Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., lobbied former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ensure that an Ecuadorian woman accused of visa fraud was allowed to remain in the U.S., reports from The New York Times and NBC 4 New York revealed on Wednesday.
That woman's family made significant contributions to both the New Jersey Democrat's 2012 campaign and the Democratic Party.
At a time when Clinton is considering a run at the White House, pundits suggest her involvement in another controversy could spell an early defeat.
Estafania Isaias, daughter of an Ecuadorian fugitive convicted in absentia for bank fraud, was banned from traveling in the U.S. in 2007 due to falsifying information on a visa while attempting sneak maids into the country to work at her parents' Florida mansion.
She reportedly claimed that the women were her personal business assistants, but U.S. consular officials in Ecuador said it was more akin to "human smuggling."
After Isaias was banned, she was somehow able to obtain multiple short-term waivers from the U.S. government, but that stopped in 2011 after government officials grew concerned about her visa fraud allegations, reported NBC.
She then turned to Senator Menendez for help.
"Around that time, Isaias family members in Florida made campaign donations: more than $11,000 to Senator Menendez's 2012 campaign, and more than $125,000 to the Obama Victory Fund and the democratic National Committee," according to NBC.
Menendez and his staff began making "repeated" phone calls, sending emails and writing letters to Clinton and her former chief of staff Cheryl Mills.
At one point, the senator even told Clinton he was "personally aware of Ms. Isaias' circumstances," that he believed she would "comply with all legal requirements," and that she should be allowed to come and work in the U.S.
Lobbying efforts finally paid off, when in 2012, the State Department asked that Homeland Security approve Isaias's visa waiver, which it did, says NBC. Isaias's mother donated more than $105,000 to the Democratic Party in the first six months of 2012.
When contact by NBC, Clinton and Mills both denied requests for interviews.
A spokesman for the two said, "There are rigorous processes in place for matters such as these and they were followed. Nothing more, nothing less."
At one point, Menendez said he helped the family because he thought they had been treated unfairly by the Ecuadorian government, and when contacted by NBC, his communications director said that unnamed sources are "peddling garbage to smear the senator," and that campaign contributions played no role in the senator's actions.
"In this case, our office believed Ms. Isaias was wrongly denied approval of a waiver allowing her to work in the US on her H1-B visa , a waiver she had received six times before any engagement by our office," the director said.
