A Senate ethics probe into the relationship between Senator Robert Menendez's and a Miami doctor and major campaign donor is bringing additional scrutiny to Senator Menendez's formidable campaign finance operation and his sphere of influence.

WNYC has learned that Senator Robert Menendez is the honorary chair of a trade organization that relies on a long list of his campaign donors as sponsors and has an address that is a K Street law office in Washington DC. 

WNYC's Bob Hennelly reports the president of the group, the United States Spain Council, is a former Menendez staffer who was a consultant on a controversial Dominican Republic port security deal worth a half a billlion dollars to a major Menendez campaign donor.

It's Menendez's relationship with that donor, Dr. Salomon Melgen, that's at the heart of a Senate Ethics Committee probe that has dogged the Senator for months