The Rep.-elect is under investigation by federal prosecutors
Investigating a Newcomer to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Investigation of the Loss of a Representative to the House of Representative Kevin Santos
The news of the probe, being undertaken by the US attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York, comes as the Republican has admitted to lying about key parts of his biography. Questions have arisen over his wealth and loans made to him during his successful campaign.
He only put a little bit of fluff on his resume, he argued last week, but he apologized for some of the lies and tried to downplay the scope of the fabrications.
The Republican who will be the congressman said in a statement that there should be a full investigation of the House Ethics Committee and that if necessary, law enforcement is needed.
Even House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who must balance the mounting public pressure to crack down on Santos with securing every vote of his slim majority, has claimed that Republicans “will remove him” if the Ethics Committee determines that the embattled congressman committed a crime.
Besides making a referral to the House Ethics Committee, other potential options for dealing with Santos include not giving him any committee assignments, which would be up to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
In the past, the California Republican has shown little appetite for punishing his own members for bad behavior – particularly when it comes to actions from before they were a member of Congress. McCarthy wants to let the probes play out before he decides on how to proceed.
In an interview posted on City & State’s website Monday, Santos said that he would be an efficient member of the congress in the 118th session.
The Chairman of the Nassau County Republican Committee said Tuesday that he thinks the public trust has been broken and that there is a lot of work to be done to regain it.
“Once someone lies to me, I can never trust that individual again,” he said. The Holocaust touches the heart of every Jew and someone who would use that as a talking point as a vote getter is wrong.
He admitted to lying about working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and said he did not graduate from any college or university despite claiming he obtained degrees from Baruch College and New York University. Santos’ claims that his grandparents “survived the Holocaust” as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium have been contradicted by sources reviewed by CNN’s KFile, including records on Jewish refugees and interviews with multiple genealogists. However, now he says he’s Catholic and jokingly calls himself “Jew-ish.” Previous to that,Santos claimed he was an American Jew and Latino Jew. The Republican Jewish Coalition barred Santos from appearing at any of its events because he “misrepresented his heritage.”
When asked by a former congressperson about that,Santos said his heritage is Jewish. I’ve always identified as Jewish. I was raised a Catholic.
The Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday said the incoming congressman had “misrepresented his heritage” and “will not be welcome at any future RJC event.”
Congressman-Elect Marcos Santos: An Outburst for the New York Congressman and a Discrimination Against Politics
Santos admitted Monday he didn’t graduate from any college or university, despite previously claiming he had degrees from Baruch College and New York University.
He admitted to lying about working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as well as having earned a degree in finance and economics from Baruch College in New York.
CNN has reported on false claims about his family’s real estate holdings, including the one that he was forced to leave a New York City private school. In December 2020, Santos said that his mother moved to the United States because of socialism.
The New York attorney general’s office told CNN last week that it had not initiated a “formal investigation” into Santos but said Attorney General Letitia James was “looking into” some of the things that were raised about Santos in recent reports.
“The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are nothing short of stunning,” said Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly.
She said that residents in New York’s 3rd Congressional District need to have an honest and accountable representative in Congress. If there was a crime in this county, we will prosecute it.
Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating Santos’ personal finances, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, amid questions about his sudden wealth and loans of more than $700,000 that he made to his campaign.
Rep.-elect Mike Lawler, also a soon-to-be freshman member from New York, urged his fellow Republican cooperate with any investigations and called on Santos to apologize, calling the whole controversy a “distraction.” In addition, Lawler said that Santos is making things worse by downplaying action’s.
Despite intensifying doubt about his fitness to hold federal office, Santos has shown no signs of stepping aside — even as he publicly admitted to a long list of lies.
Reply to the DA’s Question about Ben Santos and the House Committee on Ethics: An Investigation into his False Representations
He is scheduled to be sworn in next Tuesday, when the U.S. House reconvenes. If he takes office, he could face a House Committee on Ethics investigation.
The Republican has admitted to lying about having Jewish ancestry, a Wall Street pedigree and a college degree, but he has yet to address other lingering questions — including the source of what appears to be a quickly amassed fortune despite recent financial problems, including evictions and owing thousands in back rent.
A spokesperson for the Nassau County DA’s office, Brendan Brosh, said Wednesday: “We are looking into the matter.” The scope of the investigation is not clear.
After The New York Times looked at his narrative, some questions were raised about why he was successful in his campaign for Congress.
In an interview with the New York Post earlier this week, Santos apologized for his fabrications but downplayed them as “sins” over embellishing his resume, adding that “we do stupid things in life.”
He backpedaled on that claim and stated he never intended to claim Jewish heritage, which would have likely raised his appeal with the large number of Jews in his district.
The FEC reports of the Republican who won a seat in congress in November and recently faced scrutiny over a series of false claims about his family history, education, work history, and more are some of the more odd findings.
His Democratic opponent, Robert Zimmerman, also tried to raise Santos’ misrepresentations during his losing campaign, but it didn’t gain much traction.
In recent days, Santos has faced a series of questions regarding his campaign finances, including inquiries about donors as well as campaign disbursements, including dozens of expenses his campaign has reported at exactly $199.99, one cent below the threshold above which the campaign is required to retain receipts.
Campaign finance experts say those expenditures the New York representative-elect reported stood out for a key reason: They are one penny below the dollar figure above which the FEC requires campaigns to keep receipts.
The expenditures, and particularly the $199.99 payments to Uber, Walgreens, Walmart, Best Buy, Delta Airlines, Il Bacco Restaurante and more, “definitely stood out to me,” said campaign finance expert Paul S. Ryan, the deputy executive director of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation.
He said the payments could reflect an effort to skirt FEC requirements for campaigns to keep receipts for expenditures over $200. The FEC encourages candidates to keep their receipts below the threshold but only requires that they make payments over $200.
Ryan said the constant appearance of $199.99 charges effectively shows that the threshold Santos was trying to skirt was known by the Justice Department.
“My view is a bunch of expenditures right below legal requirement for the committee to keep receipts is evidence that he knew what he was doing,” Ryan said. “If in fact he did misuse campaign funds, this was a blatant effort to evade detection.”
A number of those who voted for him in New York’s 3rd Congressional District say they do not want to support him again.
“The whole person that he created and the ability to deceive us is just so troubling,” she said. “This man should not be allowed to be in office and we all know it. I want to assure you the Republicans know it too.”
The End of the American Legislative Adventures: The Story of George Santos in his Final Day as Secretary of the Congressional Ethics Commission
Tom Zmich is a friend ofSantos and he has not done anything wrong as far as legality is concerned.
The donor explained that she had supported Santos because he was the frontrunner in her local race, and, “I had no reason to think that he would have done what he did.”
It is unclear whether Santos has been in touch with the Office of Congressional Ethics, and if so, who initiated the contact. In an exchange, he seemed to be trying to assure a concerned donor.
“I’ve been in touch with the office of congressional ethics and anything they want they have,” Santos told the person in a text message shared with CNN.
Another campaign donor, who similarly requested anonymity to speak freely, told CNN on Friday that she “of course is shocked” following the news of the congressman-elect’s alleged deception and feels “betrayed and lied to.”
Today is my last day as a member of Congress, and George Santos is about to be sworn in to take the seat I held for six years. He will take an oath to true faith in the constitution and not use it as a way of evasion. I am unaware of how many evasions and deceptions Mr. Santos has been involved with over the years. When he is seated, it will diminish our Congress, our country and my constituents — soon his constituents. After 30 years of hard work and dedication to the people of this area, I am being replaced by a con man.
The case of George Santos, a New Yorker who stole a checkbook in 2008, will be investigated by Brazilian law enforcement officials
Yet I’m clinging to my sense of optimism. Our democracy, the free press and the rule of law work as hard as it gets, if not harder, than other things. They have to.
Rep.-elect George Santos of New York is scheduled to be sworn in to Congress on Tuesday as he faces mounting scrutiny and condemnation over lies about his biography and amid an investigation by federal prosecutors into his finances.
The vote for House speaker at the US Capitol is set to begin at noon on Tuesday, after which all incoming members of the 118th Congress will be sworn in.
Prosecutors said they will seek a “formal response” from Santos related to a stolen checkbook in 2008, after police suspended an investigation into him because they were unable to find him for nearly a decade.
Law enforcement officials in Brazil will reinstate fraud charges against Rep.-elect George Santos, the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor’s office tells CNN, as the New York Republican officially assumes his role in the US House Tuesday under a cloud of suspicion over his dubious resume.
According to the Times, citing court records it has reviewed, the criminal case stems from a visit Santos made to a small clothing store in Niterói, a city outside of Rio de Janeiro, where Santos spent nearly $700 out of the stolen checkbook using a fake name.
“No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said at the time.
The district attorney’s office did not specify what fabrications it was exploring and the US attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York declined to comment.
Democrats have cited the mounting false statements and scrutiny facing Santos as an example of hypocrisy for Republicans booting Omar and two other House Democrats – California Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell – off committee assignments. Republican leaders have not yet pushed a vote on the floor of the house, despite the fact that there was a vote on the Intelligence Committee and a vote on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“He just felt like there was so much drama really over the situation, and especially what we’re doing to work to remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee,” Greene told CNN.
Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams, a Republican from Texas, said that he thinks Santos “probably made the right decision” to step down from his committee assignments until the questions about his past and his financial irregularities are resolved.
The FEC was notified by The Campaign Legal Center that the disbursements were strange and seemingly impossible. It stated that one of the $199.99 expenses was claimed for a hotel stay at the luxury W Hotel South Beach in Florida where the lowest-price room would have cost $700 or more.
Last week, Santos also filed a slew of amended reports with the FEC that only added to the confusion about the source of loans he has said he made to his campaign.
George Santas isn’t welcome at the House of Representatives: He’s a disgrace, but he shouldn’t go
George has taken himself out of committees as he goes through the process, according to the chair of the GOP conference.
Williams said that there was a threshold where he felt like he wasn’t an issue anymore and that he wanted to go back to committees.
“For a while, the question I was getting asked by [the press] is ‘Where you gonna put him? Can he do this?’ – it became about him,” Williams said. It’s not about him. He will get ready to return when we have a lot to do. Then let’s go because he has met the thresholds that he’s set.
“Half-measures like voluntarily taking himself off his committee assignments are not good enough for the people of New York’s third congressional district, or for the American people,” Torres said in a statement. He was a disgrace yesterday. He’s not a good person today. And he’ll be a disgrace tomorrow. He should resign from office immediately.”
He said that he didn’t have a place in the Nassau County Republican Committee, or in public service or an elected official. He isn’t welcome at the Republican headquarters for meetings or any of our events.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/31/1152771493/george-santos-house-committees
A Republican Sen. Mitt Romney criticized for the ethics of George Santos, a New York senator who didn’t attend Baruch College
An investigation from The New York Times couldn’t substantiate many of Santos’ claims, including his graduation from Baruch College and his work for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
McCarthy said during a January press conference that George Santos had been elected by voters. “If there is a concern, he will go through ethics. He will be dealt with in that manner if something is found.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah told GOP Rep. George Santos of New York: “You don’t belong here,” according to a member who witnessed the tense exchange in the House of Representatives chamber Tuesday night.
Romney told CNN that he criticized the person for trying to shake hands with the president and the senators because he was under an ethics investigation.
He said that he should be in the back row and not in front of people, noting that he didn’t hear the response fromSantos.
“He says he, you know, that he embellished his record. Look, embellishing is saying you got an A when you got an A-,” the senator said. “Lying is saying you graduated from a college that you didn’t even attend and he shouldn’t be in Congress.”
They’re going to go through the process and hope to get him out. If he had any shame, he wouldn’t be there.
The Commission on Investigations of Candidate Activities by Senator Santos During his 2020 Run for the Premiotive Office
The FEC requires Santos to register when he decides whether to run for reelection in 2024.
In the letter, the FEC asks Santos needs to “either disavow these activities by notifying the Commission in writing that you are not a candidate, or redesignate your principal campaign committee by filing a Statement of Candidacy.”
The FEC requires all individuals who raised more than $5,000 in a campaign for federal office to register as a candidate within 15 days. Each electoral cycle, all candidates, including incumbents, must file a statement of candidacy with the agency.
According to a statement released by the panel, an investigation subcommittee will examine ifSantos engaged in illegal activity during his bid for the presidency.
Is it a distraction to your work to say that freedom of speech of my constituents is a distraction? “Do you think people are a distraction to the work I’m doing here?”
A growing number of Republicans are calling for his removal and he is seen as a pariah in the district that includes a small portion of Queens.
Steven Greenberg said the good news forSantos is that he has a way to get Democrats, Republicans and independents to agree about a political figure. The good news is that the political figure they agree on is him, and they don’t mind him at all.
A Democrat whose personal funds were disclosed to OCE and why he quit his job after he was fired from the House Ethics Committee
Additionally, the campaign’s bookkeeping has also come under a harsh spotlight, especially following the revelation that his former treasure listed dozens of expenses just a penny beneath the legal threshold for keeping receipts.
The individual, according to a copy of the document provided by CNN, said in a House Ethics complaint that he was invited to his home by the man who allegedly touched his groin.
“Even after OCE’s exhaustive review of the Congresswoman’s personal communications, there is no record of the Congresswoman refusing to pay for these expenses,” David Mitrani wrote in the letter. “To the contrary, there are several explicit, documented communications, from prior to OCE’s review, that show the Congresswoman understood that she had to pay for these expenses from her own personal funds – as she ultimately did. We are confident the Ethics Committee will not make a decision on this matter.
Editor’s Note: Norman Eisen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the editor and co-author of “Overcoming Trumpery: How to Restore Ethics, the Rule of Law, and Democracy.” Colby Galliher is a senior research analyst at Brookings and a co-author of the book. The views expressed in this commentary are their own. More opinions on CNN are available.
The code of official conduct of the House requires members to behave at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House, and federal laws are also responsible for minding.
On Thursday, Santos’ office acknowledged the investigation on Twitter and said he “is fully cooperating,” adding, “There will be no further comment made at this time.” The committee may erode his resolve since he has resisted calls to step down despite the scandals that have arisen over his academic and professional record, shady business operations and questions about his campaign finances.
Members on both sides of the aisle have decided to leave Congress rather than go through an ethics investigation. Former Rep. Patrick Meehan, a Pennsylvania Republican, who had been a member of the Ethics Committee before it opened a probe into allegations that he used taxpayer funds to settle a sexual harassment case involving a former staffer, ended up resigning in 2018.
After the settlement was made public, he went on the record about their interactions, even though he was married at that time. He said in an interview with Philadelphia public radio station WHYY that he struggled with his desire to never cross that line with his former staffer, who he said was a soul mate. He said that he would pay back $39,000 of taxpayer money he received for the settlement within 30 days of his resignation.
President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner echoed those lawmakers’ condemnation of Weiner’s conduct — all but assuring that the bipartisan committee would heed calls for a full-fledged investigation. The committee never had the opportunity to launch a formal investigation, however, as Weiner resigned three days after the preliminary inquiry began.
It is not the first time that a member of congress resigned due to an investigation by the Ethics Committee.
If the evidence points to violations of federal law, the ethics body can strengthen external investigations by passing on its investigative findings to the law enforcement bodies. One of the committee’s legacies was to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.
