New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and formerly his party’s top fundraiser, is expected to face criminal corruption charges, multiple news agencies reported Friday.
The charges could be brought within several weeks and reportedly revolve around the 61-year-old senator’s dealings with a Florida ophthalmologist and donor, according to anonymous sources variously described in different news accounts as a “U.S. official,” “people briefed on the case,” “people familiar with the case” and “an official.”
Other Justice Department spokesmen declined to confirm the reports Friday afternoon, as did Attorney General Eric Holder when approached by a reporter who asked whether he had authorized pursuing charges against the Democratic lawmaker.
“I can’t comment on that,” Holder said.
Menendez denied wrongdoing.
“I have always conducted myself appropriately and in accordance with the law,” Menendez said at a brief news conference Friday night in Newark, N.J., adding, “I am not going anywhere.”
Menendez spoke of his legislative work and delivered his statement in Spanish as well as English but, citing the ongoing investigation, declined to answer questions.
The reportedly pending charges, first made public by CNN, are said to deal somehow with Menendez’s relationship with Dr. Salomon Melgen, who does business in North Palm Beach, Fla.
Melgen has been a regular donor to political candidates, primarily although not exclusively to Democrats.
In May 2012, for instance, federal records show Melgen donated $10,000 to the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, in Menendez’s home state.
In February 2009, records show Melgen contributed $30,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The next day, records show his wife, Flor Melgen, variously described in campaign reports as a “homemaker” and as an employee of Melgen’s Vitreo Retinal Consultants, donated another $30,000 to the same Democratic committee.
Menendez chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2009 to 2011, making him the top fundraiser for Senate Democrats.
Three years before, in 2006, Salomon Melgen and Flor Melgen had likewise each given $10,000 to the New Jersey Democratic State Committee.
“The senator has counted Dr. Melgen as one of his closest personal friends for decades,” Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright said in a statement. “The two have spent holidays together and have gone to each other’s family funerals and weddings and have exchanged personal gifts.”
Menendez likewise said that “he and his family and me and my family have been real friends for more than two decades.”
New Jersey Republicans in 2012 complained that Menendez had broken Senate rules by flying on a private jet to the Dominican Republic and elsewhere. In January 2013, Menendez used his own funds to reimburse Melgen $58,500 for travel expenses.
“Senator Menendez has traveled on Dr. Melgen’s plane on three occasions, all of which have been paid for and reported appropriately,” Menendez’s office said in a statement at the time.
In early 2013, The Miami Herald reported that FBI agents and investigators from the Department of Health and Human Services searched Melgen’s office for several hours.
First elected to the House of Representatives in 1992, and to the Senate in 2006, Menendez has become a pivotal though not always popular figure on Capitol Hill.
Most recently, he has been one of the key critics of President Barack Obama’s approach on Iran. In January, Menendez said Obama’s remarks about Iran in his State of the Union address sounded like “talking points coming straight out of Tehran.”
Menendez and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, co-sponsored a bill that calls for a congressional vote on any final nuclear deal with Iran.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had planned a vote on the bill next week but postponed it in the face of a likely filibuster by Senate Democrats. Menendez has been equally vocal in his criticism of Obama’s diplomatic moves toward Cuba, a country toward which Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, has maintained a hard line.