[3][4] Later that month, Governor Charlie Crist announced that he would appoint George LeMieux as the successor to Martínez for the remaining year and a half of the Senate term.

[5] Two weeks after Martínez resigned his Senate seat, The Hill reported that he would become a lobbyist and partner at international firm DLA Piper.

[6] He left DLA Piper in August 2010 to become chairman of Chase Bank Florida and its operations in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

[7] Martinez is currently chairman of the Southeast and Latin America for JPMorgan, Chase & Co.[8] Martínez also serves as a co-chair of the Housing Commission at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

[10] He came to the United States in 1962 as part of a Roman Catholic humanitarian effort called Operation Peter Pan, which brought into the U.S. more than 14,000 children.

While serving as HUD Secretary, Martínez sat as an ex officio member of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Martínez defeated his Democratic opponent, Betty Castor, in a very close election that was preceded by numerous negative television ads from both campaigns.

[18] On October 28, 2008, Republican Sen. Mel Martínez agreed to pay $99,000 in fines for his campaign's failure to comply with federal election laws, including its acceptance of excess contributions, records show.

The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in August 2006 that alleged Martínez illegally accepted more than $60,000 from the Bacardi beverage company in the campaign.

An amended complaint by CREW in October 2006 alleged similar behavior by Bacardi for Democratic Senator Bill Nelson's 2006 re-election campaign.

Martínez immediately denied all knowledge of Darling's involvement in the situation, noting that he himself had inadvertently passed a copy of the memo to Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, believing that it was nothing more than an outline of the Republican proposal.

During the Republican primary, a staffer was blamed for a passage in a campaign flyer painting his opponent Bill McCollum as a servant of the "radical homosexual lobby."

[23] In November 2006, Martínez was named general chairman of the Republican Party for the 2007–2008 election cycle (Mike Duncan handled the day-to-day operations).

In August 2008, Martínez released an autobiography titled A Sense of Belonging; From Castro's Cuba to the U.S. Senate, One Man's Pursuit of the American Dream.

The book Immigrant Prince is a biography about Martínez written by Richard E. Foglesong, the George and Harriet Cornell Professor of Politics at Rollins College (University Press of Florida, April 2011) ISBN 978-0813035796.

According to Carol Rosenberg, "The cause for alarm at the U.S. Embassy was what a U.S. diplomat called a 'well documented' 12-inch-tall dossier compiled by a Spanish human rights group.

In the name of five Guantánamo captives with ties to Spain, it accused the Bush legal insiders of laying the foundation for abuse of detainees in the months following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

[25] The six accused are: former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; David Addington, former chief of staff and legal adviser to the Vice President; William Haynes, former DOD General Counsel; Douglas Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Jay Bybee, former head of the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel; and John Yoo, a former member of Bybee's staff.

Following the outreach, the Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido's press chief told the media that the Prosecutor's office will deliver the AG's recommendation to the National Court, where it will be up to investigating judge Baltasar Garzon to decide whether to pursue the case or not.

Baltasar Garzon has been an outspoken critic of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and has publicly stated that former President George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes.