Month: November 2023

George Santos (Republican) is one of the strangest people to have ended up in the U.S. Congress. He makes some questionable decisions that most lawmakers wouldn’t do.

Here are some examples:

December 22, 2022: Swooping in during the final stretch of 2022 is a brazen new entry for scammer of the year: Rep.-elect George Santos, a 34-year-old Republican from Long Island who seems to have completely made up key parts of his work, education, and personal background.

Santos would be the first Brazilian American and the first openly gay nonincumbent Republican elected to Congress. While campaigning for office, he referenced his Jewish roots and touted his experience on Wall Street and philanthropic work. But a New York Times article on Monday revealed glaring holes in his résumé, casting serious doubt on his claims.

…Santos has claimed that his mother is Jewish and that his maternal grandparents “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine” during World War II…

…A distant relative of Santos on his father’s side who researched the family tree told Forward that there were no Ukrainian or Jewish roots on that side of the family.

…Santos has said that he graduated from Baruch College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance. But, the university told the New York Times that it had no record of anyone with Santos’s name, or variation of his name, graduating in 2010 as he claimed.

…The National Republican Congressional Committee said in Santos’s biography that “he attended Baruch College and NYU where he got degrees in finance and economics.”

NYU told the Times that there were no attendance records under Santos’s name. (BuzzFeed News)

January 1, 2023: …The surfacing of the Wiki biography is another twist in a weeks-long saga of lies and embelishments. The New York Republican has been caught fabricating his own resume on everything from his business career, educational achievements and the nature of his mother’s death. He has admitted that he misled about critical parts of his biography, but has also insisted that other politicians have done the same.

…In a 2011 Wiki bio, the user “Anthony Devolder” sprinkles show business credits that ring similarly untrue. He describes his Hollywood career as taking off after a meeting with a producer of the 1996 “Independence Day.” He name drops the director Steven Spielberg (he misspelled his last name as “Spilberg”), and claims to have stared in “a few T.V. shows and DISNEY Channel shows such as “the suite life of Zack and Cody” and the hit “Hanna[h] Montana.” (Politico)

January 10, 2023: The House of Representatives on Monday passed a new set of rules that weaken the ability of the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate ethics-related complaints about members of Congress.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., told Insider in an interview on Monday. (Salon)

January 11, 2023: Virtually the entire Republican leadership of New York’s Nassau County called on Rep. George Santos to resign from Congress, saying he was “disgraced” and needed to step aside.

Santos represents New York’s 3rd District, which includes most of the county and the call Wednesday from the leadership of his own party is the strongest yet against the embattled freshman…

…“His lies were not mere fibs,” (Nassau County GOP Committee Chairman Joseph Cairo Jr.) “He disgraced the House of Representatives. In particular, his fabrications went too far, many groups were hurt — specifically, I look at those families who were touched by the horrors of the Holocaust.”

…Republican donors say they were “duped” by Santos; Democrats have already filed ethics complaints against him, and a campaign finance watchdog has also lodged a complaint with the Federal Election Commission regarding fundraising irregularities…(NBC New York)

January 11, 2023: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday that embattled freshman GOP Rep. George Santos of New York, who is facing growing calls to resign after he admitted having fabricated much of his personal biography, should not be seated on any top committiees.

“No,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said emphatically as he headed into a GOP Steering Committee meeting where members were deciding which colleagues should serve on certain committees.

Although Democrats and some Republicans have said Santos should not get any committee assignments at all, McCarthy confirmed later in the day that he would serve on at least one… (NBC News)

January 13, 2023: There are mounting calls from both politicians and voters to force the newly elected apparent fabulist U.S. Rep. George Santos from Congress following revelations he fabricated his background and other details of his life.

But New York’s 3rd Congressional District voters, who elected Santos as their representative in November 2022, cannot directly force him out of office until the next election, in November 2024.

It appears that Santos, who beat Democrat Robert Zimmerman during the 2022 midterm election, has woven a web of lies about his personal and professional background, some of them touching in major historical and tragic events. Santos falsely claimed, for example, to have Jewish ancestry and said that his maternal grandparents fled to Brazil during the Holocaust. He also said that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks seemingly “claimed” the life of his mother — who actually died in 2016 (The Conversation via Y! News)

January 17, 2023: The House Steering Committee on Tuesday recommended that embattled George Santos (R-N.Y.) sit on the House Small Business Committee and House Science, Space and Technology Committee, according to sources familiar with the assignments.

Santos’s assignment to the panels comes after multiple members of his own party have called on him to resign over his admitted fabrications about his work history and education, questions about his campaign finances, misleading claims of Jewish heritage and reported charges in Brazil related to checkbook fraud (which Santos has denied), among other issues… (The Hill — via Y! News)

January 20, 2023: Among the few allies George Santos has sought to maintain during his brief time in the political spotlight is a group of young Republicans with connections to white nationalists, conservative conspiracy theorists and far-right European parties…

…Santos, who has been a regular member of The New York Young Republican Club since at least 2019, donated $3,750 to it through his campaign committee between 2020 and 2021, according to FEC filings. He hired the group’s executive secretary, Viswant Burra, as the congressman’s operations director — a senior role in the congressman’s Washington D.C. office…

…A spokesperson for Santos, who is under investigation over his finances amid questions about how he was wealthy enough to lend his campaign $700,000, did not return a message for comment. (Politico)

January 26, 2023: A set of updated campaign finance reports are deepening the mystery surrounding the source of high-dollar loans that Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) made to his campaign last year.

Santos’s campaign previously reported that a pair of six-figure loans from the candidate — one for $500,000 that was made last March and another for $125,000 in October — came from his personal funds.

But in an amended filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Tuesday, Santos’s campaign unchecked a box indicating that the $500,000 loan came from personal funds. Similarly, a separate updated report left the same box unchecked for the $125,000 loan.

…Further complicating the matter is the fact that filings from later in 2022 still mark the $500,000 loan as coming from personal funds, leaving the source of the money unclear. Campaign finance experts are struggling to unpack the latest disclosures from Santos’s campaign, which they say are riddled with potential errors and descrepancies…(The Hill — via Y! News)

January 27, 2023: In September 2020, George Santos’s congressional campaign reported that Victoria and Jonathan Regor had each contributed $2,800 — the maximum amount — to his first bid for a House seat. Their address was 45 New Mexico Street in Jackson Township, New Jersey.

A search of various databases reveals no one in the United States named Victoria or Jonathan Regor. Moreover, there is nobody by any name living at 45 New Mexico Street in Jackson. That address doesn’t exist. There is a New Mexico Street in Jackson, but the numbers end in the 20s according to Google Maps and a resident of the street.

Santos’s 2020 campaign finance reports also list a donor named Stephen Berger as a $2,500 donor and said he was a retiree who lived on Brant Road in Brawley, California. But a spokesperson for William Brandt, a prominent rancher and Republican donor, tells Mother Jones that Brandt has lived at that address for at least 20 years and “neither he or his wife (the only other occupant [at the Brandt Road home]) have made any donations to George Santos. He does not know Stephen Berger nor has Stephen Berger ever lived at… Brandt Road.” (Mother Jones)

January 31, 2023: Embattled New York Republican Rep. George Santos is voluntarily stepping down from his committee assignments amid outcry over his fabricated biography and ongoing questions about his personal campaign finances.

“With the ongoing attention surrounding both my personal and campaign financial investigations, I have submitted a request to Speaker McCarthy that I be temporarily recused from my committee assignments until I am cleared,” Santos said in a statement.

Santos later told reporters he was confident he would be cleared “because I have nothing to hide.” (NPR)

February 1, 2023: The FBI has contacted a Navy veteran, Richard Osthoff, as part of an investigation into embattled Rep. George Santos and a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for Osthoff’s sick service dog.

Osthoff confirmed the call from the FBI, and sources familiar with the matter confirmed the nature of the investigation — which adds to the growing list of controversies Santos, R.N.Y., is facing.

…According to previous ABC News reporting, a source familiar said Santos, using the name Anthony Devolder, ran a GoFundMe account in 2016 under the auspices of a charity, Friends of Pets United, and raised some $3,000 to ostensibly help Osthoff pay for surgery to remove a tumor from his dog.

Osthoff told ABC News that Santos did not come through with the money and ignored text messages about it. Osthoff says his dog, Sapphire, ultimately died from her condition. (ABC News)

February 9, 2023: Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is once again dogged by controversy and, once again, that controversy concerns dogs.

According to Politico, Santos was charged with theft by deception in 2017 in Pennsylvania’s Amish County after a series of bad checks totaling $15,125 were written in his name to dog breeders in the area.

But while the truth-challenged congressman was charged with the crimes, it was later expunged from Santos’ record after he claimed his checkbook had been stolen. (HuffPost)

February 15, 2023: One of Rep. Santos’ first-known forays into politics was an attempt to raise $20,000 for a pro-Trump rally in 2019 in Buffalo, N.Y. that never happened.

The five-figure fundraising goal drew questions from members of the small New York state-based group United For Trump. Santos — who was the group’s president at the time — claimed he needed $750 to hire an accountant, $2,500 to keep a lawyer on retainer and thousands more for a keynote speaker.

The plans were “over-the-top,” group member Lisa Bennet Joseph said in an interview. Santos wanted to raise too much money, she said. “You have to start small and local.” (Politico)

February 16, 2023: George Santos hid inside his district office as constituents attempted to deliver a petition calling for his resignation on Wednesday, according to multiple reports.

…A staffer told the group that Santos was in the building but added that he refused to meet with a “mob”, according to the UK newspaper The Independent.

A group of around 25 constituents chanted as they attempted to hand over the petition, which they said had more than 1,000 signatures, per the paper.

George Santos tweeted: “Let me be very clear, I’m not leaving, I’m not hiding I am NOT backing down…”

The group confronting him is known as the Concerned Citizens of NY-03. Last week, they traveled to Capitol Hill to call for the expulsion of their congressman… Their Facebook group boasts more than 700 members…(Business Insider — via Y! News)

February 16, 2023: The campaign of scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is not short on problems, including a reported federal investigation. But it is short on one critical thing: money.

As Santos reported weighs whether to run again in 2024, that spells real trouble — because the campaign hasn’t been legally allowed to raise or spend money for nearly two weeks, according to campaign finance experts who have reviewed recent Federal Election Commission filings.

…News reports this week suggested that the FEC’s letter was a warning, giving Santos 10 days to comply or shut down financial activity.

But the letter itself doesn’t say that, and legal experts told The Daily Beast that the 10-day window appears to have closed on Feb. 4…

…But when it comes to what consequences Santos’ campaign might face if it raises or spends money when it’s not legally allowed to, the situation was so bizarre that it left experts stumped. (The Daily Beast via Y! News)

March 2, 2023: Rep George Santos (R-NY) introduced his first piece of legislation in Congress.

The SALT Relief Act, which aims to increase the limitation on deductions for state and local taxes, is intended to help with the growing cost-of-living crisis, he said in a statement.

“Long Island residents specifically in Nassau County are paying some of the highest property taxes in the country. In 2018 for Nassau County, the average SALT amount (property tax liability income or sales tax liability) reported among itemizing filers was $30,227.21, but due to the $10,000 cap, the average SALT deduction claimed was $9,023.79,” Santos said. (Washington Examiner)

March 15, 2023: Federal and state investigators are probing Rep. George Santos’ role in the sale of a $19 million yacht involving two of his wealthy donors, according to a law enforcement official.

The law enforcement interest in the sale first reported by The New York Times, underscores the far reaches of the investigations into the embattled congressman’s finances. Santos previously told Semafor he collected referral fees by brokering these sorts of deals.

…Santos has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. On Wednesday, his attorney, Joe Murray, said he could not comment on the substance of any allegations against his client, but said: “I’m getting a little tired of all these investigations being leaked into the public.

…The New York Times reported that prosecutors and federal agents have recently tried to question the owner of the yacht — Raymond Tantillo, a New York auto dealer — about the purchase and his interactions with Santos, including political donations.

Tantillo purchased the boat from Mayra Ruiz, a GOP donor for Miami, with Santos negotiating the payment and helping arrange the logistics, the Times reported.

Both Ruiz and Tantillo donated to Santos’ congressional campaign, federal records show. There is no suggestion that either has acted improperly.

…In an interview last December with Semafor, Santos sought to explain the source of his newfound wealth, describing Devolder as serving in the capital introduction business. He said that included “deal building” and “specialty consulting” for “high net worth individuals.” (CNN)

May 9, 2023: Justice Department prosecutors have charged George Santos, R. N.Y., with federal offenses, four sources familiar with the matter told NBC New, the most significant escalation in a growing pile of investigations that have plagued him since before he even took office.

A source with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed to NBC News that Santos, who was spotted in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, is expected to appear at the Long Island Federal Courthouse in the Central Islip, N.Y., on Wednesday.

…In December, two federal law enforcement sources confirmed that federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York had opened an investigation into Santos and were examining his finances, including irregularities involving financial disclosures and loans he made to his congressional campaign. (NBC News)

May 10, 2023: George Santos has pleaded not guilty to 13 federal charges, including allegations of fraud related to Covid-19 unemployment benefits, misusing campaign funds and lying about his personal finances on House disclosure reports.

Santos was released on a $500,000 bond, according to the US Attorney’s Office in New York. He was ordered to surrender his passport and will need permission to travel outside of Washington DC, New York City, and Long Island.

…The charges inject fresh uncertainty into the political future of Santos, a freshman congressman whose astonishing pattern of lies and fabrications stunned even hardened politicos who led top Democrats and some New York Republicans to call for his resignation earlier this year.

The congressman said on Wednesday that he will not resign from his seat and that he still plans to seek reelection next year… (CNN)

May 10, 2023: The Independent posted an article titled: “George Santos: Every lie disgraced Republican Congressman has been accused of making”

He went to college: Mr. Santos’s claim that he obtained degrees from NYU and Baruch College, another New York City-based school.

As it turns out, not only did he not graduate from either school, officials at both said there was no record of him attending under any alias. Mr. Santos has now admitted this, chalking it up to the effort to make his resume more impressive.

He went to prep school: Mr. Santos claimed in a campaign biography during his failed 2020 bid for Congress (in the same district) that he had briefly attended a prestigious prep school in New York.

“He began at Horace Mann preparatory school in the Bronx, however, did not graduate from Horace Mann due to financial difficulties for his family,” read the biography.

As you might expect, Horace Mann officials said there was no record of him ever attending. Mr. Santos has not responded to discovery of this apparent fabrication.

He worked at banks: Mr. Santos did not, as it turns out, work at either Citigroup or Goldman Sachs. He has now admitted that this too was a fiction: Instead, he claims to have worked for two banks through a third company, though he has provided no evidence to back that claim up.

He ran a charity: Mr. Santos previously claimed to have founded a charity group called Friends of Pets United, taking credit for supposedly saving thousands of dogs and cats. But no IRS records of the group could be found, and Mr. Santos himself even backed away from the claim that he founded the group, later telling reporters that he only campaigned for the group and tried to find foster homes for some animals.

He knew victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting: Among many other claims, Mr. Santos told WNYC last year that he personally had “lost” four of his employees at the tragedy at Pulse nightclub in 2016.

It was later determined by news reports that no one on the list of those killed in the mass shooting were identifiable as being employees of any business owned by Mr. Santos.

May 11, 2023: GOP Rep. George Santos on Thursday voted for a bill he co-sponsored that would crack down on a crime he is accused of — unemployment fraud.

The measure, the “Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act,” passed 230–200, would provide incentives to help states recover money lost to COVID unemployment fraud.

Under the bill, states would retain 25% of recovered fraudulent overpayments and the statute of limitations for federal criminal charges or civil enforcement actions related to unemployment insurance fraud would be extended from five to 10 years.

On Wednesday, Santos was indicted on 13 criminal counts, including allegedly fraudulently applying for and receiving unemployment benefits during the COVID pandemic when he had a $120,000 salary working as a regional director of an investment firm, according to the charging documents (ABC News)

July 15, 2023: Embattled freshman U.S. Rep. George Santos, a Republican from New York charged with a host of financial crimes, including embezzling money from his campaign, withdrew $85,000 from his campaign to help repay hundreds of thousands of dollars he loaned himself to get elected in 2022.

Congressional campaign records released Friday show Santos raised a relatively paltry $138,000 during the last three months for a reelection bid that is expected to be one of the country’s most-watched and hotly contested races in 2024.

The records show he spent nearly $118,000, the bulk of it to begin repaying the more than $700,000 he loaned himself for his successful but surprising victory last year.

…Santos pleaded not guilty in May to a 13-count federal indictment charging him with looting campaign coffers, fradulently receiving unemployment and lying to Congress about being a millionaire. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

A day later, he signed an agreement with Brazilian officials that allowed him to avoid prosecution for forging two stolen checks in 2008. (ABC News)

August 16, 2023: A campaign fundraiser for indicted US Rep George Santos has been charged for allegedly impersonating a high-ranking congressional aide to solicit contributions for the New York Republican’s campaign in 2021, according to court documents.

A federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted Samuel Miele, who worked for the Santos campaign during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, on four counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft in the alleged scheme to defraud prospective donors, according to the indictment unsealed Wednesday.

…Miele surrendered Wednesday morning and pleaded not guilty at an arraignment in Brooklyn federal court later in the day.

He was released on a $150,000 bond…(CNN)

October 6, 2023: The ex-treasurer for US congressman George Santos pleaded guilty Thursday to a fraud conspiracy charge and implicated the indicted New York Republican in a scheme to embellish his campaign finance reports with a fake loan and fake donors.

Nancy Marks, who was a close aide to Santos during his two congressional bids, entered the plea at the federal courthouse on Long Island, where she was a longtime political operative and bookkeeper for multiple candidates.

Speaking to the judge, Marks said that among other things, she and Santos had submitted bogus campaign finance reports falsely saying he had loaned his campaign $500,000 — even though in reality he did not have that kind of money and that the loan did not exist. She said the purpose of the fake loan was to make it look as if he was richer than he really was, which might attract other donors, including a Republican committee…(The Guardian)

October 10, 2023: The U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York has added an additional ten counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements, identity theft and other charges against Congressman George Santos.

The New York Republican was already facing 13-counts from a May indictment. In this latest court filing, federal prosecutors allege Santos made false statements to the Federal Election Commission and then falsified records to obstruct the FEC.

The 23-count superseding indictment also accuses the first-term Congressman of identify theft, device fraud, and wire fraud.

In the scene, prosecutors accuse Santos of running a credit card fraud scheme using his political donors’ credit cards, while also allegedly attempting to scam the national Republican Party.

“Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in a statement Thursday. (NPR)November 16, 2023: Republican Rep. George Santos announced he will not seek reelection to the House next year, following the Ethics Committee’s release of a long-awaited report on Thursday, which concluded that there is “substantial evidence” that the New York Congressman used campaign funds for personal purposes.

The committee said it uncovered additional “uncharged and unlawful conduct” by Santos that go beyond the criminal allegations already pending against him, and would immediately refer the allegations to the Justice Department for further investigation.

Santos engaged in “knowing and willful violations” with regard to financial disclosure statements filed with the House, according to the panel, and “knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission.”

The committee concluded that Santos “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”

Following the release of the report, Santos announced that he will not seek reelection, though he remained defiant and denounced the investigation, calling it a “biased report.”

“It is a disgusting politicized smear that shows the depths of how low our federal government has sunk. Everyone who participated in this grave miscarriage of Justice should all be ashamed of themselves,” Santos wrote on X. He went on to say, “I will however NOT be seeking re-election for a second term in 2024 an my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time.”

The New York Republican later said that he will hold a press conference outside the Capitol on November 30 — the week Congress returns from Thanksgiving recess, and likely after the House votes on whether to expel him. Expulsion is exceedingly rare and requires the high bar of a two-thirds majority vote in the House to succeed. (CNN)

October 13, 2023: New York Intelligencer posted: “George Santos Has Meltdown While Holding Mystery Baby”

…So, here’s what happened. We’ve all had an extremely long week, as you’re likely aware. On Friday afternoon, George Santos, the New York representative whose tally of alleged federal crimes is now up to 23, was spotted screaming in the hallway of the Longworth House Office Building. It appears Santos — who famously suggested his family was Jewish then revised it to “Jew-ish” — was accosted by pro-Palestinian protesters.

Normally, neither a small protest on Capitol Hill nor George Santos shouting in front of a gaggle of reporters would be all that notable. But there’s the twist: Santos was holding a 2-month-old baby when this all went down.

…Matt Rice posted on Twitter: George Santos just left Tim Burchett’s office with a baby in his arms. When asked if it was his baby, he said “not yet.”

November 9, 2023: The House of Representatives Committee on Ethicsposted “In the matter of allegations relating to Representative George Santos”. Here is the Introduction:

A fundamental tenet of government service is that public office is a public trust. As noted in extensive detail below, the evidence uncovered by the Investigative Subcommittee (USC) revealed that Representative George Santos cannot be trusted. At nearly every opportunity, he placed his desire for private gain above his duty to uphold the Constitution, federal law, and ethical principles.

On February 28, 2023, the Committee on Ethics (Committee) unanimously voted to impanel an ISC to review whether Representative Santos may have: engaged in unlawful activity with respect to his 2022 congressional campaign; failed to properly disclose required information on statements filed with the House; violated federal conduct of interest laws in connection with his role in a firm providing fiduciary services; and/or engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual seeking employment in his congressional office.

In May 2023, the ISC expanded its jurisdiction to review additional allegations that were the subject of a federal indictment filed against Representative Santos in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY). A superseding indictment was filed on October 10, 2023, charging Representative Santos with a total of 23 counts of criminal activity. The ISC reviewed the allegations underlying those charges, as well as a broader range of alleged misconduct beyond the scope of the indictments.

Representative Santos has been the subject of significant public reporting about his many alleged fabrications, including allegations that he has lied about his degrees, his religion, his work experience his family, and numerous other aspects of his biography. But Representative Santos’ lies go beyond inaccuracies on a resume.

The ISC’s investigation revealed a complex web of unlawful activity involving Representative Santos’ campaign, personal, and business finances. Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.

He blatantly stole from his campaign. He decieved donors for his personal benefit. He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign — and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported “repayments” of those fictitious loans. He used his connections to high value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fradulent or otherwise questionable business dealings. And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience…

November 16, 2023: The New York Republican congressman, fabulist and criminal defendant George Santos said he would not seek re-election next year, after the US House ethics committee issued a report detailing “grave and pervasive campaign finance violations and fraudulent activity” and recommended action against him.

…But after the report detailed his conduct, moves for a new expulsion resolution began.

“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” the committee said.

“He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.

“He reported fictitious loans to political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign — and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported ‘repayments” of those fictitious loans.

“He used his connections to high-value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings. And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.”

…On Thursday, the New York Democrat Dan Goldman said: “More than 10 months after Congressman [Ritchie] Torres and I filed a complaint… the committee has… concluded that George Santos defrauded his donors, filed false Federal Commission reports, and repeatedly broke the law in order to fraudulent win his election last November.”

Promising to “file a motion to expel Santos from Congress once and for all” after the Thanksgiving break, Goldman said Republicans “no longer have any fictional excuse to protect Santos in order to preserve their narrow majority.” (The Guardian)

November 16, 2023: The House Ethics Committee in a scathing report Thursday said it has amassed “overwhelming evidence” of lawbreaking by Republican Rep. George Santos of New York that has been sent to the Justice Department, concluding flatly that he “cannot be trusted” after a months-long investigation into his conduct.

Shortly after the panel’s report was released, Santos blasted it in a tweet on X as a “disgusting politicized smear” but said he would not be seeking reelection to a second term. He gave no indication, however, that he would step aside before his term ends next year, vowing to pursue his “congressional values in my remaining time in Congress.”

But a renewed effort to expel him from the House was quickly launched. The House could vote on his expulsion as soon as it returns from the Thanksgiving holiday later this month.

…The investigation also looked into at least $200,000 that was transferred from a Florida-based company, RedStone Strategies LLC, to Santos’ personal bank accounts. The report said at least three people transferred money to RedStone after being told the money would be used for political purposes but the funds were transferred to Santos’ personal accounts.

…If Santos were to be expelled, it would narrow the GOP’s already thin majority in the House, which now stands at 221–213. But many of his Republican colleagues from New York support booting Santos from the House as they seek to distance themselves from his actions. (The Hill)