Legal Random, Random

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Exclusive: Rep. "George Santos" charged by Justice Department in federal probe
By Mark Morales, Evan Perez and Gregory Krieg, CNN
Updated 5:44 PM EDT, Tue May 9, 2023


Nathan Howard/Bloomberg/Getty Images
CNN
—
Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against New York Rep. George Santos, the Republican lawmaker whose astonishing pattern of lies and fabrications stunned even hardened politicos, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Santos is expected to appear as soon as Wednesday at federal court in New York’s eastern district, where the charges have been filed under seal.

The exact nature of the charges couldn’t immediately be learned but the FBI and the Justice Department public integrity prosecutors in New York and Washington have been examining allegations of false statements in Santos’ campaign finance filings and other claims.

The congressman’s attorney declined to comment. Spokespeople for the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office, the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment.

The freshman congressman, who was elected last year to represent a district that includes parts of Long Island and Queens, has been under investigation in multiple jurisdictions and by the House Ethics Committee.

Top Democrats, joined by some New York Republicans, have been calling on Santos to resign over allegations ranging from criminal behavior on the campaign trail to petty personal dishonesty stretching back more than a decade.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he will look at the charges before determining if he thinks Santos should be removed from Congress.

“I’ll look at the charges,” the California Republican told CNN on Tuesday.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/09/politics ... department

Quotation marks are mine.

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Since he is obviously a flight risk he should be remanded. #wishfulthinking

He is set to appear in court later this afternoon, probably in time for the local news cycle that starts at 5p (yes I'm that cynical)

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[ponchi101]

Should he wear a GPS tracker? I mean, if this guy wakes up tomorrow in Sao Paulo would anybody be surprised?

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Should he wear a GPS tracker? I mean, if this guy wakes up tomorrow in Sao Paulo would anybody be surprised?

NeverForget1/6Auto-Coup
@trott1073
·
2m
George Santos claims "Witch Hunt". He stole from donors and taxpayers. Judge restricted his movements to NYC, Long Island, & D.C. unless he gets permission. Had to surrender his passport & agreed to random home visits https://thedailybeast.com/george-santos ... ia=desktop via
@thedailybeast

I swear do these people have brains? How many passports does he have and what names are they under? There are a lot of ways to cut and run between NYC/Long Island and Washington DC.

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Watchdog Files New Complaint With FEC Alleging There’s Reason To Believe Santos’ Treasurer Doesn’t Exist
By Kaila Philo
|
May 10, 2023 4:39 p.m.

A watchdog group has accused Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who was arraigned at a Long Island federal courthouse on fraud charges this afternoon, of fabricating his campaign treasurer’s identity.

According to a complaint released on Wednesday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is requesting that the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) investigate their allegations about the treasurer and the freshman congressman for potentially violating the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA).

The complaint argues that there is reason to believe that Andrew Olson, Santos’s current treasurer, does not exist.

“Mr. Olson is not and has not been identified as a treasurer to any political committee outside of those connected to Representative Santos,” the complaint said. “No one asked about it appears to know Mr. Olson, including those knowledgeable of political committee treasurers and New York Republican politics.”

They also note that the address listed on the FEC forms used to belong to Santos’s sister. Olson has reportedly not responded to any of CREW’s attempts to contact him through the means provided in the filings. He has also not responded to multiple requests for comment from TPM.

“Given his struggles with the truth, much about Rep. Santos remains a mystery, but there’s no bigger mystery than his treasurer,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. “No one can seem to find Andrew Olson. If he does not exist, it would be an extreme abuse of our campaign finance system—one the FEC should not permit.”

Olson was allegedly hired by Santos in February, after the FEC warned him that he couldn’t handle his campaign funds without a treasurer and after it became clear that the person he supposedly hired to replace his previous treasurer had never agreed to the job.

“It is required that for any committee to conduct any business, they must have an active treasurer,” the FEC wrote in a Feb. 14 letter. “Failure to appoint a treasurer will result in the inability of the committee to accept contributions and make disbursements.”

The agency noted in that letter that a new treasurer must be appointed within ten days after the last one resigned.

His last official treasurer was Nancy Marks, a veteran GOP operative who’d worked in New York politics for years. After being swept up in the scandal surrounding the congressman’s dubious background and finance dealings, she quietly resigned from her position in January.

She was replaced on Santos’s FEC filings by Thomas Datwyler, another longtime campaign finance consultant. But on Jan. 27, Datwyler’s attorney sent the FEC a series of letters clarifying that Datwyler had never taken the position.

So, Olson’s name appeared on the filings about a month later, with only an email and home address to identify him.

In a Jan. 26 letter, the FEC warned Santos that “knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” to the agency is punishable under federal law.

“I’ve seen a lot studying and working on these issues, but that’s a new one: for a sitting congressman to have an imaginary friend as his treasurer,” Brennan Center campaign finance expert and former FEC senior counsel Daniel Weiner told TPM.

He said that most sitting officeholders deal with issues around misuse of campaign funds. The accusations CREW has levied against Santos, however, enter a different realm.

“It’s kind of a different ballgame in this case, where you’re dealing more with outright fraud,” he said.

The New York Republican’s campaign funds have been a subject of much scrutiny since the New York Times first published their bombshell exposé in December. An unnamed former operative told TPM back in January that looking through the campaign’s finances left them with many questions.

“I thought that the lack of a financial disclosure, the messiness of the books, and the reporting were not great,” the operative said.

Notably, several charges in the 13-count indictment against Santos have to do with these sketchy details. Prosecutors allege, for example, that Santos used money solicited for his congressional race on personal expenses, like luxury designer clothing and credit card payments, and that he misrepresented his assets in two House financial disclosure reports.

But CREW’s complaint notes that the treasurer is responsible for ensuring that his campaign filings are accurate.

“If there is not a treasurer to take responsibility, that undercuts our whole system of accountability,” Bookbinder said. “This must be immediately investigated.”

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/watc ... esnt-exist

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[Owendonovan]

Piers has always been scum.