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First Out Gay Republican to Win a US House Seat Appears to Have a Fraudulent Résumé: NYT
George Santos, the first out gay non-incumbent Republican to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, calls himself the “full embodiment of the American dream,” but he appears to have a fraudulent résumé. The New York Times‘ Monday morning bombshell, however, includes some facts that have been previously reported, including in a press release published by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in August, well before Election Day, that apparently was largely ignored.
Santos, endorsed by House GOP Caucus Chair, Rep. Elise Stefanik, also of New York, is a far-right MAGA Republican who will be sworn into office next month after winning a pivotal race for an open congressional seat.
According to the Times’ investigation, Santos has made the following claims, none of which the paper of record could verify.
Santos, who defeated his Democratic rival who is also gay, claims four of his co-workers were killed during the horrific Pulse nightclub mass shooting terror attack. The Times reports its “review of news coverage and obituaries found that none of the 49 victims appear to have worked at the various firms named in his biography.”
Santos claims he worked for both Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, but both Wall Street firms “told The Times they had no record of his ever working there.”
Santos claims he graduated from Baruch College in 2010, but officials “could find no record of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating that year.” He also claims, on the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) website (archived), that he attended New York University, but “an N.Y.U. spokesman found no attendance records matching his name and birth date.”
The Times reports Santos even claimed he founded “an animal rescue charity that saved more than 2,500 dogs and cats,” but there is “little evidence that his animal rescue group, Friends of Pets United, was, as Mr. Santos claimed, a tax-exempt organization: The Internal Revenue Service could locate no record of a registered charity with that name.” Santos “cited the group as proof of a history of philanthropic work.”
The animal rescue group held one fundraiser, but “the event’s beneficiary, who asked for anonymity for fear of retribution, said that she never received any of the funds, with Mr. Santos only offering repeated excuses for not forwarding the money.”
Santos has a history of facing evictions for more that $12,000 in unpaid rent for two apartments between 2015 and 2017, but in 2021 he tweeted from a different perspective.
“Will we landlords ever be able to take back possession of our property? My family and I nearing a 1 year anniversary of not receiving rent on 13 properties!!! The state is collecting their tax, yet we get 0 help from the government. We worked hard to acquire these assets,” he claimed. “Now it almost feels like we are being punished. I hope that the my senate can see how much harm they are causing us. #landlordrights #EqualRights“
Santos also worked for Harbor City Capital, a Florida-based investment company that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against, “accusing the company and its founder of running a $17 million Ponzi scheme.” Santos was not named in the lawsuit.
That’s just part of the Times’ extensive reporting, reporting that could have been published before the election by the New York-based newspaper.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in August, months before the November election, warned New York voters about Santos.
While the DCCC focused on Santos’ more recent activities, it did report on what it called his “extreme views,” “shady personal finances and ponzi scheme ties,” and his alleged charity.
“Santos failed to file a Personal Financial Disclosure (PFD) for 2021 or 2022 – something he knows is required of a congressional candidate. It begs the question: what is Santos hiding?” the DCCC asked. “Santos failed to disclose any assets or money in his bank accounts on his 2020 PFD, yet loaned his campaign more than $80,000, and has continued to self-fund his 2022 campaign – including a self loan of half a million dollars in the first quarter of 2022.”
“On top of his shady personal finances and ponzi scheme ties,” the DCCC claimed, “Santos claimed he founded and ran a nonprofit animal rescue operation called Friends Of Pets United, but no such organization was found in the IRS’ database.”
The DCCC also highlighted Santos’ views on the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
“While Americans watched in horror as far-right extremists – inspired by the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election – stormed the Capitol, issued death threats to elected officials, and injured more than 140 police officers in a deadly riot, George Santos praised the rioters. Santos, who has spread debunked lies about ‘rampant fraud’ in the 2020 presidential election, was at the Stop the Steal Rally on January 6th, and even claimed it ‘was the most amazing crowd and the President was at his full awesomeness that day.'”
It also warned that Santos is extremely anti-choice, and would support criminalizing abortion.
“Not only has Santos prided himself as being ‘unapologetically’ anti-choice, he has also admitted that he ‘would be in favor of’ criminalizing doctors who performed abortions, and that he believed rape victims needed to have ‘proven police documentation’ in order to receive an abortion.”
It wasn’t only the DCCC that warned voters about Santos.
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In April, The Daily Beast reported Santos “served as regional director of accused scam firm Harbor City Capital, which allegedly misappropriated millions.”
The Beast, using his full name, Devolder-Santos, called him a “young, gay Republican born in New York City to Brazilian immigrants, congressional candidate,” saying he “has embraced a public image as a ‘walking, living, breathing contradiction.'”
“But the would-be successor to Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-New York) seems less eager to share another detail of his personal story: for all his rants against ‘the swamp,’ Devolder-Santos served as a director of an investment firm authorities say bilked millions of dollars from its customers.”
The Daily Beast also reported Santos has a company incorporated in Florida, “one of six stakeholders in Red Strategies USA, another firm founded in the Sunshine State that same month. Five of the six companies involved in Red Strategies belong to former Harbor City employees, including the ex-CFO; the last belongs to Devolder-Santos’s campaign treasurer.”
“Florida state records show Red Strategies as an active concern, and Federal Election Commission disclosures reveal the firm continued to receive payments from Tina Forte—a QAnon-friendly challenger to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—through the end of December 2021.”
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One of seven jurors selected to serve on the New York criminal trial of Donald Trump has been dismissed after telling the judge she became concerned about her ability to remain impartial. That concern came after too many identifying details about potential jurors this week were reported by the press, leading the judge to admonish the media Thursday morning.
“Although the jurors’ names are being kept confidential, the woman, a nurse, ‘conveyed that after sleeping on it overnight she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in this case,’ New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan said before calling her into the room for questioning,” the Associated Press reports. “The woman said her family members and friends were questioning her about being a juror.”
Judge Merchan, after he had questioned the juror, chastised the media, specifically directing reporters to “abide by common sense” and not report jurors’ identifying information, as some in the press had done as soon as jury selection began.
“As evidenced by what’s happened already, it’s become a problem,” Judge Merchan said.
“We just lost what probably would have been a very good juror,” he noted. “She said she was afraid and intimidated by the press, all the press.”
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Alexander Panetta of Canada’s CBC News adds, “Merchan wants changes in the juror info that gets out to the public. He says jurors’ employer name will be redacted from court records.”
But he also reports the now-excused juror “says family and friends [said] that she had been easy to identify, based on publicly available info about her from the court. She said she definitely has concerns now.”
Merchan also “lamented that media reported another juror has an Irish accent. He asked media in the room to be more careful.”
Responding to the loss of the juror, The Atlantic’s David Drum remarked, “[Trump] juror intimidation gets results.”
The dismissed juror had been targeted by Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Tuesday (video below).
“I’m not so sure about Juror No. 2,” Watters told Fox News views.
Watters: She says no one is above the law. I’m not so sure about her pic.twitter.com/w6t1kOVWuX
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 17, 2024
Trump on Wednesday, appearing to violate his gag order, had targeted the jurors.
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Former state and federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch Network, commented, “Fox & Trump are coordinating to intimidate jurors.”
Mediate reported, “Donald Trump appeared to violate the gag order set forth by Judge Juan Merchan.”
“On Wednesday, Trump took to Truth Social and quoted comments made about potential jurors by Fox News host Jesse Watters on The Five Wednesday night.”
Trump quoted Watters, posting: “They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury.”
“That post appears to be in direct violation of Merchan’s gag order, a reality highlighted by JustSecurity’s Ryan Goodman,” Mediate added.
On Wednesday Watters had gone even further and presented biographical and identifying details of all seven jurors. That video is currently at the top of a pinned post on the Fox News website.
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After Democratic House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin blasted Republican Chairman Jim Comer, declaring “somebody needs therapy here” during a heated verbal brawl Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) mockingly urged committee members to come together to “begin Comer’s therapy session.”
In a viral three-minute walkthrough of the discredited far-right wing chairman’s efforts, including making false claims and use, as Moskowitz noted, Russian disinformation to try to build a case against President Joe Biden, the Florida Democrat appeared to put the final nail in the impeachment coffin.
Moskowitz told the committee members Chairman Comer has to “face the fact that he was taken by the Russians,” and “was used by the Russians.” He also noted the committee has “already lost” Comer “to Russian propaganda.”
“I mean, we got to build a forcefield around the Chairman to make sure we don’t lose him to Chinese propaganda as well.”
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Moskowitz made clear, through his well-known wit, that Comer “no longer has impeachment” as an option to use against President Biden.
The video has gone viral, with over 175,000 views in just over one hour.
Read the transcript of Moskowitz’s remarks and watch the video below or at this link.
“Let me start by saying, obviously Chairman Comer’s not here, but I think in light of what we witnessed earlier, I think it’s important that together as a committee that we begin, Chairman Comer’s therapy session, right. You know, a member of the other side wanted to confirm what the title of the hearing was, right, Chinese propaganda. Well, we know the title of the hearing certainly isn’t about impeachment anymore. And Chairman Comer has suffered tremendous loss, and we all know in our life, what it’s like to suffer tremendous loss. There’s all sorts of different stages of grief and that’s the loss obviously, of his of his impeachment hearing. And everyone deals with that in different ways and sometimes it takes time to grieve and struggle and and fill that hole that void that now exists now that he no longer has impeachment.”
“The only way we as a committee are going to help Chairman Comer get better is we have to get to the root cause. Right? So for today’s therapy session, okay, I want to talk about denial. Right? The denial that the impeachment hearings are over, and the denial, obviously, that he started with the 1023 form, which was Russian disinformation. And so, you know, Chairman Comer’s psychology teaches us that, you know, someone might be like him, using denial as a defense mechanism. And signs include that you refuse to talk about the problem. You find ways to justify your behavior, you blame other people or outside forces for causing the problem. You persist in your behavior by consequences. You promise to address the problem, maybe in the future, or you avoid thinking about the problem. And so in addition to these signs that Chairman comer has been displaying, as we saw at the beginning, he also might be feeling hopeless or helpless.”
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“I just want the chairman to know that we’re pulling for him. We really we really are. I know, I know. It’s been hard to become someone who was used by the Russians. But the good news is, is that he’s this hearing today on Chinese propaganda, because we’ve already lost him to Russian propaganda. I mean, we got to build a forcefield around the chairman to make sure we don’t lose him to Chinese propaganda, as well.”
“In fact, you can see behind me, these are quotes from the chairman, Chairman Comer. Every single solitary time and there are hundreds more that he went on TV in interviews and talked about this 1023 form, which was all Russian disinformation. But we gotta make the Chairman understand that it’s going to be okay. We will get him through this, but he’s got to recognize, gotta recognize that denial is not just a river in Egypt. He’s gonna have to face the fact that he was taken by the Russians.”
Moskowitz: I think it’s important that together as a committee that we begin Comer’s therapy session. He has suffered tremendous loss. And that is the loss of his impeachment hearing. There’s all sorts of different stages of grief. pic.twitter.com/zPCtNAeGzX
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 17, 2024
Mike Johnson can count on at least some Democrats to save his job after a second Republican announced he supports U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s efforts to remove the embattled GOP Speaker of the House. Weeks ago Greene filed a motion to “vacate the chair,” which she can call up at any time to force a vote that could lead to Johnson losing his gavel.
“I just told Mike Johnson in conference that I’m cosponsoring the Motion to Vacate,” U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) declared late Tuesday morning. “He should pre-announce his resignation (as Boehner did), so we can pick a new Speaker without ever being without a GOP Speaker.”
“You’re not going to be the speaker much longer,” Massie directly told Speaker Johnson, Politico reports, citing two lawmakers in the room.
Asked by a social media user, “What was the straw that broke the Camel’s Back? FISA? Foreign War Funding? Spending more than Nancy Pelosi? All of the above?” Massie replied: “All of the above. This camel has a pallet of bricks.”
Like many far-right House Republicans, Massie is furious Speaker Johnson plans to put on the floor foreign aid and national security legislation to support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan this week, only after Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend forced his hand.
“Friday, we have one less Republican in the majority as Rep Gallagher leaves instead of finishing his term,” Massie wrote earlier Tuesday morning, referring to exiting U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI). “As a going away gift, Speaker Johnson plans to force the senate to take up Gallagher’s bill to ban tiktok and give Presidential power to ban websites.”
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“But still no border,” Massie lamented, referring to Republicans’ top priority after Donald Trump made clear he will campaign on an anti-immigrant platform and urged Republicans to block bipartisan legislation to fund additional border security.
(President Joe Biden and Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer supported the Senate’s bipartisan bill, which would have provided aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and a massive increase in border security. It was killed in the Senate after Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pulled his support in response to Trump’s remarks.)
Congresswoman Greene, who was accused by U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz last week of not having enough votes to “rename a post office,” much less unseat Speaker Johnson, responded to Massie’s remarks:
“Johnson is the Deep State Speaker of the House funding the Democrat’s agenda in an omnibus, blocking warrant requirements for FISA, this week ramming through billions for Ukraine, and now this after allowing Gallagher to leave his district without representation. Can’t continue.”
She also posted Massie’s signature signing onto her Motion to Vacate.
Speaker Mike Johnson has thrown our GOP conference into chaos by serving the Democrats and passing Biden’s agenda.
Last week, Speaker Johnson shoved warrantless spying on Americans down our throats with FISA.
Now, Speaker Johnson is going to fund foreign wars while refusing to… https://t.co/LXZVgRZ1ET pic.twitter.com/rhHAhL81P3
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 16, 2024
In a show of support for Johnson, last week Donald Trump held a joint press conference with the embattled Speaker, during which both attacked immigrants and Johnson vowed legislation to ban non-citizens from voting. It is already a federal felony for non-citizens to vote.
CNN’s Manu Raju reports, “after Gallagher resigns — Johnson would almost certainly need Democrats to save his job if the motion to oust him comes up for a vote. Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz says he would save Mike Johnson’s job if MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene] brings motion to oust him. Others like Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi also said they would vote to save Johnson ‘Democrats don’t even let her rename post offices, I’m not gonna let her make a motion to vacate,’ Moskowitz told me.”
Moskowitz responded, saying: “My position hasn’t changed. Massie wants the world to burn, I won’t stand by and watch. I have a bucket of water.”
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