Santos admitted to using stolen checks in Brazil in 2008

[struggle4progress]

CNN
—
Republican Rep.-elect George Santos admitted to stealing a man’s checkbook that was in his mother’s possession to purchase clothing and shoes in 2008, according to documents obtained by CNN.

The admission came in a statement Santos gave to police in 2010, according to 150 pages worth of case documents.

Police had suspended an investigation into Santos because they were unable to find him for nearly a decade. But law enforcement officials in Brazil will reinstate fraud charges against the New York Republican, CNN reported Tuesday ...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/politics/george-santos-stolen-checks-brazil/index.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Keeping track of George Santos' lies

By Bruce Golding
January 3, 2023 5:00pm Updated

... Santos claimed ... he went to the elite “Horace Mann preparatory school ... ” But a school spokesperson told CNN, “We’ve searched the records and there is no evidence that George Santos (or any alias) attended Horace Mann” ...

Santos claimed to have “attended Baruch College and NYU where he got degrees in finance and economics.” But ... neither school could find his name in their records ...

Santos ... claimed that his first job after college was at Citigroup ... He also said he worked briefly at Goldman Sachs ... Both financial firms ... couldn’t confirm his employment claims ...

... Santos wrote ... that he and his family owned 13 properties ... In his interview with The Post, Santos confessed that he “does not own any properties” ...

“George’s mother was in her office in the South Tower on September 11, 2001, when the horrific events of that day unfolded. She survived the tragic events on September 11th, but she passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer,” e website said ... The Times .. reported that Santos’ mom worked as a housekeeper ...


https://nypost.com/2023/01/03/tracking-george-santos-lies/

[struggle4progress]

2. Refuses to answer questions on Capitol Hill

Christopher Wilson and Dylan Stableford
Tue, January 3, 2023 at 6:17 PM EST

... Wearing a backpack and walking alone through the halls of Congress upon his arrival, Santos did not respond to multiple questions, including whether he felt he was qualified to serve in Congress or how his constituents could trust him given he misrepresented his résumé during the campaign ...

https://news.yahoo.com/george-santos-refuses-to-answer-questions-on-capitol-hill-amid-firestorm-over-fabricated-biography-231752523.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAM6tZBPVAAk3AL_VszFF9cJoSuATCt9qsJHp3mURFTzwbjRrdQXHusrAvsF9aGHUADmDxpN5c6gLgtNCP_Rh_I83AINrPQ7XwJq4pjbOZzWYV_6zOKWR9X9k7GOzQ8tUPmMGr5am-6QnWLG-dBOW7HrK_96Mf9xP7pjSK6-Z2JjF

[struggle4progress]

3. Called a Liar on House Floor During Rough First Day

By Virginia Chamlee
Published on January 3, 2023 04:34 PM

... Various outlets report that the embattled newcomer approached his Capitol Hill office early Tuesday and turned in the opposite direction when he spotted reporters waiting for him. Though they tried to pursue him, Santos ultimately left the area without answering any questions.

Later, while inside the House chamber, Santos "could be seen sitting alone toward the back of the chamber busying himself on his phone," Fox News reports ...

https://people.com/politics/george-santos-called-liar-rough-first-day-congress/

[Solly Mack]

4. But he denied any wrongdoing in an interview a little bit ago.

Said he had not committed any criminal acts here or abroad.

Guess he figured Brazil wouldn't say anything or that no one would seek out the paper trail.

He figured wrong.

[struggle4progress]

5. What the Santos scandal says about American politics

Ken Paulson and Kent Syler
Guest Columnists

The Times’ revelations that incoming Republican Congressman George Santos of Long Island fabricated much of his public persona on his path to election is an enormous embarrassment to Newsday, long the dominant local newsroom in the sprawling suburban expanse, and other regional news media that didn’t check on Santos’ claims before the election.

The one exception was the North Shore Leader, a hyperlocal weekly newspaper that in September doubted Santos’ claims about his net worth. The paper with conservative roots subsequently wrote that it had wanted to endorse a Republican but could not support Santos because “he’s most likely just a fabulist —

These weren’t garden-variety claims from Santos. He claimed to have worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and that he was a graduate of Baruch College, all of which he now acknowledges to be untrue. But there are also questions about how his net worth suddenly skyrocketed, his alleged role in leading a charity and his claim that four of his employees died in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. New questions about his past statements emerge almost daily ...

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/01/03/what-congressman-george-santos-scandal-says-about-american-politics/69775304007/

[struggle4progress]

6. House GOP Considers Rules That Could Hamper the Ethics Committee

ADAM KLASFELD
Jan 3rd, 2023, 12:46 pm

Sparking alarm from advocacy groups, the House GOP intends to vote on a provision slipped into the rules of the 118th Congress that would effectively change the composition and resources of the House Ethics Committee. A bipartisan watchdog, the Committee historically has had a 5-5 breakdown between the two major parties.

The rules proposed by the new Congress, which will be under Republican control, do not alter that fundamental structure. Two of the changes, however, could effectively oust the current Democratic members and make it harder to hire staff necessary to conduct investigations ...

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/just-as-rep-elect-george-santos-comes-into-office-house-gop-considers-rules-that-could-hamper-the-ethics-committee/

[struggle4progress]

7. Santos and the failure of imagination

BY CHRIS RIBEIRO AND MATT BRICKEN
OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 01/03/23 10:30 AM ET

... Santos’s apparent fabulism was eminently detectable. His life story — in his own telling — was a daring feat of self-invention and pure imagination, full of inconsistencies and omissions. As the Times and CNN reported, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Baruch College, and NYU had no record of Santos as an employee or student. The IRS had no record of his charity. There seemed to be no discernable profile for his family firm or purported real estate holdings. While he claimed four of his employees were killed in the June 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, a review of the professional histories of all 49 victims did not show any connection. While living in Brazil, he was reportedly arrested and charged with bouncing a check. In New York, he twice faced eviction suits. And significant questions remain about his sources of income and wealth, potential misstatements on personal financial disclosures he filed as part of his run for Congress, his family ancestry, and other topics — questions so breathtaking in scope they have now reportedly attracted the attention of federal and state prosecutors.

As professional investigators, we couldn’t help but note that Santos’s life story was littered with red flags. And apparently some of his mendaciousness had been discovered before the election, or at least hinted at. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reported in a background research memorandum that the IRS had no record of his pet rescue charity. They asked “what is Santos hiding” about his “shady finances”? His vanquished Democratic opponent stated he “always knew Santos was running a scam” but his attempts to get traction with the press were “drowned out in a governor’s race, where crime was the focus.”

So why wasn’t the full story told?

Post-mortems examining why such “opposition research” efforts fell short and why journalists failed to uncover the story have cited many factors — a compressed campaign schedule, complacency in a “safe” Democratic district, competing priorities for investigative resources, poor messaging choices by the Democratic party, even outright incompetence.

The failure to scrutinize Santos’ story before the election was a failure of investigation ...

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3795706-george-santos-and-the-failure-of-imagination/

[struggle4progress]

8. Santos for Speaker of the House

BY BILL PRESS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 01/03/23 8:45 AM ET

... Despite agreeing to give up some of his authority and power as Speaker, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) reportedly still doesn’t have enough votes to win. The result is pure chaos. The “Kevin Only” crowd has vowed not to vote for anyone else, while the “Never Kevin” gang still can’t come up with a candidate to replace him. And, in desperation, some Republicans are beating the bushes looking for anybody — even a former member or non-member of Congress — willing to take the job.

Meanwhile, the perfect candidate is staring them right in the face. Why all the confusion? There’s one obvious answer — the one man who, in the spirit of Donald Trump, embodies everything the Republican Party stands for today. The one man who’s perfect for the job: New York’s newly elected Rep. George Santos.

Of course, naysayers in the media will contend that Republicans could never elect Santos because he doesn’t tell the truth. But they’re missing the point. Santos is a Trump Republican. He’s not expected to tell the truth. That’s why McCarthy has not uttered one word of criticism of Santos. After all, he and congressional Republicans never held Donald Trump responsible for all the lies he told as president — 30,573 in four years, according to the Washington Post. Why should they now hold George Santos responsible? Telling the truth no longer matters ...

https://thehill.com/opinion/3795769-press-george-santos-for-speaker-of-the-house/


https://mediacloud.theweek.com/image/upload/f_auto,t_single-media-image-desktop@1/v1672757452/jd010323dAPR.jpg

[whistler162]

9. Extradition is on the table

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/11/18/archives/treaty-on-extradition-is-ratified-by-us-and-brazil.html

[struggle4progress]

10. US Constitution, Article I, Section 6

... The Senators and Representatives ... shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same ...

[lapfog_1]

13. right this minute, he is not a representative

so he could be arrested and face extradition.

[struggle4progress]

14. "Incoming members cannot be sworn in until a speaker is chosen"

Santos wrongly announced he was sworn in
By Adela Suliman
Updated January 4, 2023 at 10:23 a.m. EST
Published January 4, 2023 at 7:41 a.m. EST

[struggle4progress]

11. 18 U.S. Code § 1344 - Bank fraud

Whoever knowingly executes, or attempts to execute, a scheme or artifice —

(1)to defraud a financial institution; or
(2)to obtain any of the moneys, funds, credits, assets, securities, or other property owned by, or under the custody or control of, a financial institution, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises;

shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1344

[struggle4progress]

12. I suspect "felony" under US law refers to a crime

for which a person convicted might obtain a prison term of a year or more