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‘Scandal’: Why Did McCarthy Say He Wasn’t ‘Notified’ a Santos Staffer Impersonated His Chief of Staff Until ‘Later’?
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy appeared to casually brush off that a campaign aide to freshman U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-NY), a proven serial liar, reportedly impersonated McCarthy’s chief of staff in fundraising efforts over a period of several years.
“Wealthy donors received calls and emails from a man who said he was Dan Meyer, McCarthy’s chief of staff, during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, according to people familiar with the matter. His name was actually Sam Miele, and he worked for Santos raising money for his campaign, according to one GOP donor who contributed to Santos’ campaign,” CNBC reported last week.
“One board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition said he supported Santos in part because of the congressman’s false claim that he was Jewish.”
Quoting ethics and legal experts, CNBC reports, “the impersonation of McCarthy’s chief of staff could have broken the law.”
But CNBC also notes that “McCarthy’s spokesman did not respond to repeated requests for comment.”
What could prove to be problematic for the Speaker is, in fact, the timing of when he knew and why he presumably did not contact authorities when he found out.
“I never knew all about his resume or not but I always had a few questions,” McCarthy admitted Monday. That ties into reports that suggest McCarthy may have known illicit acts were being performed, in his name.
“You know, I didn’t know about that, it happened. They corrected but I was not notified about that until a later date,” McCarthy insisted, in what could be seen as an especially evasive response. “I didn’t know about it until a later date though, unfortunately,” he said, repeating himself.
The reporter in the clip below did not appear to ask McCarthy when he knew, but if he knew.
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MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin notes that The New York Times, “reported that Dan Conston, the head of the main House GOP super PAC and a close McCarthy ally, expressed private concerns that George Santos could be exposed as a fraud. It seems reasonable to ask, what did Kevin McCarthy know about George Santos and when did he know it?”
That New York Times article appears to be this one published Friday, but CNBC points to a Washington Times report from last month that reads: “McCarthy’s team first learned about a Santos staffer impersonating the speaker’s chief of staff in August 2021, the Times wrote. The publication said the staffer would call donors pretending to be Meyer and send follow-up emails from a fake address.”
Conservative Bill Kristol observes, “McCarthy seems to have known in 2021 a Santos staffer was impersonating McCarthy’s chief of staff, and he did nothing to inform those who were duped or the public. Nor did he stop Santos from running in 2022. The Santos scandal is also a McCarthy scandal.”
Law professor, political commentator, former U.S. Attorney, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman also suggests McCarthy may have known.
“Turns out many in the George Santos sphere knew that he was a fraud. Campaign staffers quit because of it. And one person who was worried Santos would be exposed as a fraud was known to an ally of an important DC personnage: Kevin McCarthy. Odds that he never told his ally?”
U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) on Sunday tweeted he and fellow New York Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman are sending “a letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republican Leadership, asking who knew what when about the web of lies surrounding George Santos. The public has a right to know what House Republican leaders knew about Mr. Santos.”
“In light of recent public reporting indicating that each of you had at least some knowledge of the web of lies used by Congressman George Santos to deceive his voters long before they became public,” Torres and Goldman say, “we write to request that you proactively and forthrightly cooperate with all current and future investigations into Mr. Santos, including the investigation by the House Committee on Ethics that Speaker McCarthy confirmed this week. In addition, we urge you to inform the American people about your knowledge of Mr. Santos’s web of deceit prior to the election so that the public understands whether and to what extent you were complicit in Mr. Santos’s fraud on his voters,” the letter reads.
The two Democrats last week filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee against Santos.
Watch McCarthy below or at this link.
McCarthy: I never knew all about his resume or not but I always had a few questions
Question: What about pretending to be your chief of staff? pic.twitter.com/QNh1ywXwDs— Acyn (@Acyn) January 16, 2023
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
