Top Republicans plot Santos’ ouster as embattled freshman weighs reelection https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/politics/george-santos-reelection
Of course funding for this clown comes out of Florida. George Santos’ Miami boosters: Anti-vax school leaders, billionaire lawyer’s family https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article272517330.html
Are there any GOP House freshmen who did not lie on their resumes? Another GOP freshman has been accused of lying on his resume. Blame Trump. Rep. Andy Ogles has become the third House Republican freshman to face questions about his biography. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc...man-accused-fake-resume-blame-trump-rcna71801
It appears that George Santos' new campaign treasurer does not exist, and is just another grift. George Santos' mysterious new treasurer is unknown to local politicians but lists his address as the apartment where Santos' sister used to live https://www.businessinsider.com/geo...-treasure-unknown-to-local-politicians-2023-3
Hopefully this is the first step towards removing him from office. House Ethics Committee announces investigation into embattled Rep. George Santos https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/02/politics/george-santos-house-ethics-committee The House Ethics Committee announced Thursday it is officially moving forward with a probe into embattled Rep. George Santos as the New York Republican faces mounting legal issues and calls to resign for extensively lying about his resume and biography. The Ethics Committee said in a news release that it voted to set up an investigative subcommittee with authority to look into a number issues, including whether Santos may have engaged in unlawful activity related to his 2022 congressional campaign. According to the release, the investigative panel will have jurisdiction to determine whether 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 conflict 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.” Santos responded to the investigation announcement in a tweet. “The House Committee on Ethics has opened an investigation, and Congressman George Santos is fully cooperating,” his office’s Twitter account wrote. “There will be no further comment made at this time.” Santos told CNN in early February that he is “not concerned” about a House ethics probe or about New York constituents calling on him to resign. “You’re saying that the freedom of speech of my constituents is a distraction to my work?” Santos said. “Do you think people are a distraction to the work I’m doing here?” This story is breaking and will be updated.
New York Republicans go to all-out war against Santos And the embattled fabulist is going to the mattresses himself as his colleagues try to push him out: “They can’t control me,” he said in an interview. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/07/new-york-republicans-santos-00085729 New York’s House Republicans are racing away from the walking political grenade known as George Santos. Six of Santos’ New York colleagues, particularly the four who flipped tight battleground districts last fall, are working — out in the open and behind the scenes — to contain the blowback from the embattled lawmaker’s deceptions about his past. The first-term foursome started by breaking from the vast majority of their party by calling for Santos to resign, a move that would hurt the GOP’s already tiny majority. And the newly elected New York Republicans are only growing louder: They’re pushing legislation aimed at hitting Santos financially, hoping to prevent the now-notorious fabulist from profiting off book or TV deals on his story. And they’re firing off fighting words on social media and local airwaves. But their public criticisms haven’t insulated them from daily questions about his record, particularly as Democrats look to tie them to him. Their frustration, simmering for two months as negative Santos headlines build up, is close to boiling over. “He is a bludgeoning tool the Democrats are using without regard for truth. They’re lying about us in relationship to him,” Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said in an interview. “And he’s caused us every day to have to respond to his very existence in the House of Representatives, instead of giving 100 percent of our time to the important issues that Americans and the people who sent us to Washington care about.” “Every time that we’re having a conversation we seem to be talking about George Santos,” echoed Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.). The anti-Santos Republicans’ stand is a lonely one. Most others in their conference prefer to spurn Santos in more subtle ways that don’t call for forcing him out, which would tee up a special election in a battleground district that could chip at their four-vote majority. But New York’s newest House Republicans assumed war footing for a reason: Mere months after the Empire State gave the GOP its fattest gains of an otherwise lackluster midterms, they say Santos is making their own donors squeamish and their voters suspicious. “At a minimum, donors who gave to him want to spend time on the phone speaking about what’s the latest and how can we hold him accountable. And then others are scared off,” said first-term Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.). “I guess some of them are embarrassed that they are now associated with this scam,” LaLota added. “And they’re not so eager to pick up the phone when a politician is asking for their support again — because the last time they did it, their name lined up in a paper associated with probably the most terrible person in Long Island politics.” Santos, who’s now formally under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, has faced harsh scrutiny after revelations he lied about core components of his educational and professional background. In a Monday interview, he dismissed the idea that his problems might affect his colleagues. “I don’t believe it. I think that’s just platitudes. And they’re making stuff up as they go just to find excuses to do what they’re doing,” Santos said of his fellow New York Republicans’ attacks. “The reality is simple: I was never a part of the little boys’ club, and they hated me from the moment I got the nomination to the moment I got elected.” Adding to the House GOP’s woeful New York state of mind, House Democrats’ largest super PAC announced last month a $45 million program designed to claw back an advantage there next fall. The PAC is likely to spend part of that cash trying to link Santos to New York’s four most electorally vulnerable new House Republicans: Reps. Mike Lawler, Brandon Williams, D’Esposito and Molinaro. If that quartet is hoping Santos might embrace the standard practice for scandal-plagued members, avoiding the media and keeping his head down, they’re going to be disappointed. “They can’t control me,” Santos said of his fellow in-state Republicans. “So the party bosses stick their loyalists on me, and that’s what you’re seeing. And the problem is that the ones at the top of the mountain screaming for … righteousness and ethical morality are amongst some of the most corrupt people in politics.” After D’Esposito spearheaded a bill clearly aimed at Santos, designed to prevent members convicted of certain offenses from then profiting off their story in the form of book deals, paid speeches, or movie and TV contracts, the Long Islander pushed back on Twitter. “Coming from a man who lost his NYPD issued GUN while he was DJ’ing at a party! Then assaulted a 72 year old senior WOMEN,” Santos wrote last week about D’Esposito, before deleting his post. “You sir are the example of a bad cop who give cops a bad name. Spare me.” Santos appeared to be citing, in part, a New York Daily News report that found D’Esposito had been docked vacation days on two separate occasions, including once in 2015 for having his firearm stolen out of his vehicle and another time in 2007 after working as a DJ and serving alcohol “without authority or permission to do so.” Santos in his tweet conflated the two. Democrats also sought to use that story against D’Esposito during last year’s midterms. Asked if he saw any dramatic irony in the corruption allegations he shared, given his own record, Santos replied that he hasn’t been convicted of any offenses and has “never been punished or censured.” While he has admitted to lying about his education as well as other fabrications, Santos has danced around other questions about his past. What Santos has managed to do: generate more camaraderie among his fellow New York Republicans, particularly the first-term ones. LaLota quipped that that the group now operates like “NATO members” who make joint decisions. And Santos’ decision to punch back at D’Esposito sparked a fresh wave of backlash. “Anthony risked everything to serve the people of New York with honor and courage. He has more integrity in his pinky than George Santo has in his entire body,” Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.) said in a statement to POLITICO last week. “George disgraces the halls of Congress and is stain on the soul of our nation.” D’Esposito plans to hold a press conference about his anti-Santos bill on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, as Santos vows to be “100 percent compliant, to clear my name” with the ethics committee, he’s also asking that “the same scrutiny” fall on his fellow Republicans — and clearly wants to use the media attention he’s getting to further that cause. But his GOP colleagues say that the more he talks, the bigger problems he generates. “He should focus on the investigations that are underway and at least show some remorse. And he’s not, and that is what is so troubling,” Molinaro said. As far as GOP leadership is concerned, New York infighting isn’t helping alleviate the constant headache that Santos has become. When House Republican leaders started whipping support in January to boot Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the Foreign Affairs Committee, a key promise of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the four first-term New York Republicans warned leadership that if Democrats proposed an amendment that stripped Santos from his committees, they would support it — likely giving the idea enough votes to pass, according to a Republican with knowledge of the discussion, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about sensitive conversations. Santos and McCarthy ultimately resolved the issue in private, meeting the day before the Omar vote. Hours later, Santos informed his colleagues he’d be stepping down from his committees while he faced investigations, making the Omar vote an easier lift. The New York tumult only compounds a disappointing start to this Congress for the state’s Republicans, who’d hoped to celebrate their success in helping deliver the GOP majority from a blue stronghold. And it’s clear that they blame Santos for dimming their shine. Constituents “want answers to troubling questions about why he is still in Congress,” LaLota added. “They deserve those answers.”
George Santos may have even lied about having a pet fish Recently unearthed eviction court recordings reveal Santos has always been a liar. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/03/george-santos-may-have-even-lied-about-having-a-pet-fish/ Recently unearthed eviction court recordings of disgraced Rep. George Santos (R-NY) reveal an even more tangled web of lies as he tries to explain months of unpaid rent. The recordings, obtained by Gothamist, reportedly show Santos begging for clemency on more than one occasion after struggling to pay rent. In 2014, the publication said a then 26-year-old Santos stood in Queens Housing Court after being evicted from his Jackson Heights apartment for failing to pay rent and told the judge he had a big fish tank and needed to get back into the apartment to feed his fish. But Santos’s former roommate, who shared the apartment with him, said there was no fish tank. “That’s a lie, too,” said Rabello. “He’s a pathological liar.” His landlord’s attorney, Peter Wolf, told the Judge that Santos also lied about mailing a check. At the time, Santos owed the landlord over $5000. Santos reportedly appeared in eviction court thrice between 2014 and 2017 after being evicted from three different apartments in Queens. Despite continuing to promise he would pay what he owed, the report says he always found a way out of it once it was time to pay. In one instance, he claimed he was robbed of the $2,250 he owed his landlord while on his way to give it to her. Gothamist says the NYPD has no record of the robbery. At the time, he told a judge he had used all his sick days at work to care for his ailing mother and eventually had to take unpaid time off. He then told a judge that he would soon have money “due to business loans.” At one point, Santos was in court for owing over $12,000 to his landlord. Santos said he had taken a break from work after his mother died and would be working again soon. On two occasions, Santos told a judge he would try to apply for emergency rental assistance, though it is unclear if he ever did. Doing so requires proof of income, and whether and when Santos was working is unclear. “He used to lie to everyone that he was working, but actually he was not,” said Rabello. “He was home just browsing the web, just sitting on the computer all day.” Despite this, Santos spoke out against pandemic eviction moratoriums in 2021. Earlier this month, the House Ethics Committee announced it is officially investigating Santos after he was accused of violating campaign finance laws. The Committee voted to establish an investigative subcommittee to investigate whether Santos committed unlawful activities related to his 2022 congressional campaign. Santos’s office said, in a tweet, that he would fully cooperate with the investigation and then offered no additional comment. After being elected to represent New York’s Third Congressional District and becoming the first out gay Republican elected to Congress, Santos’ life story came crumbling down as several newspapers reported he never went to the colleges he said he attended, never worked for the major banks he said he worked for, and that he had been lying about his family history as well. He has admitted to many of these lies, calling them “a little bit of fluff” on his resume. Santos admitted that he lied about graduating from Baruch College and New York University, working directly for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and living at a fake address in his congressional district. He provided no additional proof to support claims that his grandparents escaped the Holocaust and that he lost four employees in the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. He has been accused of stealing from roommates, lying about his marital status, stealing funds raised for a dog’s surgery, and faking a man’s signature on campaign finance forms.
So Santos ran a ATM fraud ring and ripped off his accomplice This type of news should not surprise anyone at this point. George Santos masterminded 2017 ATM fraud, former roommate tells feds “Santos taught me how to skim card information and how to clone cards,” Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha, who was convicted of felony access device fraud, said Wednesday in a sworn declaration submitted to the FBI. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/09/santos-masterminded-atm-fraud-feds-00086417 Rep. George Santos orchestrated a 2017 credit card skimming operation in Seattle, the man who was convicted of the fraud and deported to Brazil said in a sworn declaration submitted to federal authorities Wednesday. “I am coming forward today to declare that the person in charge of the crime of credit card fraud when I was arrested was George Santos / Anthony Devolder,” Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha wrote in the declaration. It was sent by express mail and email to the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service New York office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, according to a copy of the receipt from the United States Postal Service. Telha decided to contact law enforcement officials after seeing the newly minted congressman on television, he said in the declaration. Santos, whose full name is George Anthony Devolder Santos, often went by Anthony Devolder before his first congressional bid in 2020. The New York Republican won a Long Island swing district last November after lying on the campaign trail about his education, work experience and supposed Jewish ancestry. The House ethics panel initiated an investigation into Santos last week to explore possible “unlawful activity” related to his run. State, federal and Brazilian authorities are also probing Santos related to a string of potential financial crimes. Santos has admitted to “embellishing” parts of his background, but said he never broke any laws. He was previously questioned about the Seattle scheme by investigators for the U.S. Secret Service, CBS News has reported. He was never charged, but the investigation remains open. Santos also told an attorney friend he was “an informant” in the fraud case. Trelha insists he was its mastermind. “Santos taught me how to skim card information and how to clone cards. He gave me all the materials and taught me how to put skimming devices and cameras on ATM machines,” Trelha said in the declaration that was submitted to authorities by his New York attorney, Mark Demetropoulos. POLITICO obtained a copy of the declaration. Spokespeople for the FBI did not return messages. Representatives for the Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment. A lawyer for Santos also did not respond to emails and text messages for comment. Trelha and Santos met in the fall of 2016 on a Facebook group for Brazilians living in Orlando, Fla., he said in the declaration and in an interview with POLITICO. By November, Trelha had rented a room in Santos’ Winter Park, Fla., apartment, according to a copy of the lease viewed by POLITICO. “That is when and where I learned from him how to clone ATM and credit cards,” Trelha wrote in the declaration that was translated from his native Portuguese. Santos kept a warehouse on Kirkman Road in Orlando to store the skimming equipment, according to the declaration. “He had a lot of material — parts, printers, blank ATM and credit cards to be painted and engraved with stolen account and personal information. “Santos gave me at his warehouse, some of the parts to illegally skim credit card information. Right after he gave me the card skimming and cloning machines, he taught me how to use them,” Trelha wrote. Trelha then flew out to Seattle where he was caught on a security camera removing a skimming device from a Chase ATM on Pike Street, according to law enforcement records. He was arrested on April 27. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle previously told POLITICO it’s not unusual for credit card thieves to go far from home to nab numbers so there’s less chance of the stolen numbers being traced back to the perpetrators. That spokesperson, Emily Langlie, said she didn’t have any information about Santos’ involvement in the Trelha case. At the time of his arrest, Trelha had a fake Brazilian ID card and 10 suspected fraudulent cards in his hotel room, according to police documents. An empty FedEx package police found in his rental car was sent from the Winter Park unit he shared with Santos. Trelha told federal authorities in the declaration Wednesday that his “deal with Santos was 50% for him and 50% for me.” “We used a computer to be able to download the information on the pieces. We also used an external hard drive to save the filming, because the skimmer took the information from the card, and the camera took the password,” he wrote. “It didn’t work out so well, because I was arrested,” he admitted. Trelha said Santos visited him in jail in Seattle, but told him not to implicate him in the scheme. “Santos threatened my friends in Florida that I must not say that he was my boss,” he wrote. Trelha agreed to say he was working for someone in Brazil and not with Santos, because he was worried Santos would have his friends in Orlando deported, he said in a telephone interview last month. Trelha recalled Santos warning he could “make things worse for him” since he was already in jail and Santos was a U.S. citizen. In an audio recording of Trelha’s May 15, 2017 arraignment in King County Superior Court, Santos tells the judge he’s a “family friend” who was there to secure a local Airbnb if the defendant was released on bail. Santos also claimed to the judge he worked for Goldman Sachs in New York, a key part of his campaign biography he later admitted wasn’t true. Trehla was unable to post the $75,000 bail. He pleaded guilty to felony access device fraud, served seven months in jail and was deported to Brazil in early 2018. “Santos did not help me to get out of jail. He also stole the money that I had collected for my bail,” Trelha told federal investigators in the declaration. Trelha told POLITICO that before flying to Seattle, Santos had traveled to Orlando to pick up $20,000 in cash he instructed Leide Oliveira Santos, another roommate, to give him from a safe. Santos had promised to hire El Chapo’s lawyer for Trelha, he said. A third roommate in the Winter Park apartment told POLITICO in a phone interview that Oliveira Santos told him Santos had come to get money for Trelha. The third roommate spoke on condition of anonymity because he was in the country as an undocumented immigrant. But Trelha never heard from Santos after Santos visited him in Seattle, the third roommate said. He later learned from Oliveira Santos that her attempts to contact Santos over the next few months were futile. Trelha realized he had been conned, he said, when no lawyer appeared — let alone El Chapo’s. But he still didn’t want to name Santos as a co-conspirator, fearing retaliation against Oliveira Santos, who was also an undocumented immigrant, he said. Trelha told the federal authorities in the declaration that he had witnesses to support his statements. Oliveira Santos declined to discuss the matter with POLITICO. “I am available to speak with any American government investigator,” Trelha wrote before providing his email address and cellular phone number and attesting that he signed the declaration “willingly and truthfully.” A federal prosecutor who handled Trelha’s case described the scheme as “sophisticated,” adding that the Seattle portion was only “the tip of the iceberg,” according to court records reported by CBS News. But a person close to the investigation who is not authorized to speak publicly said they saw no evidence that prosecutors did forensic reports on Trelha’s phone or seemed motivated to pursue international co-conspirators.