George Santos: The imposter in Congress | On The Ground
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The Department of Justice has given its clearest sign yet that it has launched a criminal probe into George Santos, according to a new report.
The Washington Post, citing two sources familiar with the matter, reported that the DOJ has asked the Federal Election Commission to postpone any enforcement against Mr Santos while they conduct a parallel criminal investigation.
The request also asked for any relevant documents to be handed over to the DOJ, the newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, an investigation by Mother Jones found that many donors listed on Mr Santos’s 2020 campaign records do not exist, or deny having given him money.
It comes after Mr Santos was accused of making a vile joke about Hitler and killing Jews and Black people in a resurfaced Facebook post – marking just the latest scandal to hit the newly-elected congressman.
In a 2011 comment on Facebook, obtained by Patch, Mr Santos allegedly wrote: “hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh hiiiiiiiiiiiitlerrrrrrrrrrr (hight hitler) lolololololololololololol sombody kill her!! the jews and black mostly lolllolol!!! Dum.”
Mr Santos’ former roommate confirmed the account’s validity to the outlet and said that the congressman used to often make antisemitic comments. An attorney for Mr Santos told Patch the Facebook post is “completely false”.
The congressman has previously been caught in a lie about being Jewish and his grandparents fleeing the Holocaust. He later walked back the claims saying he was “Jew-ish”.
As well as being exposed for making a series of lies during his campaign run, Mr Santos is also under scrutiny over an amended financial disclosure form he filed with the FEC this week. For starters, there are two loans — for $500,000 and $125,000 — that are no longer identified as coming from Mr Santos’s personal funds, as they had been previously.
Many of congressman’s top 2020 donors do not exist, report claims
Many of George Santos’s top donors do not exist or deny donating to the New York congressman’s campaign, according to an investigation by Mother Jones.
The magazine found found more than a dozen people listed on Mr Santos’s 2020 campaign finance reports — the year he first ran for the seat he would eventually win — for whom the name or address of the donor could not be confirmed.
“These questionable donations, which account for more than $30,000 of the $338,000 the Santos campaign raised from individual donors in 2020, have not been previously cited in media reports,” Mother Jones reported.
Department of Justice appears to be conducting criminal probe — report
The Department of Justice has given its clearest sign yet that it has launched a criminal probe into George Santos, according to a new report.
The Washington Post reveals that the DOJ has asked the Federal Election Commission to postpone any enforcement against Mr Santos while they conduct a parallel criminal investigation.
The request also asked for any relevant documents to be handed over to the DOJ, the newspaper reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The 34-year-old congressman was found to have told a litany of lies during his campaign for election, which attracted the attention of the DOJ and FED. And while he has admitted to “embellishing” his resume, he has refused to resign.
Santos claimed to have ‘personal relationship’ with California Retirement System CEO
While working at the small Florida investment firm Harbor City, Mr Santos claimed to have “a personal relationship with Marcie Frost, the CEO of CalPERS”.
He said that they had had “a lot of good rapport for the past four years”.
“I’ve been involved in six of their deals, and it’s been just, you know, an official relationship,” he added, according to The Washington Post.
CalPERS – the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, rejected those claims, telling The Post that no one called George Santos or George Devolder “has any relationship with the pension fund’s CEO”.
“We have been unable to locate any records of any relationship, business or otherwise, with this individual,” a spokesperson told the paper.
Santos claims to have flipped over table in office of Blackstone CEO
While working at the small Florida investment firm Harbor City, Mr Santos claimed to have flipped over a table in the office of Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman.
“I actually sat on a chair inside of Blackstone’s office on the day of the signing of a deal … and I flipped backwards, flipping the table on the chief executive … I flipped the table on Schwarzman,” he said during a Zoom meeting, according to The Washington Post.
“I walked out of there feeling like a completely incompetent idiot,” he added.
A spokesperson for Blackstone told The Post that Mr Schwarzman “has no recollection of any such incident or meeting Mr Santos, and we have found no record of Mr Santos having a business relationship with Blackstone”.
Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace calls on George Santos to resign: ‘That guy does not cut it’
Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina blasted embattled fellow GOP Representative George Santos of New York and said he should resign.
The South Carolina Republican spoke to The Independent in an exclusive interview.
“I mean, if you look at the allegations about his campaign finance, there are serious issues there,” she said.
Specifically, federal prosecutors are investigating irregularities regarding financial disclosures and loans, according to NBC News. “Nothing he has ever said has turned out to be true.”
Read more:
Says ‘nothing’ the New York Republican has said is true.
VIDEO: What Rep. George Santos’ fallout reveals about the news
What Rep. George Santos' fallout reveals about the news
Drag artist claims George Santos was liberal in Brazil but ‘went crazy’ when he moved to US
A Brazilian drag artist who knew George Santos when he lived in the country revealed more about the congressman’s political past in a new interview with Insider.
Eula Rochard explained in her latest interview that Mr Santos had once been a proud supporter of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — the current president of Brazil, who recently returned to office after successfully battling corruption charges he and his supporters argued were politically motivated.
His support for the president, who is best known by the moniker Lula, was centred around the latter’s support for LGBT rights, according to Ms Rochard.
“Lula promised to make laws to help us gays. They were all Lulistas and Anthony was too because he hung out with us,” said Ms Rochard, referring to the congressman by one of the names he used to go by.
“He wasn’t a bad person,” Ms Rochard added of Mr Santos when he lived in Brazil. “He was a regular gay teenager in a country where there were no laws protecting gay people.”
Read more:
Santos has performed at the kind of drag shows that other conservatives have smeared as efforts to groom children
From the first questions to GOP blowback : A timeline of George Santos’ many scandals
George Santos is officially a member of Congress following a marathon vote to select the GOP’s Speaker of the House and the swearing-in of the 118th Congress.
But it wasn’t even clear that he would make it this far: Dogged by surely one of the oddest scandals to hit American politics in the last few years, Mr Santos was facing calls for his expulsion and resignation even before he was seated as representative for New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
While the freshman Republican remains adamant that he will serve two years in the House of Representatives, he still faces growing calls for his resignation and the continued threat of investigations reportedly launched by both state and federal authorities.
Read more:
Examining a play-by-play of the strangest scandal to hit DC in recent memory
Former boyfriend says Santos is never going to resign
Pedro Vilarva, the former boyfriend of Mr Santos, told CNN that “his ego is too big. He’s not gonna resign. If they don’t find out something to get him (to leave) he’s not gonna do it. That’s for sure, knowing the person that he is”.
“What he always looked for was fame and power,” he said. “That’s all he cared about and he got it.”
Mr Vilarva said he only learned of Mr Santos’s marriage to a woman after he had moved out of his home.
“It was like a little shock for me,” he told CNN. “But then he used to say that he was going to get the divorce, he was getting the divorce – and never got the divorce. And then I went to find out that they only got the divorce in (2019).”
Treasurer named in George Santos’ campaign says he doesn’t work for him
George Santos has yet another headache coming his way, thanks to amended filings submitted to the FEC this week.
The embattled New York congressman was already facing calls for his resignation or ouster — from both parties — before his filings with the Federal Election Commission this week. Now, those filings are becoming the source of problem after problem, each with the potential to run afoul of the law.
The latest issue flagged by reporters with ABC News on Thursday stems from filings that several fundraising committees working on behalf of the Santos 2022 campaign made with the agency specifying a change in the individual assigned as treasurer for the committees. Those committees are now listed as having their financial operations overseen by Thomas Datwyler, a longtime specialist in political campaign finances.
Read more:
Another red flag from congressman’s FEC filings emerges