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Several months ago, The Daily Caller reported that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) allegedly paid for sex in the Dominican Republic. The article appeared to be based on largely non-existent evidence; the FBI found nothing to support the allegations, and two weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that a Dominican escort now says she was "paid to make up the claims and has never met or seen the senator."
In response, the conservative online news outlet said it had relied on a different Dominican escort, so it saw no need to retract the story. Today, we're learning that more than one Dominican escort was paid to lie about the Democratic senator.
Police in the Dominican Republic say they have determined that three women who said they had sex with U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez for money were in fact paid to make false claims by an attorney in the Caribbean country.
Police spokesman Maximo Baez says officers traced the payments to attorney Melanio Figueroa. Baez says two women received about $425 each and the other was paid about $300 to falsely state on camera that they had sex with Menendez (D-N.J.).
As Matt Gertz added, these latest revelations come on the heels of reports from several outlets, ABC News, the Star Ledger, and the New York Post, each of which had been offered the story by Republican operatives, and each of which turned down the story, deeming it unreliable and the escorts' claims unreliable.
There are other allegations surrounding the senator that have not been resolved, but these specific allegations hyped by Tucker Carlson's site appear to have completely fallen apart.
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Unreliable Republican operatives - redundancy.
From the GOP's Department of Redundancy Department.
It is redundant to say the GOP has a Department of Redundancy.
So the big question is, is there a criminal case here to justify the FBI looking for links between the Dominican lawyer who was paid and the "Republican operatives" who were peddling the story? Slander/libel is a civil offense that you have to sue over, but I wonder if conspiracy to solicit slander is a crime.
This really doesn't seem like something that should just be let go.
Exactly. Some lawyer in the Dominican Republic didn't decide on his own to frame Sen. Menendez. That money and the idea came from somewhere, and that somewhere needs to be identified.
I was thinking, hey, Dominican Republic, didn't they have a little "communist" insurgency back in the day? Didn't we used to invite their military officers to The School of The Americas? Didn't the CIA train their police forces in "interrogation techniques" at Michigan State? So Menendez is tight with a "politically influential" family? I'm thinking he might not have to spend very much money to get the women to recant their stories. Or maybe I'm just being too cynical. I have no doubt that this could possibly be a Republican "rat@!$%#ing" operation tha't gone astray. Could be, I say. I'll bet those cops are anxious to "interrogate" the lawyer.
If these accusers can be paid to lie...
This whole story is just weird. Menendez doesn't strike me as a likely target of the GOP like say a Bernie Sanders or a Alan Grayson would be. There's been a lot of scandalous stories about Menendez lately, and not all of them revolve around prostitution. Yet more and more of these stories are turning out to be false.
When was the last time anyone heard a news story about a politician and a prostitute and it turned out that it wasn't true?
What are you supposed to believe when the facts turn out to be wrong the following week?
ACORN! no, wait...BENGHAZI!! no, wait...PROSTITUTES!! That sort of thing?
Why shoot, that sounds familiar. Limbaugh shoots his crap to his brainless minions, who shoot their crap around the web, like some kind of Poop Shooter.
Occasionally, there's truth in the matter. But given eternity for effort, even a monkey could write War and Peace.
Rochester12, maybe so, but in the meantime odds are all you'll see in the meantime is that those monkeys are just flinging their poop around.
lemme guess. tucker the twerp was trying to outdo james o'keefe?
So those lazy prostitutes took money but did no deed or service? What about the lawyer fella, did he get to do the deed? Somehow that does not sound conservative, to take money to do no work... ohhhh... I forgot about the House Republicans...
Yeah Lebowsky, republicans will say they must have those lazy 47%ers who want something for nothing in the Dominican Republic too.
I have said it before and I will say it again
Tucker Carlson = Scurrilous Twerp
Foster Friess won a CPAC "philanthropy" award (between the Santorum speech and the Romney speech, significantly). Since Foster bankrolls The Daily Caller to the tune of millions of dollars, we can now state with assurance that at least 3 Dominican hookers have benefited from his largesse.
How many more prostitutes "Mr. Morals" has paid for, no one can say. Love to hear what your two full-time paid bloggers have to say about this, Foster.
Heres the thing, say I went to Amsterdam and smoked a little hashish or weed, came back to the U.S. and popped positive on a drug screen a week later. Would there be sanctions against me for what was effectively Legal drug use?
Hooking is LEGAL in the DR, so whats the problem? Unless the real problem is Menendez didn't purchase the services of prostitutes.
Or maybe the problem is Menendez wasn't in Limpys party of child molesters on their DR Sex Vacation. ?
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Tucker Carlson wouldn't hype a story. Just like the National Enquirer Tucker checks and rechecks his facts. I can't imagiine Chucker Tarlson making a mistake like that. /snark/
Hahaha. It's not a mistake if you can get people to repeat it.
Journalistic Ethics don't apply to Conservative news, because the whole point of their effort isn't journalism.
Gee, a seditious Republican money smear campaign. Gosh, I would never have seen that coming! Now that the story has lost it's luster (deception value), we'll have to move on to something more shiny!
He being a Latino might have something to do with it. As Obama picks more minorities it looks as if the GOP is putting the cart before the ox. Just look at Judd and how paranoid they are about Hillary! Its to laugh at them as they tear themselves apart! LOL Also funny Palin back in the picture for a cameo I'm sure its just to pump up the base for Rove's hand picked loser only about 2 years away before he throws their hat in the ring! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The intereting story would be who hired Dominican attorney, melanio, to hire the hookers?
I do want to point out that, even though this story is clearly bogus and Carlson deserves approbation for printing it, that doesn't limit the fact that Sen. Menendez was there on the private plane of someone under investigation for Medicare fraud, that the guy who sent him has other legal problems he's been asking for help from powerful friends with, is a large Democratic donor, and that Sen. Menendez didn't pay him back for the travel costs, as required by law, for three years.
Which is to say that we ought not let our well earned disdain for Tucker Carlson and the rest of the right wing media convince us that all of it is trumped up and bogus. Sen. Menendez may not have slept with prostitutes, but he clearly was not behaving in a way he should be proud of. And as a liberal who likes Sen. Menendez, I'd have rather he consorted with prostitutes in a country where it's legal to do so than that he take favors from a large donor who is seeking help from powerful friends.
I know that some people don't get it, but there are a lot worse things than seeing prostitutes, and, at least on the surface, it seems possible that Sen. Menendez was engaged in them. Don't let your journalistic schadenfreude blind you to that.
Tucker Carlson is one of the greatest fabulists publishing on the Internet. It's all lies, innuendo and Drudge bait. Does anyone really take the DC seriously? C'mon, it's worse than Fox, and that is saying plenty.