TRENTON — U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, facing inquiries by both the Senate ethics committee and the Justice Department over his ties to a wealthy Florida donor, has so far spent more than $400,000 on legal fees, according to campaign finance documents provided by an aide today.

As a result, Menendez, the senior Democratic senator from New Jersey and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is setting up a defense fund to help pay future legal costs, the aide, Paul Brubaker, said.

The senator’s office also disclosed that he was three years late in paying for a flight on the private plane of the donor, Salomon Melgen, an eye doctor in South Florida — the third such flight that Menendez did not reimburse until years later, after his relationship with Melgen drew sharp scrutiny.

"Due to an oversight, the campaign did not reimburse Dr. Melgen for the cost of that flight at the time," Brubaker, the state director for Menendez, said. "When that oversight was discovered, at the end of 2013, Sen Menendez directed his campaign to immediately reimburse Dr. Melgen $11,250."

The flight was from Florida to New Jersey after Menendez went on a two-day swing through the state to attend meetings and campaign fundraising events.

The Senate ethics committee was already investigating Menendez’s failure to reimburse Melgen for two flights in 2010, valued at $58,500. Those were round trips to the Dominican Republic, one from Florida and the other from New Jersey. Menendez disclosed them in January 2013, after state Sen. Sam Thompson (R-Middlesex) requested the committee investigate his travels.

In addition to the ethics investigation, the Miami Herald has reported that a federal grand jury in Florida is examining whether Menendez aided Melgen’s business interest by allegedly trying to influence the Dominican Republic’s government to honor a port security contract with a Melgen company, and whether he interceded on Melgen’s behalf with federal government officials in a Medicare billing dispute.

An affidavit Menendez submitted to the secretary of the Senate to set up the legal fund confirms the existence of both a federal and Senate inquiry. "This fund is necessitated by, and intended to defray, legal expenses I incur and am responsible for in connection with legal inquiries, including by the Select Committee on Ethics ... and the United States Department of Justice," it said.

Menendez has denied any wrongdoing.

"We have incurred significant expenses to respond to the smear campaign that was launched by right wing operatives against Senator Menendez last year," Brubaker said.

Menendez’s campaign has paid the law firm McDermott Will & Emery $250,000 for personal representation, and $156,240 to the law firm Perkins Coie to represent the campaign.

Brubaker said Menendez received permission from the ethics committee to set up the legal fund, which can accept donations of up to donations capped at $10,000 a year. Registered lobbyists, foreign nationals, corporations and labor unions are not permitted to contribute.

The fund will disclose its contributions quarterly with the secretary of the Senate.

Menendez set up a similar fund in 2011 to fight a recall attempt by a tea party group in New Jersey, to which Melgen and his wife donated $20,000.

Patrick Murray, a pollster at Monmouth University, said today that the disclosure of the previously unreported flight "raises questions.

"Knowing he was being scrutinized for his trips, you would think he would have looked closely at every piece of travel over the last few years," he said.

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