The biography of Congress member George Santos appeared fairly spectacular. The 34-year-old son of immigrants had graduated from Baruch School, a public faculty in New York, earlier than occurring to work at companies like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Santos finally turned a profitable financier who began an animal rescue charity. The issue is that biography was apparently a lie, and now he’s dealing with each political penalties and authorized penalties for his wholesale innovations.
As revealed in the New York Instances on December 19, it wasn’t simply that Santos exaggerated his résumé — he allegedly invented it out of complete fabric. It set in movement a sequence of occasions that culminated on Wednesday with Santos being indicted for wire fraud and cash laundering in federal courtroom on Lengthy Island. Santos was accused of soliciting funds from donors to help his marketing campaign after which changing them for his personal private use in addition to claiming Covid-19 unemployment advantages whereas he had a full-time job making a six-figure wage. He pleaded not responsible to all 13 expenses and was launched on a $500,000 bond.
The sordid saga of Santos began when the Instances discovered that he apparently didn’t graduate from Baruch School, he didn’t work for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, there have been no information of him being a profitable financier, nor had been there of him registering his animal rescue charity. The Instances additionally discovered that he had been charged with test fraud in Brazil.
Additional, numerous retailers have discovered no proof of Santos’s repeated claims to be Jewish, to have Jewish heritage, or to be descended from refugees fleeing the Holocaust. Santos even described himself at one level as a “proud American Jew” in a marketing campaign place paper.
In a media tour with pleasant retailers on December 26, Santos admitted to placing “a little bit little bit of fluff” on his résumé. In different phrases, he conceded that he by no means graduated from faculty, by no means labored for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, and wasn’t Jewish (although he claimed to be “Jew-ish”). Santos disregarded mendacity about fundamental biographical info as embellishment, and he pushed again on the Instances’s reporting about his legal cost in Brazil. “I’m not a legal,” he informed the New York Put up. (In March, nevertheless, he reportedly accepted a plea take care of prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro to take accountability for the crime and pay restitution to the sufferer for $1,300 in attire that Santos paid for with stolen checks.)
The entire Santos story has sparked one of many more odd political scandals in American historical past. Members of Congress have dedicated homicide in workplace. Actually, a member of Congress has even killed one other member of Congress. Even within the current day, we’ve seen each scandal underneath the solar, from Anthony Weiner tweeting a lewd image of himself, to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s notorious Fb put up about Jewish house lasers. However it’s exhausting to think about a precedent for a scandal like this as Santos faces requires his resignation from fellow Republicans and investigations into potential legal misconduct.
Who’s George Santos?
There are some issues we find out about Santos. The overtly homosexual son of Brazilian immigrants, he was elected in November to an open congressional seat that features a skinny slice of Queens and far of the North Shore of Lengthy Island in Nassau County. Santos defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman by a margin of 54 p.c to 46 p.c. This represented a significant swing from 2020 when Biden had gained the district by the identical margin. That yr, Santos ran towards incumbent Tom Suozzi in the same district and misplaced handily by a margin of 56 p.c to 43.5 p.c.
Santos can be an ardent Trump supporter — a lot in order that he was at Trump’s Ellipse rally on January 6, 2021, and has repeatedly falsely claimed that the previous president gained the 2020 election.
Additionally, for all his alleged mendacity about his résumé, it’s clear that one firm Santos labored at, Harbor Metropolis Capital, has been accused by the Securities and Alternate Fee of being a Ponzi scheme. As for Santos’s different employment, he did spend a stint as a Portuguese language customer support agent for DISH Community a decade in the past.
Santos has additionally been accused of organising a GoFundMe that raised $3,000 to pay for lifesaving surgical procedure for the dying service canine of a disabled homeless veteran after which pocketing the cash. He responded on Twitter by claiming “the studies that I’d let a canine die is surprising & insane.” Santos added, “Over the previous 24hr I’ve obtained photos of canines I helped rescue all through the years together with supportive messages.” Politico has reported that this alleged rip-off is being investigated by federal regulation enforcement. Questions have been raised about whether or not he had misappropriated different funds that he had raised on behalf of animal welfare.
He was charged with theft in Pennsylvania in 2017 in connection to writing unhealthy checks to Amish canine breeders. The fees had been finally dismissed after Santos satisfied regulation enforcement within the state that his checkbook was stolen.
The New York congressman additionally falsely claimed in a 2017 Seattle courtroom listening to for a convicted fraudster that he labored for Goldman Sachs. Santos made that assertion, in response to Politico, at a bail listening to for Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha, who was finally convicted of fraud for skimming card info from ATMs. The 2 males had beforehand shared an residence in Florida. Trelha has since implicated Santos as being the mastermind behind the scheme in a sworn assertion despatched to federal regulation enforcement.
Santos has additionally pushed again towards the declare that he wearing drag whereas residing in Brazil. A drag performer who goes by the title Eula Rochard informed a number of retailers that Santos used to carry out in drag underneath the title “Kitara Ravache.”
Santos initially mounted an aggressive denial on Twitter. “The newest obsession from the media claiming that I’m a drag Queen or ‘carried out’ as a drag Queen is categorically false,” mentioned the embattled New York Republican. “The media continues to make outrageous claims about my life whereas I’m working to ship outcomes.”
Ultimately, he conceded to reporters at LaGuardia Airport that he did gown in drag however that he was merely having “enjoyable at a competition.”
What don’t we all know?
We don’t know so much. This ranges from fundamental details about Santos’s biography to particulars about his dealings with the Brazilian legal justice system, and the whole lot in between, together with the place he truly lives.
However most significantly, we don’t know the place Santos’s cash comes from. The consultant loaned his personal marketing campaign $700,000 throughout the 2022 cycle and claimed an earnings of $750,000. He additionally listed hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in property together with an residence in Rio De Janeiro value as much as $1 million and a seven-figure financial savings account. It’s a significant shift in fortune for somebody who was evicted twice, in 2015 and 2017, for failing to pay lease and had been taken to courtroom for not paying money owed. Even in 2020, he reported earnings in just one class — compensation in extra of $5,000 paid by one supply — with no different property.
Santos initially supplied no info on his funds on his media tour, besides to concede that he owned no property. He had beforehand claimed on Twitter to be a landlord who owned 13 properties. The consultant finally claimed in an interview with Semafor that his newfound wealth got here from “capital introduction” the place he helped dealer offers for the rich. Santos used a yacht sale for instance of how he earned a residing: “For those who’re taking a look at a $20 million yacht, my referral charge there may be wherever between $200,000 and $400,000.”
What occurs now?
Along with the fees introduced Wednesday, Santos can be being investigated by native prosecutors, whereas the workplace of New York Lawyer Basic Letitia James has been “trying into a few of the points which have come out.” Additional, a grievance has been filed with the Federal Election Fee (FEC) by the nonpartisan Marketing campaign Authorized Heart alleging Santos illegally hid the supply of the cash he loaned his marketing campaign by way of a straw donor scheme and different alleged violations, together with whether or not he used marketing campaign funds to pay for private bills. The Washington Put up reported in late January that the Justice Division has requested the FEC to carry off any enforcement actions in order that it may pursue a legal investigation.
Though Santos had initially accepted an task from Home GOP management to sit down on the science and small enterprise committees, he introduced on January 31 in a gathering of Republican lawmakers that he would step except for these positions. The announcement got here solely a day after a closed-door assembly with McCarthy.
Dan Goldman, a fellow consultant from New York and a former prosecutor, has advised that Santos face legal investigation for conspiracy to defraud the USA in addition to submitting false statements to the FEC.
In a December interview with Vox, Goldman shied away from weighing in on whether or not Santos needs to be denied his seat in Congress. “I feel the larger query shouldn’t be whether or not I feel George Santos needs to be a member of Congress. The larger query is whether or not Kevin McCarthy and the Republican management assume that George Santos needs to be a member of Congress.”
A lot of Santos’s fellow Republicans have known as on him to resign as nicely. The Nassau County Republican Occasion, lengthy thought of probably the most highly effective county celebration in New York, known as on Santos to step down as produce other New York Republicans, together with Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler, Nick Langworthy, and Brandon Williams. Joe Cairo, the chair of the Nassau County GOP, informed reporters, “George Santos’ marketing campaign final yr was a marketing campaign of deceit, lies and fabrication” whereas demanding his resignation.
Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), one in all solely two Jewish Republicans within the Home and a longtime Trump White Home aide, known as on Santos to resign in mid-January, and cited the New York Republican’s lies about his household ties to the Holocaust in doing so.
The outcome has left Santos in a state of limbo with no committee assignments and a continuing pack of reporters following him across the Capitol. However, as McCarthy acknowledged to reporters, if the Ethics Committee finds that Santos broke the regulation, the New York Republican needs to be ousted from Congress. Additional, there’s new grist for the Ethics Committee with a potential staffer accusing the New York Congress member in early February of sexual harassment.
Nevertheless, as of now, McCarthy wants Santos nearly as a lot as Santos wants McCarthy. McCarthy solely turned speaker by the pores and skin of his enamel on the fifteenth poll. With a slender majority — and the chance of frequent member absences now that the Home has gotten rid of proxy voting — McCarthy wants each vote he can get and Santos was the deciding vote on the Republican debt restrict laws in late April. He has to this point demurred from calling on Santos to resign, however made clear that the New York Republican must step down if he’s convicted.
Additional, as a result of Santos represents some of the Democratic seats in Congress held by a Republican, forcing him to resign underneath any circumstance is dangerous. It will be a troublesome seat for a Republican to carry in a particular election and a loss would additional imperil an already slim GOP majority.
Within the meantime, it’s a matter of ready for the following shoe to drop. As unsustainable as the present established order might sound, the one impetus proper now for Santos to resign could be a way of disgrace, and it appears unlikely that he carries that burden.
Replace, Could 10, 4:50 pm ET: This story was initially printed on December 21, 2022, and has been up to date a number of occasions, most not too long ago with information of Santos’s federal indictment and pleading not responsible.
