Bob Mendez, the Democrat politician and senator from New Jersey since 2006, is under criminal investigation by federal authorities according to reports by multiple news agencies in the US. 

According to ABC News, Mendez is being investigated by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the nature of the allegations against the 68-year-old lawyer-turned-politician is not yet clear.

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“Senator Menendez is aware of an investigation that was reported on today, however, he does not know the scope of the investigation,” the Senator’s adviser, Michael Soliman, told the US media in a statement on Wednesday.

“As always, should any official inquiries be made, the Senator is available to provide any assistance that is requested of him or his office,” he added. 

Mendez was earlier investigated on corruption charges from April 2015 over his relationship with Salomon Melgen, a Florida-based eye doctor. 

He was accused of accepting around $1 million in campaign donations from the doctors, along with gifts like flights on Melgen’s private jet, vacations at his Dominican Republic villa, and a hotel room in Paris. These were all allegedly in return for political favours done by the senator towards Melgen.

He, however, could not be prosecuted as the jury were hung in the case and as a result of it, the charges against him were dismissed in 2018.

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He was later charged and convicted of defrauding patients under Medicare- the government health insurance programme that began under the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 1965.

He was almost on the verge of being imprisoned in the Medicare case, but a timely intervention by former president Donald Trump saved him. Trump commuted Mendez’s prison sentence just as he departed from office in 2021.

Menendez is a powerful politician who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.