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April 1st, 2015 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda 
Washington Post
Federal prosecutors unveiled a 14-count indictment Wednesday of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), one of his party’s leading voices on foreign affairs, charging him with using his office to benefit an eye doctor in exchange for many gifts over their decades of friendship.
After a more than two-year investigation, Menendez faces charges related to what prosecutors say were improper efforts by Menendez to help Salomon Melgen, a Florida-based doctor who was also a contributor to Menendez’s campaigns and his longtime friend. Menendez intervened on Melgen’s behalf in a dispute with federal regulators over Medicare charges and in a bid by Melgen to secure a port security contract in the Dominican Republic.
Menendez is only the second U.S. senator to face a federal corruption indictment in the past 20 years. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and suggested that any gifts he received from Melgen were part of a close, personal friendship that dates to the early 1990s.
Federal prosecutors also unveiled charges against Melgen connected to the gifts-for-favors allegations. A grand jury in New Jersey issued eight counts each against Menendez and Melgen for bribery charges and three counts each for honest services fraud, according to a statement from the Justice Department. They also each received one count for conspiracy and one count for violating the Travel Act, and Menendez was also charged with one count of making false statements.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/c/embed/11c1aaf8-d8b1-11e4-bf0b-f648b95a6488
The indictment has been telegraphed for almost a month by officials within the Justice Department, but Menendez’s legal team spent the last few weeks making a furious last-ditch effort to persuade Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s top deputies not to file charges.
The senator has said he has no intention of resigning and plans to stay in office during the trial phase of the case, which could last many months or years. “I’m not going anywhere,” Menendez said at a March 6 news conference.
The senator has planned a 7 p.m. news conference Wednesday in Newark to address the charges.
The indictment has been telegraphed for almost a month by officials within the Justice Department, but Menendez’s legal team spent the last few weeks making a furious last-ditch effort to persuade Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s top deputies not to file charges.
The senator has said he has no intention of resigning and plans to stay in office during the trial phase of the case, which could last many months or years. “I’m not going anywhere,” Menendez said at a March 6 news conference.
The senator has planned a 7 p.m. news conference Wednesday in Newark to address the charges.
While Congress is amid a two-week recess, the charges against Menendez threaten to upend two matters under fierce debate in the Senate.
One is the possible nuclear deal with Iran. As ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez has been the most prominent Democratic voice raising qualms about the ongoing multilateral negotiations. He is the lead Democratic sponsor of a bill — expected to move forward once the Senate returns April 13 — that would bring any Iran deal before Congress for a 60-day review.
Menendez said as recently as Sunday, according to a Bloomberg News report, that he would oppose a deal leaving Iran with a one-year “breakout” time to build a nuclear weapon.
Last month, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) declined to say whether Menendez should step down from his committee post should charges be filed. Although Senate Republicans require members under indictment to temporarily relinquish leadership or top committee posts, Senate Democrats have no such rule.
“Senator Menendez has done a stellar job as chair of the committee, and as far as I am concerned, he’s been an outstanding senator,” Reid said.
The other issue to which Menendez could be pivotal is the confirmation of attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch, which has lingered for months. With scores of Republican senators saying they oppose Lynch’s confirmation because of her views supporting President Obama’s immigration policies, every Democratic vote — plus a potential tie-breaker from Vice President Biden — could be needed to secure a majority.
Democratic aides said last week that Menendez could refrain from voting on the Lynch confirmation because of the appearance of conflict created by the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation.
Including Menendez’s expected vote for Lynch, Democrats can count on at least 50 votes of support: All 46 members of the Democratic caucus and four Republicans have indicated their support of Lynch. That would leave Biden to cast the tie-breaking vote.
There are a few Republicans who have not indicated their intentions on the Lynch nomination, so it is possible that she could win confirmation even if Menendez were to abstain.
Menendez’s case began under some of the most bizarre circumstances, even by the standards of New Jersey politics, where corruption has been a focus of the U.S. attorney’s office in Newark for several decades.
In 2012, during Menendez’s bid for a second full Senate term, an anonymous tipster using the pseudonym “Pete Williams” reached out to the media and to the FBI to suggest that Menendez was seeing underage prostitutes on his Dominican vacations with Melgen. (Pete Williams is the name of the last New Jersey senator to be charged with corruption, the late Harrison “Pete” Williams, who was convicted and expelled from the Senate.)
The prostitution angle fizzled, but investigators began scouring Menendez’s relationship with Melgen.
Twice in recent years — in 2009 and 2012 — Menendez and his top staff members spoke directly to top federal health agency officials about their finding that Melgen had overbilled the government by $8.9 million for care at his clinic. Menendez repeatedly questioned whether federal auditors had been fair in their assessment of Melgen’s billing for eye injections to treat macular degeneration. His office said he questioned the fairness and consistency of the federal agency in its decision-making with all doctors, not just Melgen.
But Melgen was a man whose personal life also drew scrutiny. He was seen at times with dates while entertaining Menendez near his vacation home in the Dominican Republic.
Menendez also appeared to use his position to help Melgen after the doctor became the chief investor in a company holding a long-dormant port security contract in the Dominican Republic. The contract called for paying lucrative fees for security screening of ships coming into the port.
In the summer of 2012, as Melgen donated $700,000 to support the senator and other Democrats, Menendez pressed for the United States to push the Dominican Republic to put the contract into effect. In a July Senate hearing he scheduled on Latin American businesses, Menendez urged officials from the Commerce and State departments to apply pressure to countries that didn’t honor agreements with U.S. businesses. Without naming Melgen, Menendez highlighted the contract to provide security in the Dominican port.
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