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Justice Department: Harry Reid pressured Obama administration to help Bob Menendez ally

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by Melissa Quinn | Aug 31, 2017, 3:04 PM

The Justice Department alleged this week that Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., pushed his colleagues and the Obama administration to change federal policy in order to help a man that authorities charge lavished him with gifts.

In a brief filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the department said Menendez asked then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to pressure the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reverse a decision that hurt Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen. Melgen is thought to have plied Menendez with lavish vacations, and authorities are trying to show those gifts influenced Menendez’s actions in the corruption case they are bringing against him.

 

read:https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/justice-department-harry-reid-pressured-obama-administration-to-help-bob-menendez-ally/article/2633116

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Feds renew contested allegations in Democratic Senator Menendez case

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file photo by Boyd Loving

NEWARK — More than a year after a judge dismissed four counts of bribery in the corruption case against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and Florida ophthalmologist Dr. Salomon Melgen, a federal grand jury Thursday renewed the accusations in a superseding indictment.

Menendez, a Democrat from Paramus, was originally indicted in April 2015 along with Melgen, who prosecutors allege gave the senator more than $1 million in gifts and campaign contributions in exchange for Menendez intervening in federal matters involving Melgen.

The bribery charges returned in Thursday’s superseding indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court in Newark, concern a $20,000 payment Melgen made to the Fund to Uphold the U.S. Constitution, a trust formed by the senator “to defray the outstanding costs of a politically charged recall effort,” according to a motion filed by Menendez’s defense team in July 2015.

https://www.nj.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/10/feds_re-file_contested_charges.html#incart_river_home