Price also rebuked Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) for not answering ABC host George Stephanopoulos’ question about American trust of IRS oversight over Obamacare on “This Week” Sunday:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you believe that the American people, given what’s happened here with the IRS, is going to trust IRS oversight of the president’s health care plan?

MENENDEZ: First of all, they have a part of the entire health care act, and that oversight will be done by our respective committees as well as the Health, Education and Labor committee. And what’s most important is not to have 37 votes in the House of Representatives to repeal the president’s health care law, which means 37 votes to stop millions of young people from being on their parents’ insurance or being able to have them not be discriminated because of pre-existing conditions. That didn’t pursue any effort to improve health care in the nation.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your response, Congressman Price?

PRICE: Good attempt to change the subject. The fact of the matter is this is about trust. Sarah Hall Ingram, who was in charge of the tax-exempt division at the IRS between 2009 and 2012, the exact time of this challenge and affront to the American people, is now in charge of instituting and regulating and determining whether or not the IRS is doing the appropriate things as it relates to the ACA, the president’s health care law. Remember, the IRS is the enforcement arm for the president’s health care law.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you think she has to go?

PRICE: I think she at least has to step back until we at least until we get to the bottom of this.

Full panel:

TAMRON HALL: Senator John McCain says, quote, I think it is pretty clear, obvious that a red line has been crossed. What is your response to his remark?

ROBERT MENENDEZ: Well, if we nailed down what we believe, that Assad did in fact have a limited use of chemical weapons against his own people, yes. [...]

]]> http://freebeacon.com/menendez-if-intel-correct-i-agree-with-mccain-on-assad-crossing-red-line/feed/ 0 http://freebeacon.com/menendez-says-he-hasnt-been-interviewed-by-fbi-grand-jury/ http://freebeacon.com/menendez-says-he-hasnt-been-interviewed-by-fbi-grand-jury/#comments Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:24:14 +0000 Washington Free Beacon Staff http://freebeacon.com/?p=87388 Embattled Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) said Wednesday he had not been interviewed by neither the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a federal grand jury regarding his relationship with a controversial donor:

CHUCK TODD: I want to ask you about the investigation that’s taking place into a donor and a friend of yours, Dr. Melgen, I wanted to know: Have you been interviewed either by the FBI or by the grand jury in this investigation?

BOB MENENDEZ: Uh, no. And the reality is, look, we welcome any review by any entity, because at the end of the day we know that that review will prove that we have acted appropriately at all times. What we don’t know in this process is who was behind the money and the smears that they tried to level. We do know that there were people behind it. We do know that Republican operatives were at play by a whole host of press accounts. We’d love to know who was behind that.

TOD: Well, I want to — the one part of this that I guess I’m — that some people look at and say, “Huh.” Did you do any favors for this donor and this friend that you wouldn’t have done for any other constituent, when it was helping him with a port security contract or dealing with Medicare? Can you say for certain you didn’t do anything above and beyond what you would have done for any other constituent?

MENENDEZ: We have all types of constituents, both in New Jersey and from across the country, who bring us issues, and we look at those issues. We make a determination as to whether or not those issues have legitimacy, and then we make a decision to pursue it ourselves if we think that the issue has legitimacy. In this case, as in every other case, that’s the road that we followed. It’s the same road for everyone. As I say, I’m, you know, happy to see our actions reviewed because at the end of the day they were totally appropriate.

Menendez’s relationship with Dr. Salomon Melgen, a South Florida opthamologist and major Democratic donor, has come under intense scrutiny since FBI and HHS agents raided Melgen’s office in January.

Melgen is currently under investigation for Medicare fraud.

On two occasions since 2009, Menendez contacted top federal health care officials over an audit of Melgen’s practice.

Menendez also advocated to federal officials on behalf of a port security contract worth up to $500 million to a company owned by Melgen over the next two decades.

Melgen, his family, and his eye clinic have donated major money that benefited Menendez in a variety of ways (traditional campaign contributions, donations to a legal fund set up by Menendez, and $700,000 toward Majority PAC, which spent more than $500,000 on Menendez’s 2012 contest).

The Washington Post reported last month that a federal grand jury in Miami is investigating Menendez over his relationship with Melgen.

Bloomberg reports:

Salomon Melgen, the Florida political donor at the center of a criminal probe, said he and Sen. Robert Menendez are “like brothers” who spoke weekly, yet his companies never benefited and he broke no laws.

“I don’t have any business interests at all that have been helped by any politicians,” Melgen, an ophthalmologist, said at his office in Port St. Lucie on Florida’s east coast. [...]

A grand jury is examining whether Menendez improperly helped Melgen in his business dealings, according to the Washington Post. The senator intervened in a Medicare-billing dispute and urged the U.S. government to press the Dominican Republic to enforce a contract with a Melgen company to provide port-security services, the newspaper said. 

The Menendez-Melgen relationship has been widely reported on in recent months and Menendez has been tied to numerous instances in which he appeared to act on behalf of his longtime donor.

Menendez intervened in a port security deal involving one of Melgen’s companies and also intervened with federal health officials as Melgen faced an audit regarding his Medicare billing practices. The senator is facing a grand jury investigation of the claims.

Melgen acknowledged speaking with Menendez about “his problems with Medicare regulations and the port contract.” However, the doctor insists he has not been involved in a quid pro quo, telling Bloomberg he wants to “restore his reputation,” which has been “tarnished” by recent headlines. 

“They took away my dignity,” Melgen, who came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in 1979 and still owns a home there, said in the March 21 interview. “They portrayed me as a greedy guy who was with politicians for the quid pro quo.”

The Star Ledger previously reported that four local New Jersey Democratic parties received “big checks totaling $103,500,” which aided get-out-the-vote efforts throughout the state. All of the checks came from Melgen.

Charlotte DeFilippo, the Union County Democratic chairwoman, said Melgen’s money helped Democrats up and down the ticket, but that it was especially meant for Menendez. “I said to him, ‘We need additional funds,’ ” she said, recalling her conversation with the senator. “He said he’d see what he could do, and I received a check.”

Both the senator and Melgen have repeatedly denied accusations of wrongdoing.

The Sal Melgen Foundation’s assets were signed over to Melgen when it was dissolved in 2010, according to disclosure forms, in a move that experts say is highly unusual and inconsistent with tax law.

“When a charitable organization such as a private foundation dissolves, it has an obligation to use its assets or distribute its assets for charitable purposes, and often that is a distribution to another charitable organization,” said Kelly Simone, a legal expert at the Council on Foundations, who said she could not comment on the specific case.

Melgen, a South Florida doctor, is under investigation for Medicare fraud and political corruption linked to his relationship with Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

While the Sal Melgen Foundation claimed to have $1.6 million in total assets on tax forms during its last year of operation, the foundation also disclosed $16 million in corporate stock sales—a puzzling and highly troubling discrepancy, according to a tax attorney who reviewed the tax documents.

“You wonder if he actually got $16 million,” said one attorney, who called the situation “really quite extraordinary … even really, really bold people don’t try this.”

One of the corporations the foundation held stock in was Metropolitan Health Networks, Inc., a company that Melgen sat on the board of until 2005.

Private foundations are often exempt from certain tax obligations, including capital gains taxes on investments.

An Internal Revenue Service spokesman said the IRS could not comment on specific cases.

Luis O. Rivera, an accountant whose name is signed on the Sal Melgen Foundation’s tax forms, declined to comment for this story. Jose Marrero, whose name also appears on the tax forms, did not return a request for comment.

The Sal Melgen Foundation was established in 2007. Like an array of other companies and organizations registered to Melgen, the foundation dissolved after just a few years, in 2010. It also shared an address with Melgen’s West Palm Beach medical office, which was raided by federal agents in January.

The foundation does not appear to have been very active. Its charitable distributions consisted of $52,351 in educational grants to the University of Miami and an establishment called the Instituto Educativo Liceo Del Norte in 2009, according to disclosure forms.

Melgen has had brushes with the IRS in the past. The agency filed a tax lien in 2011 against him for over $6.2 million in unpaid taxes. He was also hit with tax liens in 2008 and 2002, both of which were resolved.

Sen. Menendez has drawn scrutiny for contacting top federal health care officials on behalf of Melgen, a key campaign donor, in 2009 and 2012 over a government audit of Melgen’s ophthalmology practice.

The South Florida doctor’s connections to Menendez and other high-profile Democrats have drawn attention in recent months since the January office raid. Melgen has posed for photos with the likes of President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and used his private jet to fly Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to a fundraiser.

Menendez has also come under scrutiny for failing to pay for flights he took on Melgen’s plane to the Dominican Republic. The senator reimbursed Melgen $58,500 for the flights in January after they were publicly revealed, saying it was an oversight.

A Miami grand jury is reportedly investigating Menendez for political favors he may have provided Melgen.

According to Politico:

Salomon Melgen had a knack for going straight to the top.

He posed for pictures with President Barack Obama, flew Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on his private jet and sought advice on a port security deal from an ex-CIA agent who helped lead the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Politico has learned. …

Melgen keeps an enviable collection of photos with politicians — including one of him golfing with Bill Clinton — and bragged of using his plane to transport the rapper Pitbull to a Super PAC fundraiser at the Democratic National Convention last summer, according to sources who know him.

Melgen reportedly “briefly schmoozed Obama at a 2010 fundraiser” and flew Reid on his company’s private plane. Reid’s office confirmed to Politico that the senator took the trip, which occurred “last summer to Boston and back for a Majority PAC event,” and noted that it was “in full compliance with FEC rules and fully paid for.”

It has been previously reported that the Florida doctor “donated $700,000 last year to Majority PAC, which spent $582,500 supporting Menendez’s 2012 reelection campaign—which Menendez won by 18 percentage points.”

Melgen has been tied to Sens. Chris Dodd and Amy Klobuchar, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and of course Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.). The Politico article reiterates an increasingly recurrent portrayal of Dr. Melgen as an individual who is adept at inserting himself in top political circles.

The Washington Post published a profile of Menendez on Sunday that described him as an “unusual breed of politician,” largely because of his modest upbringing. It argued the New Jersey Democrat forged relationships with elite donors, such as Melgen, out of necessity.

The Washington Post reports:

“Bob is probably one of the poorest guys in the Senate,” said Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.), his longtime friend and confidant. “He has to scrap and scrape and claw and talk to people to try to raise that money. . . . It makes you vulnerable to something going on.”

Now Menendez’s relationship with one of his wealthy patrons has drawn the scrutiny of the Senate Ethics Committee and a federal grand jury in Miami, which, according to three people familiar with the investigation, is examining his role in advocating for Melgen’s business interests.

Until Menendez’s relations with Melgen drew the attention of investigators, the senator’s influence in Washington had been growing.

He had proved his bona fides as a fundraising powerhouse for Senate Democrats and a hero to Hispanic activists. He ascended last month to the coveted chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and emerged as a prominent player in one of the year’s biggest legislative battles when he joined bipartisan talks over a possible landmark law to remake the U.S. immigration system.

Menendez has been involved in politics since he was 19 years old but says he is still uncomfortable fundraising.

“For me, raising money to fund a campaign is contrary to what I learned growing up in life, which is you work for everything and you ask for nothing,” he said, noting that he has for years supported public financing of campaigns and other changes to let lawmakers focus on their work. “But that’s a reality for anybody who runs for office who isn’t personally wealthy.”

The article portrays the senator as someone ill at ease with the flash and wealth that often surrounds politicians. Recounting a 2010 event hosted by Melgen, the Post describes Menendez as a bit of a wallflower who was “the center of attention but still somehow out of place” amongst the elite Dominicans and American entrepreneurs. Someone who was “with them,” but not “really of them.”

Yet Menendez is known as a “highly effective” fundraiser. “As chairman of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee, he raised $129.5 million for the midterm election of 2010, an impressive sum even by the standards of Washington,” the New York Times noted.

Menendez faces allegations that he has intervened on behalf of Melgen in unethical ways. The Senate Ethics Committee and a federal grand jury in Miami have been investigating the relationship, as the Post article notes.

Melgen has been a prolific campaign donor, giving more than $700,000 to Menendez and other Senate Democrats ahead of last year’s election. He has also provided the senator with free flights on his private jet and hospitality at his Dominican vacation home, according to people familiar with their relationship. Menendez has sought to apply pressure on the Dominican government to enforce a contract with Melgen’s port security company and has interceded with federal health-care officials after they said Melgen had overbilled the federal Medicare program for treatment at his eye clinic.

Roll Call reported that Melgen’s contributions to Menendez are actually closer to $1 million, and that Menendez may have also asked Melgen to contribute to four local Democratic committees.

Relationships with financial donors have long been a point of controversy for the senator. He has been tied in recent months to at least six instances that have been seen as dubious.

Menendez advocated for legislation that would have been beneficial to Gaseous Fuel Systems Corp., a company in which Melgen holds stock, in addition to accepting flights on Melgen’s private plane, intervening in the Dominican port deal, and contacting federal officials about an $8.9 million audit of the doctor.

Additionally, “on the very same day Menendez interceded with Obama administration officials on the ports deal [involving Melgen…] he also went to bat for another company involving a heavily disputed Dominican road-building contract.” The senator urged the U.S. government to “pressure the Dominican government” to pay a $42.5 million arbitration award. A Menendez contributor is the president of the company’s only U.S. investor.

As the Free Beacon reported, Menendez once attempted to block the merger of media companies that could have harmed his own stock and financially hurt a campaign donor.

The Washington Post reports:

A federal grand jury in Miami is investigating Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), examining his role in advocating for the business interests of a wealthy donor and friend, according to three people aware of the probe.

Last month, people with knowledge of the case said FBI agents were conducting interviews in the Dominican Republic and the United States concerning allegations against Menendez, including the role he played in advocating for the enforcement of the port-security contract. […]

As part of the grand jury investigation, the three people said, federal agents have questioned witnesses about the interactions between Menendez and Melgen, who contributed $700,000 last year to Menendez and other Senate Democrats. The grand jury has also issued subpoenas for Melgen’s business and financial records, according to two people briefed on the probe who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an on­going investigation.

An investigation by a grand jury typically indicates a “legal escalation,” as a prosecutor “[pursues] allegations with an eye toward possible indictment.” However, the article notes that not every grand jury probe will result in a prosecution.

Both Menendez and his office have consistently denied allegations of wrongdoing. Menendez “would not say whether he knew anything about the [grand jury] investigation” during a Thursday interview with the Washington Post, but he reiterated that an investigation would not disclose evidence of misconduct.

The senator said, “I welcome any review, because I believe, at the end of the day, that my actions have been appropriate. And just as everything that gave rise to this was a smear campaign based on slanders that drove the original story, I believe that when any review reviews the facts, they will determine that I have acted appropriately at all times.”

Menendez expressed content earlier this month when it was reported that a Dominican woman signed an affidavit recanting statements that the senator had paid her for sex. However, the latest report suggests that Menendez’s troubles are far from over.

The radio station WNYC went to look for a former Menendez staffer, Pablo Permuy, in an effort to “better understand the sphere of influence” that surrounds the New Jersey Democrat.

WNYC reports:

WNYC has learned that Sen. Robert Menendez is the honorary chair of a trade organization that relies on a long list of his campaign donors as sponsors and has an address that is a K Street law office in Washington D.C.

WNYC’s Bob Hennelly reports the president of the group, the United States Spain Council, is a former Menendez staffer who was a consultant on a controversial Dominican Republic port security deal worth a half a billion dollars to a major Menendez campaign donor.

It’s Menendez’s relationship with that donor, Dr. Salomon Melgen, that’s at the heart of a Senate Ethics Committee probe that has dogged the senator for months.

Menendez’s relationship with Dr. Melgen has raised questions of impropriety and similar inquiries are beginning to form around his relationship with Permuy.

Permuy is the president of the United States Spain Council (USSC), which shares an address with SNR Denton, an international law firm with a lobbying arm. As WNYC noted, SNR Denton’s PAC has made political contributions to Menendez.

According to the radio broadcast, Permuy has worked with numerous individuals and organizations that have contributed to the senator, from the USSC to the lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig.

Jack Abramoff, a convicted felon and former Greenberg Traurig lobbyist, told WNYC that relationships like this are considered “bribery” anywhere except Washington, D.C.

As the Free Beacon reported, “Pablo Permuy served as Menendez’s national security adviser from 2001 to 2003 when then-Congressman Menendez was a member of the House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee.” Menendez sponsored a $3.5 million earmark for a company that was represented by Permuy.

Dynamic Animation Systems, a defense company headquartered in Fairfax, Va., hired Greenberg Traurig LLP lobbyist Pedro Pablo Permuy in 2008 and 2009 to help it obtain “appropriations for simulation training,” according to lobbying disclosures. …

“The fact that [Permuy is] working for a company that benefits from an earmark from the senator speaks for itself,” said the National Legal and Policy Center’s Ken Boehm. “It has nothing to do with policy. It has everything to do with fundraising dollars.”

“Everything about Permuy suggests that he’s made a career out of his closeness to Sen. Menendez, whether it’s lobbying whether it’s working on U.S.-Spain Council or whether its working w the Senator’s biggest donor, Dr. Melgen,” Boehm said.

The Associated Press reports:

Dr. Salomon Melgen invested in Gaseous Fuel Systems Corp. of Weston, Fla., and joined its board of directors in early 2010, according to the company’s chief executive and a former company consultant. GFS, as the company is known, designs, manufactures, and sells products to convert diesel-fuel fleets to natural gas. The amount of Melgen’s investment is confidential under rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but a 2009 document filed with the SEC showed the company required a minimum individual investment at that time of $51,500.

At the same time, Menendez emerged as a principal supporter of a natural gas bill that would boost tax credits and grants to truck and heavy vehicle fleets that converted to alternative fuels. The bill stalled in the Senate Finance Committee, and after it was revived in 2012, the NAT GAS Act failed to win the needed 60 votes to pass.

While the bill was under consideration between 2009 and 2011, the former consultant for GFS spent $220,000 lobbying Menendez’s staff and other congressional and federal officials on the act’s provisions as well as other regulatory issues, according to interviews and Senate records.

Aides to Menendez claim that neither Melgen nor the company discussed the legislation with their office or the senator, noting the senator supported the bill “to help improve the environment.”

Melgen’s attorney similarly told the Associated Press that Melgen had not discussed the company or the bill with Menendez or his staff.

Ken Green, an executive with Gaseous Fuel Systems Corp., downplayed Melgen’s involvement in the organization, calling him “a passive investor.”

Melgen joined the board of directors in 2010; the bill first appeared in 2009 and another version came in 2012. The AP noted that GFS is Melgen’s only natural gas-related investment.

He also said that the Senate bill would provide “only limited help” to the company and ultimately noted, “This bill won’t do much of anything for us.”

Green said the bill would not be beneficial because “most of its provisions are aimed at heavy on-road vehicles” and the conversion system designed by GFS is “marketed exclusively for off-road equipment.” As a result Green says the bill would “do little to offset the cost to buyers of the off-road trucks.”

However, Green’s explanation omits key information. According to the Associated Press, the company once considered marketing their product for on-road vehicles. The 2009 and 2012 versions of the bill would change IRS rules giving tax credits for on-road, natural gas-supplied trucks and vehicles.

As the article notes, it is not clear that the New Jersey senator “offered direct help or intervened on behalf of the company or Melgen.” However, the instance raises eyebrows as it “illustrates the way Menendez’s political clout has at times overlapped with Melgen’s financial investments.”

Whether it is port security in the Dominican Republic, Medicare audits, or natural gas, the senator’s relationship with Dr. Melgen has led to a litany of questions that have yet to be fully answered.

“The ethics committee wants to resolve this quickly, after a full and thorough investigation,” said Robert Walker, former chief counsel and staff director for the Senate and House ethics committees.

Resolving the inquiry into Menendez expediently is “for the public’s interest and the member’s interest” said Walker, an attorney in Wiley Rein’s Election Law and Government Ethics Practice in Washington, D.C. He said it could take a few months before the committee concludes its probe.

A lengthy investigation could damage further Menendez’s standing in the state. A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday showed Menendez’s approval rating has already fallen 15 points in just one month, dropping from 51 percent to 36 percent.

Walker said the seriousness of the alleged ethics violations relate to the receipt of the flights Menendez took on controversial Democratic donor Dr. Salomon Melgen’s private jet. “These gifts of flights, the value was significant. They were tens of thousands of dollars, and his acceptance of them was a gift,” he said.

The flights, which Menendez did not acknowledge until the beginning of this year, are especially significant given the dense web of connections between Menendez and Melgen. The senator urged the United States to intervene on behalf of Melgen’s port security company regarding a contract dispute worth up to $1 billion; Menendez contacted federal officials on behalf of Melgen regarding a Medicare audit; and Melgen has donated not only to Menendez’s election campaigns but also to his defense fund.

Menendez’s failure to disclose the flights as required by Senate rules is a serious issue for the senator, according to Walker.

The committee will be looking to determine if there was “the knowing and willful failure to disclose,” Walker said. If the committee finds that Menendez knowingly and willingly failed to disclose the flights, it is a felony.

Menendez has claimed that the flights “fell through the cracks.”

When asked if Menendez’s reimbursement for the flights on Melgen’s plane will matter, Walker said, “It depends.” He said his payment for the flights two years after the fact will not matter if he deliberately did not disclose them.

The ethics committee could also consider if there is some “linkage to the gifts of flights” and Menendez’s interventions on behalf of Melgen. “When this intervention occurred [and] the level of intervention and the specific intervention for this friend,” could be questioned, according to Walker.

“Was the intervention consistent with his previous expressions of policy?” Walker said is another question for the ethics committee.

Menedez’s name has surfaced in other investigations in his home state of New Jersey in the past. Those investigations did not garner the media attention the current ethics probe has.

“The past allegations have been serious,” said Rob Eichmann, elected member of the New Jersey Republican State Committee and the editor of Conservative New Jersey. “His entire career has been wheeling, dealing, shenanigans and questionable ethical decisions.”

Menendez faced a Justice Department probe into property he rented to the North Hudson Community Action Corporation in Union County, N.J. He collected more than $300,000 in rent from the group, and as a congressman he helped them secure federal funding. He also helped the agency gain a designation as a Federally Qualified Health Center that made North Hudson eligible for federal health care grants and expanded Medicare and Medicaid payments, according to reports.

Menendez claimed to have obtained verbal clearance by the House Ethics Committee before the lease was signed. The lawyer for the committee said she did not remember Mr. Menendez asking her about the deal but did not dispute that she might have cleared it.

The federal probe into Menendez’s rental property in Union County was closed in 2011. Menendez’s controversial donor Melgen made contributions to Union County in the last election cycle.

Menendez’s name also surfaced in the long-running federal probe into the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), which found the school was wrought with health care fraud, undue political influence at the school, and numerous instances of no-bid contracts and abuse of taxpayer funds.

Lawmakers, including Menendez, were described as using the school as their own hiring ground. “Top university officials used a ranking system for job applicants based on the status of political powerbrokers who recommended them,” a report issued by the State of New Jersey Committee of Investigation. “An applicant with a number ‘1’ following his/her name would get more time and attention from UMDNJ’s human resources department.”

Resumes submitted by Menendez received a 1. Menendez denied he knew about the rating system.

The office of Senator Menendez had no comment.