though I'm sure it'll all blow over after November.:eyes:
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/newjersey/story/6738495p-6608377c.htmlMenendez says he regrets rental deal at center of controversy
The Associated Press
Published: Sunday, September 10, 2006
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Sen. Robert Menendez expressed regret Sunday over renting office space to a Hudson County nonprofit that receives federal funds, while his Republican challenger in the U.S. Senate race, Tom Kean Jr., distanced himself from the Bush administration on a range of issues.
In an interview with The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark, Menendez defended the legality and ethicality of his role as landlord to the North Hudson Community Action Corp. But he acknowledged that, in hindsight, he would have been better off not renting to the agency while he was lobbying for it to receive federal aid.
"I did nothing for the North Hudson Community Action Corp. that was inappropriate or unethical," Menendez said. "But, having said that, if I ever thought even with an ethical approval that this would become the distraction it has become in this campaign, I certainly would have thought about it twice and would not have ultimately pursued it."
The U.S. Attorney's office is said to be looking into the deal, in which Menendez collected more than $300,000 in rent over 10 years before selling the Union City building in 2003 for $358,000 more than he paid for it.
Menendez said he sought and received verbal approval for the transaction from Mark Davis, an ethics lawyer with the House ethics committee, in 1994, when he was a U.S. congressman. However, an obituary for Davis in a Capitol Hill publication says he left the committee in 1993 and died last October.
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