mac_in_tosh
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Representative-elect George Santos' completely fabricated past and qualifications
- Thread starter Chew Toy McCoy
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And the smoking gun.
Quoting @briankrebs@infosec.exchange: https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs/109606269434631361
Quoting @briankrebs@infosec.exchange: https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs/109606269434631361
Excellent article from the Washington Post:
"A tiny paper broke the George Santos scandal but no one paid attention."
Looks like the Zimmerman campaign really dropped the ball on this one.
"Months before the New York Times published a December article suggesting Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) had fabricated much of his résumé and biography, a tiny publication on Long Island was ringing alarm bells about its local candidate.
...
The Leader reluctantly endorsed Santos’s Democratic opponent the next month. “This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican,” it wrote, but Santos “is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot,” adding, “He boasts like an insecure child — but he’s most likely just a fabulist — a fake.”
It was the stuff national headlines are supposed to be built on: A hyperlocal outlet like the Leader does the legwork, regional papers verify and amplify the story, and before long an emerging political scandal is being broadcast coast to coast.
But that system, which has atrophied for decades amid the destruction of news economies, appears to have failed completely this time.
...
“We expected it to pop a lot more than it did,” Lally said [Grant Lally, publisher of The Leader]. For one, he thought that Santos’s opponent, Robert Zimmerman (D), would have made more of the Leader’s endorsement and “pushed” the contradictions his newspaper uncovered into larger publications such as Newsday and the New York Times."
"A tiny paper broke the George Santos scandal but no one paid attention."
Looks like the Zimmerman campaign really dropped the ball on this one.
"Months before the New York Times published a December article suggesting Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) had fabricated much of his résumé and biography, a tiny publication on Long Island was ringing alarm bells about its local candidate.
...
The Leader reluctantly endorsed Santos’s Democratic opponent the next month. “This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican,” it wrote, but Santos “is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot,” adding, “He boasts like an insecure child — but he’s most likely just a fabulist — a fake.”
It was the stuff national headlines are supposed to be built on: A hyperlocal outlet like the Leader does the legwork, regional papers verify and amplify the story, and before long an emerging political scandal is being broadcast coast to coast.
But that system, which has atrophied for decades amid the destruction of news economies, appears to have failed completely this time.
...
“We expected it to pop a lot more than it did,” Lally said [Grant Lally, publisher of The Leader]. For one, he thought that Santos’s opponent, Robert Zimmerman (D), would have made more of the Leader’s endorsement and “pushed” the contradictions his newspaper uncovered into larger publications such as Newsday and the New York Times."
Seriously if this guy can lie his way out of investigations by as many entities as are now having a look at his finances, he'd still be making the one mistake he can't afford to make and may already have made, which is to have a high enough profile on enough potentially shady stuff to give him the chance to tell a lie to federal authorities.
George Santos faces growing legal scrutiny: ‘He needs his lawyer on speed dial’
An unrepentant Rep.-elect George Santos, who remains on track to be sworn in next week, faced growing legal scrutiny in recent days, as his web of known falsehoods expanded to include a misleading …www.nydailynews.com
Well that plus the SEC filings for Santos' once-dissolved and then suddenly reinstated Devolder Holdings. That might even entail an SEC re-look at the Harbor City Capital case mentioned in that Semafor piece:
Sounds like Santos took a rolodex with him when he conveniently left Capital City before the hammer dropped on that Ponzi scheme.
Per the NYT piece that @Cmaier had cited, there's also that unusual pattern of over 800 individual $199.99 campaign expenditures, each conveniently "just under" $200 and so adding up to "just under" $160k of expenses for which no receipts would have been required.
Kevin McCarthy would like all this to go away until he can at least get a firm headcount on his quest to become Speaker of the House next week.
But if Santos is seated, the question becomes whether a 2/3 majority of that newly constituted House would then decide to oust Santos. "Probably not" is my own sad guess based on US history so far.
It's possible McCarthy would strip Santos of any committee assignments if the guy ended up indicted, and ask him to resign if convicted. "Possible" but not probable considering the slim margin the Rs will have.
So maybe in modern times it's not just Trump who can get away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, assuming the voters have already elected such a rogue official. After all, in our past, most of the five House reps who were ousted were tossed out for disloyalty to the Union during the Civil War. That has not been the fate of the 140-odd congress critters who formally supported an overturn of the 2020 Biden election.
Well, if he does get seated it’s likely only a matter of time before he uses his position to benefit himself. If he hasn’t broken laws already (which he probably has), he likely will sooner or later considering how incapable of being honest he is.
It’s hard to see him being a remotely effective member of Congress even if he does become seated. No one is going to want to work with him, let alone sit within camera shot of him. Even if republicans ignore his lies, they will not ignore his image. I can’t see how his constituents can support this.
Something tells me he probably committed some form of campaign finance fraud and likely other types of personal financial fraud prior. He very well may be sitting in a jail cell rather than the House of Representatives.
lizkat
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Somehow Santos wasn't charged when the SEC accused Harbor City Capital of fraud (running a Ponzi scheme) and caused it to be shut down in April of 2021. He had reportedly left in March... and then filed paperwork to open the Devolder company in May of 2021. But his company was dissolved earlier this year for not filing an annual report. Then he re-registered it in December, after the NYT started running pieces on him.
It has been pointed out that he could only do that Florida corporation re-registration process as a resident of Florida. He gave a Florida address for that paperwork. But he is required to have been a resident of NY State in order to have campaigned for the NY03 House seat that he won. I have no idea if those two residence requirements conflict with each other. I mean lots of people have multiple residences. You can't vote from more than one residence but can probably do business from more than one.
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Lots of op-eds talking about how this guy is another problem the GOP doesn’t seem able to deal with. The MTGs are saying to give him a second chance, McCarthy is silent…
Heck, MTG is almost de-facto GOP leader right now. Again, because they haven’t dealt properly with her yet. This new pathological liar, Santos, will either resign in disgrace or may possibly be GOP leader one day, maybe a senator or even president.
Heck, MTG is almost de-facto GOP leader right now. Again, because they haven’t dealt properly with her yet. This new pathological liar, Santos, will either resign in disgrace or may possibly be GOP leader one day, maybe a senator or even president.
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Pretty sure he’s going to jail. Money laundering, campaign finance violations, ponzi scheme, fraud…
lizkat
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If he's not going to jail then good luck to cities trying to collect unpaid fricken parking tickets....
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This dude is definitely going to prison.
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Add lying under oath to the list of crimes.
www.independent.co.uk
George Santos claimed he was robbed of his rent money. NYPD doesn’t have a record
The newly elected Republican congressman wrote in eviction proceedings that he was mugged, but police say there is nothing on file to back up claims he made under oath
www.independent.co.uk
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Republicans need to be asking themselves how this guy got elected. The answer is in the mirror, but it should still be asked.
lizkat
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He has apparently filed more than 800 reports of campaign expenses that came to 199.99 (requires no receipt if under 200 bucks). That many amounts to a pattern that stinks to high heaven of willful avoidance of having to report $160k worth of "something or other" and mostly likely not just office supplies. He's going to do time for this stuff, it's way too extreme to be overlooked.
Add lying under oath to the list of crimes.
George Santos claimed he was robbed of his rent money. NYPD doesn’t have a record
The newly elected Republican congressman wrote in eviction proceedings that he was mugged, but police say there is nothing on file to back up claims he made under oath
How comforting for voters in NY03, who on Tuesday can see Santos getting sworn into the House.
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The only reason they might care is if there are adverse political repercussions, which there may be. Beyond that, it only matters that an elected official is a Republican. They would have been satisfied with Herschel Walker had he won because he would have done exactly what he was told.
lizkat
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I dunno. This level of presentation of a fradulent "persona" might be a bridge too far even in the MAGA era. I mean who is this guy really? He's even lying now about what lies he has told in the past. What else he has done past tell lies about himself and break some laws doing it?
Santos turns my stomach.... almost as much as Kevin McCarthy does by his silence. Some excuse the latter by saying that McCarthy can't do anything about Santos without a Speaker's gavel in his hand. Yeah, he could. He could leak to the press that the first thing he'll do if he gets that gavel is to take a voice vote on expelling Santos, and failing that then recommend that the House Ethics Committee investigate the guy. Why wait for the SEC, the FEC, the NY Board of Elections and the Florida State corporate registry to do it?
Where did the 700K that Santos "lent" to his campaign come from? So far it looks like he may have run afoul of the law by failing to distinguish between the legality of funding his own campaign and the illegality of running funds to do that through a corporation.
Yes, but is it a bridge too far because what Santos did was so repugnant as to violate their principles, or because it might affect them or their party politically? I agree that if Santos is brought down, it'll be because he broke laws.
Indeed, where did that money come from.....assuming it actually happened.
A lot of what I've been reading suggests he didn't have that kind of money to loan to his campaign in the first place
