By Matt Rooney
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Bob Menendez and Hillary Clinton go “way back” as the expression goes, Save Jerseyans. They served together in Congress. Then he was national co-chair of Clinton’s failed 2008 primary campaign.
“Bob and I have worked side-by-side to help those affected by 9/11 and ensure that we take steps to make America more secure. I’m honored to have his support, and I look forward to continuing our work on expanding healthcare access and ensuring retirement security for all Americans,” mused Clinton way back in June 2007.
He later threw her some softballs during the Secretary of State’s infamous post-Benghazi attack hearing.
It’s no surprise then that Hilldawg will be in Jersey City on October 15th for a ‘Women for Menendez’ event. It’s also no surprise that it’s Hillary coming, not Bill, because parachuting Slick Willie in to ‘help’ Bob Menendez isn’t exactly the best look for a Democrat incumbent who’s trying to downplay his shady past as a womanizing crook in the #MeToo era.
But I digress. More to the point given this year’s U.S. Senate contest in New Jersey, there’s the issue of Hillary’s link to the sort of behavior which recently got Menendez ‘severely admonished’ — and ordered to repay $1 million in gifts — by a bipartisan Senate ethics committee. An issue which needs to be discussed:
Clinton helped hand out favors to Menendez donors, and together they spearheaded an obscene Obama era ‘cash for favors’ foreign policy culture. Menendez also took full advantage of the “foreign student visa racket” (h/t Michelle Malkin).
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Long-time readers may remember our story from 2015 on Estefanía Isaías. She was originally prevented from entering the United States “after being caught fraudulently obtaining visas for her maids.”
Clinton, in her capacity as head of the State Department, labored to overturn the ban. Why? Isaías wasn’t just anybody; she was “a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman” whose “family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials.” Among those Democrats was Bob Menendez whose campaign committee received $30,000.
Then Menendez went to work; “the senator and his staff repeatedly made calls, sent emails and wrote letters about Ms. Isaías’s case to Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Mills, the consulate in Ecuador, and the departments of State and Homeland Security.”
This isn’t some fringe ‘right-wing’ conspiracy theory. Back on December 16, 2014, The New York Times reported “the ban was lifted at the request of the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so that the Ms. Isaías could work for an Obama fund-raiser with close ties to the administration,” and that the Isaías family had “repeatedly received favorable treatment from the highest levels of the American government, including from New Jersey’s senior senator and the State Department.”
That last part is key, folks. Repeatedly. This is a pattern.
Menendez’s more high-profile assistance of recently-convicted Medicare fraudster Salomon Melgen wasn’t an isolated instance or just a simple matter of “friendship” as the defense argued prior to the mistrial; it was part of a pattern of institutional corruption spearheaded by Clinton and Menendez. Whether he was helping advanced Melgen or some other bad actor’s business interests or, incredibly, obtaining visas to get a married donor’s girlfriend and sister into the country, Bob Menendez hasn’t been representing New Jersey.
He’s a senator-for-hire for mega rich donors.
It’s not the narrative Team Menendez wants to talk about when Hillary comes to the Garden State in October. If we had an honest media establishment? They won’t give him an option. It’s that serious and yes, egregious.
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