The New York Times and George Santos: Addressing the Defamatory Errors of Cairo and the Nassau County Republican Committee
Joseph Cairo Jr., the influential chairman of the Nassau County Republican committee, believes that George Santos should be given the chance to address the claims in the article.
Cairo said that every person deserves an opportunity to clear their name in the face of accusations.
The college said it couldn’t locate a match for a GeorgeSantos, who was born on July 22, 1988, with a 2010 graduation year.
“It is no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at the New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations,” said Joseph Murray.
However, Murray offered no facts, evidence or documents to contradict the Times article, which also found Santos appears to have fabricated key details of his business career.
“Only in this country does somebody who comes from a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, like I did, is able to rise to become a successful businessperson, to then run for United States Congress.”
The gay man claimed in an interview with WNYC public radio that his employees were killed at the gay nightclub in Florida when a shooter opened fire.
“I happened to, at the time, have people that worked for me in the club,” Santos said. Four of my employees lost their jobs because of the massacre at Pulse.
How disappointed is Mr. Santos? A Republican apologized to the American people over his lies about education and philanthropic failures
In an editorial before the election, the North Shore Leader newspaper endorsed Santos’ Democratic opponent, Robert Zimmerman, and voiced skepticism about Santos’ credibility.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy allowed him to be seated to two House committees, even though GOP leaders in Washington stopped short of demanding he leave. The furor over his lies intensified in late January, so Santos withdrew from those assignments.
The Republican has admitted to lying about some aspects of his biography, though the US attorney is investigating the matter. Santos has faced questions over his wealth and loans totaling more than $700,000 he made to his successful 2022 campaign.
In interviews with WABC radio and the New York Post this week,Santos admitted to lying about his education but claimed that he hadn’t committed any crimes.
“As a Navy man who campaigned on restoring accountability and integrity to our government, I believe a full investigation by the House Ethics Committee and, if necessary, law enforcement, is required,” GOP Rep.-elect Nick LaLota said in a statement.
It is most likely that the House Republican leadership will seatSantos when he is sworn in next Tuesday. According to the US Constitution, the House has the power to expel members with a two-thirds vote, but only five lawmakers have been expelled in the country’s history.
In the past, the California Republican has shown little appetite for punishing his own members for bad behavior – particularly when it comes to actions from before they were a member of Congress. McCarthy has also declined to weigh in when members are under investigation, arguing he will let the probes play out before determining how to proceed.
In an interview posted Monday night, the congressman said that this would not deter him from being an effective member of the congress.
Nassau County Republican Committee Chairman Joseph G. Cairo said that Santos has broken the public trust and has a lot of work to do to regain the trust of voters.
“I am deeply disappointed in Mr. Santos, and I expected more than just a blanket apology,” Cairo said in a statement. Many people, especially those who suffered through the Holocaust, have been adversely affected by his lies.
CNN’s KFile discovered that his mother died because of being present in the South Tower during 9/11, an allegation that is being reexamined.
“We are very disappointed in Congressman-elect Santos,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement. “He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. In public comments and to us personally he previously claimed to be Jewish. He has started his time in Congress on a bad note.
“He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. “He claimed to be Jewish in public comments and to us personally,” the coalition said. “He will not be welcome at any future RJC event.”
When did Congressman Carlos Santos admit to working for the financial firms Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Baruch College? The Nassau County District Attorney’s office is investigating the fabrications
Santos admitted Monday he didn’t graduate from any college or university, despite previously claiming he had degrees from Baruch College and New York University.
He also admitted that he never worked directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as he has previously suggested, but claimed that he did do work for them through his company, telling the New York Post it was a “poor choice of words” to say he worked for them.
The New York Times said that the biography had appeared to be fake. CNN confirmed details of that reporting, including about his college education and employment history.
CBS News first reported the federal probe, which comes as the Nassau County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday that it was looking into fabrications from Santos.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said the numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with congressman-elect Carlos Santos are stunning.
She said that residents in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers parts of Nassau County, “must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress. If a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it, no one is above the law.
He has no criminal past in the world, nor is he a criminal in Brazil or any other part? The New York Times’s warning on the Nassau County DA’s office
In an interview with the New York Post last week, he denied that he was a criminal in Brazil or anywhere in the world. Absolutely not. That didn’t happen.”
In a statement, the newly-elected New York Republican urged his fellow Republican to comply with any investigations and called on Santos to apologize for the controversy. Santos is making things worse by downplaying action’s.
He said he would serve out his full two-year term. He has denied any criminal wrongdoing despite admitting to faking his resume before winning a seat on Long Island.
He is scheduled to be sworn in next Tuesday, when the U.S. House reconvenes. He could be investigated by the House Committee on Ethics if he is elected to office.
The Republican has admitted to lying about having Jewish ancestry, a Wall Street pedigree and a college degree, but he has yet to address other lingering questions — including the source of what appears to be a quickly amassed fortune despite recent financial problems, including evictions and owing thousands in back rent.
A spokesperson for the Nassau County DA’s office, Brendan Brosh, said Wednesday: “We are looking into the matter.” The scope of the investigation was not immediately clear.
Questions intensified after The New York Times examined the narrative Santos, 34, presented to voters during his successful campaign for a congressional district that straddles the north shore suburbs of Long Island and a sliver of Queens.
In an interview with the New York Post earlier this week, Santos apologized for his fabrications but downplayed them as “sins” over embellishing his resume, adding that “we do stupid things in life.”
He backtracked on that claim, saying he never intended to claim Jewish heritage, which would have likely raised his appeal among his district’s significant ranks of Jewish voters.
Investigating the Campaign for a Democratic Candidate Whose Life Never Dies: Paul Ryan, the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation, and an Attorney General
In its opposition research on Santos, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised several red flags about the Republican’s record — but also accepted some of his assertions, including his educational record, as fact. His support for baseless claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 presidential election was one of the things sought to link him to in the 87-page dossier. The report was supposed to show him as a far-right candidate. But buried within its report, the DCCC had raised issues about his shaky financial standing and multiple evictions that left him thousands of dollars in debt.
Robert Zimmerman tried to raise Santos’ misrepresentations during the campaign but it didn’t gain much traction.
In the last few days, the campaign has faced many questions about their finances, including inquiries about donors as well as campaign disbursements, and has reported dozens of expenses that are one cent below the threshold for the campaign to retain receipts.
One penny below the dollar figure that the FEC requires campaigns to keep receipts is what the FEC reports contain, as well as expensive expenses on air travel and hotels.
The expenditures to different stores, including Walmart, Delta Airlines, Best Buy, and Il Bacco Restaurante, definitely stood out to me said Paul Ryan, the deputy executive director of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation.
The payments could be related to an effort to get around FEC requirements for campaign expenses over $200. The FEC encourages candidates to keep their receipts below that threshold but they only have to make payments over $200.
The consistent appearance of the $199.99 charges effectively shows that Santos knew about the threshold he was attempting to skirt, potentially inviting Justice Department scrutiny and criminal penalties.
“My view is a bunch of expenditures right below legal requirement for the committee to keep receipts is evidence that he knew what he was doing,” Ryan said. If he did misuse funds, this was a blatant effort to avoid detection.
Many of the people who voted for him in New York’s 3rd Congressional District say they will not support him again, following revelations of how he lied about his life.
“The whole person that he created and the ability to deceive us is just so troubling,” she said. We all know that this man shouldn’t be in office. I want to assure you that the Republicans also know it.
How Did George Santos Tell His Former Congressional Candidate, Tom Zmich, End his Congressmanship, And What Has He Done?
Tom Zmich, a former congressional candidate in the neighboring 6th District, said Santos is a friend of his and “hasn’t done anything wrong, as far as legality wise.”
The donor said that she didn’t thinkSantos would have done what he did because he was the front runner in the race.
It is unclear whether Santos has been in touch with the Office of Congressional Ethics, and if so, who initiated the contact. In an exchange in which he appeared to be trying to appease a donor,Santos made the comment.
CNN has reached out to the OCE requesting confirmation. If the office discovers that public complaints are false, they can refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee.
The campaign donor who spoke freely told CNN that she was shocked by the news of the congressman-elect’s alleged lies and felt betrayed.
George Santos will be sworn in to take my congressional seat today as I end my career in Congress. He will take an oath to be faithful to the Constitution and not use it for any purpose of evasion. I’ve lost track of how many evasions and lies Mr. Santos has told about himself, his finances and his history and relationship with our stretch of Long Island and northeastern Queens. When he is seated, it will diminish our Congress, our country and my constituents — soon his constituents. It is sad that after 30 years of public service I am being succeeded by a con man.
The New York Rep.-elect George Santos to the US House of Representatives on Foreign Affairs and the Investigation of his Financial Improperties
Yet I’m clinging to my sense of optimism. Our democracy, our free press, and the rule of law all work as slow and frustrating as possible. They have to do that.
Rep.-elect George Santos of New York is scheduled to be sworn in to Congress on Tuesday as he faces mounting scrutiny and condemnation over lies about his biography and amid an investigation by federal prosecutors into his finances.
The vote for House speaker at the US Capitol is set to start at noon on Tuesday, which is when all the new members of the 118th Congress will be sworn in.
The police had been trying to find him for nearly a decade after they were unable to find a stolen checkbook in 2008.
The New York Republican officially assumes his role in the US House Tuesday under a cloud of suspicion over his dubious resume after the prosecutor’s office in Brazil said they will revive fraud charges against him.
The criminal case stems from a visit to a small clothing store in the city of Patna, Bihar, in India, in whichSantos spent a lot of money on a fake name, according to the Times.
The Nassau County District Attorney promised to prosecute any crime that was committed in the county.
The district attorney’s office did not specify what fabrications it was exploring and the US attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York declined to comment.
Democrats have cited the mounting false statements and scrutiny facing Santos as an example of hypocrisy for Republicans booting Omar and two other House Democrats – California Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell – off committee assignments. While Schiff and Swalwell were able to be ejected from the House Intelligence Committee unilaterally by McCarthy, Omar’s position on House Foreign Affairs will need a vote on the House floor, one that Republican leaders have yet to force.
“He just felt like there was so much drama really over the situation, and especially what we’re doing to work to remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee,” Greene told CNN.
Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams, a Republican from Texas, said that he thinks Santos “probably made the right decision” to step down from his committee assignments until the questions about his past and his financial irregularities are resolved.
The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC that describes his disbursements as “odd and seemingly impossible.” It states that one of the $199.99 expenses was for a hotel stay at the luxury W Hotel South Beach in Florida in October, 2021 where the lowest-price room typically would have cost more than $700.
The source of $700,000 that Santos claimed to loan his campaign in just two years after he had disclosed no major assets was the subject of questions.
George Santos and the Nassau County Republican Committee: Where do we go? Where are we going? When do we turn around and stop worrying about what is going on?
George has voluntarily left committees as he goes through the process of taking care of himself, according to the chair of the GOP conference.
“There’s a threshold that he feels like [where] he’s not the issue anymore and when he hits that, it sounds like he wants to get back on committees and get going,” Williams told reporters.
“For a while, the question I was getting asked by [the press] is ‘Where you gonna put him? Can he do this?’ – it became about him,” Williams said. It’s not about him. Our committee has so much to do and when he returns, we have to get on with it. and he’s met the thresholds that he’s set or whatever, then let’s go.”
“Half-measures like voluntarily taking himself off his committee assignments are not good enough for the people of New York’s third congressional district, or for the American people,” Torres said in a statement. “He was a disgrace yesterday. He’s a disgrace today. And he’ll be a disgrace tomorrow. He should resign from office immediately.”
“He has no place in the Nassau County Republican Committee, nor should he serve in public service or as an elected official,” he said. “He’s not welcome here at Republican headquarters for meetings or at any of our events.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/31/1152771493/george-santos-house-committees
A Romney Reply to the New York Times: ‘I don’t belong here, but I’m sure you can get out’
An investigation from The New York Times couldn’t substantiate many of Santos’ claims, including his graduation from Baruch College and his work for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
“The voters have elected George Santos,” McCarthy said during an early January press conference. If there is concern, he will go through ethics. He will be dealt with in a similar way if something is found.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah told GOP Rep. George Santos of New York: “You don’t belong here,” according to a member who witnessed the tense exchange in the House of Representatives chamber Tuesday night.
Romney told CNN that he had criticized Santos for standing in the front aisle and trying to shake hands with the president and senators because he was under ethics investigation.
He said that the president should stay quiet in the back row and that he didn’t hear him respond to his remark.
“He says he, you know, that he embellished his record. The senator said that embellishing is saying you had an A when you got an A. “Lying is saying you graduated from a college that you didn’t even attend and he shouldn’t be in Congress.”
“And they’re gonna go through the process and hopefully get him out. .. But he shouldn’t be there and if he had any shame at all, he wouldn’t be there.”
Zeroing in on New York: A Congressional Campaign Committee Investigation into the Delayed Investigation of a New York Rep. George Santos
The FCC sent a letter to GeorgeSantos asking him to officially declare that he’s running for reelection in 2024 after raising enough money to do so.
In the letter, the FEC asks Santos needs to “either disavow these activities by notifying the Commission in writing that you are not a candidate, or redesignate your principal campaign committee by filing a Statement of Candidacy.”
The FEC requires all individuals with more than $5,000 raised or spent in a campaign for the federal office to register as a candidate within 15 days. Any such candidate, including incumbents like Santos, must file a statement of candidacy with the agency each electoral cycle.
Five freshman Republicans who were helped by donations fromSantos are the targets of a five-figure billboard campaign from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Molinaro and D’Esposito both returned the money from Santos after a number of his financial issues came to light, but the billboards in their districts ask why the lawmakers took campaign cash from “a fraudster” in the first place. The other three billboards, which feature a picture of Santos and the lawmaker, ask whether the members will return the campaign donations.
The DCCC isn’t alone in zeroing in on New York. Last week, House Majority PAC – the predominant super PAC that works to elect Democrats to the House – announced a $45 million program dedicated to the Empire State to help Democrats regain the majority in 2024.
“New Yorkers want Santos out of office, and these congressmen’s meaningless words aren’t enough to make up for their failure to actually take action to hold their campaign donor accountable,” said DCCC spokesperson Nebeyatt Betre. “The least they can do is answer these questions.”
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.
On the Hill, Santos will also now have to answer for an accusation by a prospective staffer who claims Santos made an unwanted sexual advance toward him during a private encounter in the congressman’s office. Shortly after he rebuffed Santos, the accuser says, he was denied a job. Santos has denied the claims.
The freedom of speech of the people in my constituency is not a distraction to my work. Do you think people distract from the work I’m doing?
A growing number of Republicans have called for his ouster, and Santos is widely viewed as a pariah in his home district on Long Island, which includes a small portion of Queens.
“The ‘good’ news for Santos is that even in these hyper partisan times, he’s found a way to get Democrats, Republicans and independents to agree about a political figure,” pollster Steven Greenberg said in the survey’s release. The good news for Santos is that the political figure they agree on is him, and they view him unfavorably.
In response to a complaint by Santos, David Mitrani, about the Charged Democrat, Erice Esposito, an Excluded State Treasurer and the House Ethics Committee
The campaign has come under scrutiny due to the fact that his former treasure listed several expenses, which were just a penny below the legal threshold for keeping receipts.
The individual, Derek Myers, said in a House Ethics complaint that Santos “touched” his groin before allegedly inviting him to his home and said his husband was out of town, according to a copy of the document provided to CNN last month.
“Even after OCE’s exhaustive review of the Congresswoman’s personal communications, there is no record of the Congresswoman refusing to pay for these expenses,” David Mitrani wrote in the letter. The Congresswoman understood that she needed to pay for these expenses from her own funds and that was proven by several explicit, documented conversations prior to OCE’s review. The ethics committee will dismiss the matter.