Discussion:

Discussion for article #239769

Honestly, this Melgen dude looks like Menedez’ South Florida disco boy alter ego. Has anyone ever seen them together in the same room? Maybe we should ask a few of those ladies in the little black book.

Hey, it’s not like he’s in the Ashley-Madison dump…

He already sold HIMSELF on the Iran deal.

This article is barely worthy of Breitbart, and has no place on TPM. There’s no evidence or proof that the book is about prostitution, and the pictures of women in lingerie were not in the book but in the desk so what connection is there? Why mention it except to further the prostitution innuendo?

All you have is Menendez’s name in a ledger owned by a close friend, a ledger that also includes women’s names and personal information about them like their home city/ country.

Muckraking is one thing, innuendo and salacious allegations without much to back it up is worse.

You should probably clutch your pearls a little harder.

The guy’s indicted on corruption charges and implicated in an underage prostitution scandal. So now, he’s trying to inoculate himself against rightwing anger and curry favor with the neocons by supporting nuclear brinksmanship with Iran.

Yeah, that’s what it is, pearl clutching. We have an entire industry out there – Fox, talk radio, Breitbart, etc. – dedicated to taking innuendo and misinformation and using it to attack moderate, Democratic and liberal people and organizations.

It’s bad enough when they do it, but when we do it to ourselves it gives the vast right wing message machine cover to go even farther.

Menendez has plenty of problems to attack, from his favors for Melgen to his opposition to opening Cuba to his waffling on Iran, and there’s no need to use this kind of Page 6 “reporting” on a site like TPM. I expect better, and have the right to say so.

No, he is not implicated in an underaged prostitution scandal. That was completely debunked, and the women who were used admitted they’d never met Menendez.

This is why articles like this are so damaging; they give cover and support for right wing lies.

Yes, there is a chance that Menendez has misused his office and will be removed for corruption. That is horrible, but instead of talking about that we believe the Breitbart lies about underage prostitutes and use slanted reporting to give that more life.

But, what about Lush Rimbaugh and his little Dominican boys?

He looks like Uncle Vito (The Sopranos)… So that’s where he ended up…Florida.

Is this payback for opposing the Iran deal? I favor the deal, but the timing here does force one to wonder, even at TPM’s involvement. Seems like a scene out of House of Cards.

HMMMM. And Trump tells Jose Ramos to go back to Univision. Jose is latino. Menendez is latino. We are forced to ask ourselves: cui bono?

In court filings Monday, Justice Department prosecutors — not Brietbart — reiterated that there were “specific, corroborated allegations that defendants Menendez and Melgen had sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.”

How in the world does that not qualify as “implicated in an underaged prostitution scandal”?

You’re flinging around “Breitbert lies” in the same way that right wingers try to change the subject when confronted with the facts.

I wondered about that, at first, also. But it actually was real news generated by court filings on Monday. Among others: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article32381385.html

More likely that Menendez announced his opposition to the Iran deal in an attempt to mitigate attacks from the right in advance of this court activity, which had been anticipated.

Thank you, Mrs. Menendez.

I have to thank you for providing the link that lays out a lot more of the information. It also provided one of those great Florida Man headlines:

Tattoos lead to capture of suspect in frying-pan murder

The Justice Department cannot be taken at its word in high profile prosecutions. In high profile cases like the prosecution of Ted Stevens (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74056.html) and of New Orleans prosecutors (http://observer.com/2015/08/breaking-judges-blast-department-of-justice-over-shocking-prosecutorial-misconduct/) federal prosecutors have overreached to a shocking extent. If they have a good case there is no reason to release information like this, and they know it. Taken in context with the retention of FBI agents who though they cheat on open book exams are not fired (http://www.wired.com/2011/08/fbi-surveillance-test/), I am not inclined to take anything that emanates from that department at face value.

Of course, the administration knew back in 2012 that they would reach a deal with Iran and that Menendez would oppose it. So they preemptively implicated him in a prostitution scandal by leaking information to a right wing blog and planting a ledger tailor made for blackmail at the doctor’s house.

Whether Menendez is implicated in an underage prostitution scandal or not, what’s he doing jetting around the world with someone who most definitely is? I hold my politicians to the same standards I hold the GOP to, and I am not going to let this guy slide just because he’s a Dem. Defending him with “this is a right-wing smear” only holds water when it is ONLY a right-wing smear. There’s way too much smoke here for that to be the case.