo by Boyd Loving Sen. Robert Menendez swearing in our mayor at Ridgewood REORG
Menendez: White House’s least favorite Dem
“I have to be honest with you, the more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran,” Menendez. “And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization when they are the ones with original sin–an illicit nuclear weapons program, going back over the course of 20 years, that they are unwilling to come clean on.” https://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/dem-senator-obamas-iran-talking-points-straight-out-tehran_824204.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) —Sen. Robert Menendez might be a senior Democrat but he’s no friend of the White House.
In fact, he’s emerged as one of the most troublesome obstacles to President Barack Obama’s legacy-building effort to end decades of U.S. estrangement with Cuba and Iran. He’s also poked the administration on its troubled relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he shares a hawkish outlook towards Tehran.
But the senior senator from New Jersey, 61, is now in the news for a different reason, after CNN first reported Friday that the Justice Department is preparing to bring criminal charges against him.
People briefed on the case say prosecutors plan to allege that Menendez used his Senate office to push the business interests of a Democratic donor and friend in exchange for gifts. The charges, which are expected to be formally laid within weeks, threaten to seriously imperil Menendez’s political prospects at a time when his influence in Washington has rarely been greater.
Menendez is currently the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, after serving briefly as chairman when his predecessor John Kerry left to become Secretary of State and before Democrats lost the Senate majority last year.
But his position in the minority belies his influence.
High-Ranking Democrat Sen. Robert Menendez Blasts Obama’s ‘Secret Diplomacy’ With Cuba
Philip Wegmann / @PhilipWegmann / January 05, 2015
President Obama will have trouble appointing an ambassador to Cuba following his decision to normalize relations with the Communist government, predicts the outgoing Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On Sunday, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told CNN that past actions on the part of the Obama administration would make it “very difficult to get an ambassador confirmed.”
The senior Democratic lawmaker blasted the White House for independently restarting diplomatic ties with Communist Cuba while keeping Senate leaders in the dark.
Asked if he was ever consulted about negotiations with Cuba, Menendez replied, “Absolutely not. I knew nothing about them.”
A Cuban-American himself, Menendez argues the Obama administration played into the hands of the Castro government without achieving any lasting reforms for the Cuban people.
“We exchanged one innocent American for three convicted Cuban spies, including one that was convicted for conspiracy to commit murder against U.S. citizens.”
“If you’re going to make a deal with the regime,” Menendez complained, “then get something for it.”
The senator argues that “10 million people in Cuba got a bad deal” while the United States exchanged “one innocent American for three convicted Cuban spies” and received “nothing in terms of democracy and human rights.”
Indicative of a greater problem, Menendez said the Obama administration’s “secret diplomacy” has kept Senate leaders from getting “straight answers” not only about Cuban but also Iranian negotiations.
He explained that these methods will make things “problematic for the administration when it appears before the committee again.”
