House Republicans Are Unhappy (with One Another)

 

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  George Santos was an embarrassment and source of discord for House Republicans.

Andrew Solender and Juliegrace Brufke at Axios:

House Republican leadership is facing some internal backlash over their last-minute opposition to expelling former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from Congress.

Why it matters: The historic vote to expel Santos was prompted by a report from the bipartisan House Ethics Committee which alleged a "complex web" of wrongdoing by the embattled Long Islander.Beyond the Ethics Committee, Santos has also been twice criminally indicted. He pleaded not guilty and maintains that he is innocent.

Driving the news: The House voted 311-114 on Friday to pass a resolution expelling Santos from Congress. Republicans split almost evenly, with 105 voting for expulsion and 112 voting against – compared to just two Democrats who voted against expulsion and another two who voted "present."

The push to rescue Santos gained 11th hour momentum when Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other members of leadership came out against expulsion the morning of the vote.
Santos' removal winnows the House GOP majority to a three-vote margin, while also giving Democrats an opportunity to pick up Santos' seat.

What we're hearing: Ethics Committee members Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and John Rutherford (R-Fla.) both floated to colleagues the idea of resigning from the panel if the vote failed, according to two lawmakers and an aide familiar with the discussions.

 

How much do House Republicans hate each other? Last month, 22 House Democrats voted to censure Rashida Tlaib and all but accused her of antisemitism. And somehow, I’m STILL convinced they don’t hate each other as much as House Republicans hate each other.

— Eric Michael Garcia (@EricMGarcia) December 1, 2023

And it is not just the Santos vote.  Olivia Beavers at Politico reports that Speaker Johnson's honeymoon is over:

“He continues to play games,” a livid Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) said in an interview. “We are talking about a man [who] 30 days ago said that he was an anti-CR guy. We are talking about a man 30 days ago that was anti-Ukraine funding. ... It shows me he was never really morally convicted in his positions to begin with.

“He just did a 180 on everything he believed in,” Miller added, “and that to me is disgusting.”

Miller, an ally of McCarthy and former President Donald Trump, called Johnson a “joke,” describing the speaker’s decision to attach IRS cuts to Israel aid as “a slap in the face to every Jew” and a “fucking dumb” choice that set a precedent of tying domestic policy to foreign aid. He made clear that his complaints stemmed from the speaker’s decision to not take up funding bills this week, as a shutdown deadline looms.

Santos: Ethics Committee and the Full Vulnerability Study

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

From the House Committee on Ethics:

On November 14, 2023, the Committee unanimously voted to adopt the Report of the Investigative Subcommittee (ISC), which is enclosed as Appendix A.  The Committee also unanimously voted, pursuant to Committee Rule 28, to refer to the Department of Justice (DOJ) substantial evidence that Representative Santos: knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission; used campaign funds for personal purposes; engaged in fraudulent conduct in connection with RedStone Strategies LLC; and engaged in knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act as it relates to his Financial Disclosure (FD) Statements filed with the House.    Amid a deferral request from DOJ and Representative Santos’ obfuscation and delay, the ISC expeditiously compiled a voluminous record consisting of over 170,000 pages of documents and testimony from dozens of witnesses, including financial statements, contemporaneous communications, and other materials.  That record demonstrated the breadth of Representative Santos’ misconduct.  As discussed in the ISC’s Report: 

• Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.    
• He blatantly stole from his campaign.   
• He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.    
• He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign – and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported “repayments” of those fictitious loans.  
• He used his connections to high value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings.  
• And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.

From the findings of the investigative subcommittee:

 Despite his protestations, many of the public revelations following Representative Santos’ election could not have surprised him.  Members of his own campaign team presented him with a 141-page Vulnerability Report on December 1, 2021, which raised a number of issues regarding his background as well as his personal and campaign disclosures including, among other things:   

• No evidence to support Representative Santos’ claims to have graduated with an MBA from New York University and Bachelor of Economics and Finance from Baruch College;  
• Questions regarding how he loaned his 2020 campaign over $80,000 when his personal financial disclosure did not show any assets and only a $55,000 salary; 
• Questions regarding his claims to have an extensive background in money management and growth, but no reported personal investments or assets; 
• Questions regarding his failure to report salary from Harbor City Capital Management (which was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)); and 
• His failure to file a 2021 FD Statement.2

As a result of the report, Representative Santos was encouraged by his campaign staff to drop out of the race and, when he refused, three staffers quit his campaign altogether.22  This was a key moment wherein Representative Santos could have put an end to all the lies he told, or at a minimum, taken steps to correct the record about his background and personal and campaign finances.  Instead, he downplayed the significance of the report, telling new staff who were brought on to replace those who had left, and those who stayed, that the report was inaccurate.23  Following the turnover in his campaign staff, he continued to lie about his background,24 and found more ways to defraud his campaign supporters.

FULL TEXT OF THE VULNERABILITY STUDY HERE:

https://ethics.house.gov/sites/ethics.house.gov/files/documents/APPENDIX%20D%20Part%201_2.pdf

Santos Indictment

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

US Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York:

A 13-count indictment was unsealed today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York charging George Anthony Devolder Santos, better known as “George Santos,” a United States Congressman representing the Third District of New York, with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

The indictment was returned yesterday under seal by a federal grand jury sitting in Central Islip, New York. Santos was arrested this morning and will be arraigned this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York.

Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), and Anne T. Donnelly, District Attorney, Nassau County, announced the charges.

“This indictment seeks to hold Santos accountable for various alleged fraudulent schemes and brazen misrepresentations,” stated United States Attorney Peace. “Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself. He used political contributions to line his pockets, unlawfully applied for unemployment benefits that should have gone to New Yorkers who had lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and lied to the House of Representatives. My Office and our law enforcement partners will continue to aggressively root out corruption and self-dealing from our community’s public institutions and hold public officials accountable to the constituents who elected them.”

“The Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section is committed to rooting out fraud and corruption, especially when committed by our elected officials,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “As alleged, Santos engaged in criminal conduct intended to deceive and defraud the American public. As this indictment reflects, the Department of Justice will hold accountable anyone who engages in such criminality.”

“As today's enforcement action demonstrates, the FBI remains committed to holding all equally accountable under the law. As we allege, Congressman Santos committed federal crimes, and he will now be forced to face the consequences of his actions. I would like to commend the diligent efforts of the investigative and prosecutorial teams in this matter,” stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Driscoll.

“At the height of the pandemic in 2020, George Santos allegedly applied for and received unemployment benefits while he was employed and running for Congress,” stated District Attorney Donnelly. “As charged in the indictment, the defendant’s alleged behavior continued during his second run for Congress when he pocketed campaign contributions and used that money to pay down personal debts and buy designer clothing. This indictment is the result of a lengthy collaboration between law enforcement agencies, and I thank our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their dedication to rooting out public corruption.”

Mr. Peace also thanked the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, the New York State Department of Labor (NYS DOL), and the Queens County District Attorney’s Office for their assistance.

As alleged in the indictment, Santos, who was elected to Congress last November and sworn in as the U.S. Representative for New York’s Third Congressional District on January 7, 2023, engaged in multiple fraudulent schemes.

Fraudulent Political Contribution Solicitation Scheme

Beginning in September 2022, during his successful campaign for Congress, Santos operated a limited liability company (Company #1) through which he allegedly defrauded prospective political supporters. Santos enlisted a Queens-based political consultant (Person #1) to communicate with prospective donors on Santos’s behalf. Santos allegedly directed Person #1 to falsely tell donors that, among other things, their money would be used to help elect Santos to the House, including by purchasing television advertisements. In reliance on these false statements, two donors (Contributor #1 and Contributor #2) each transferred $25,000 to Company #1’s bank account, which Santos controlled.

As alleged in the indictment, shortly after the funds were received into Company #1’s bank account, the money was transferred into Santos’s personal bank accounts—in one instance laundered through two of Santos’s personal accounts. Santos allegedly then used much of that money for personal expenses. Among other things, Santos allegedly used the funds to make personal purchases (including of designer clothing), to withdraw cash, to discharge personal debts, and to transfer money to his associates.

Unemployment Insurance Fraud Scheme

Beginning in approximately February 2020, Santos was employed as a Regional Director of a Florida-based investment firm (Investment Firm #1), where he earned an annual salary of approximately $120,000. By late-March 2020, in response to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, new legislation was signed into law that provided additional federal funding to assist out-of-work Americans during the pandemic.

In mid-June 2020, although he was employed and was not eligible for unemployment benefits, Santos applied for government assistance through the New York State Department of Labor, allegedly claiming falsely to have been unemployed since March 2020. From that point until April 2021—when Santos was working and receiving a salary on a near-continuous basis and during his unsuccessful run for Congress—he falsely affirmed each week that he was eligible for unemployment benefits when he was not. As a result, Santos allegedly fraudulently received more than $24,000 in unemployment insurance benefits.

False Statements to the House of Representatives

Finally, the indictment describes Santos’s alleged efforts to mislead the House of Representatives and the public about his financial condition in connection with each of his two Congressional campaigns.

Santos, like all candidates for the House, had a legal duty to file with the Clerk of the House of Representatives a Financial Disclosure Statement (House Disclosures) before each election. In each of his House Disclosures, Santos was personally required to give a full and complete accounting of his assets, income, and liabilities, among other things. He certified that his House Disclosures were true, complete, and correct.

In May 2020, in connection with his first campaign for election to the House, Santos filed two House Disclosures in which he allegedly falsely certified that, during the reporting period, his only earned income consisted of salary, commission, and bonuses totaling $55,000 from another company (Company #2), and that the only compensation exceeding $5,000 he received from a single source was an unspecified commission bonus from Company #2. In actuality, Santos allegedly overstated the income he received from Company #2 and altogether failed to disclose the salary he received from Investment Firm #1.

In September 2022, in connection with his second campaign for election to the House, Santos filed another House Disclosure, in which he allegedly overstated his income and assets. In this House Disclosure, he falsely certified that during the reporting period:He had earned $750,000 in salary from the Devolder Organization LLC, a Florida‑based entity of which Santos was the sole beneficial owner;
He had received between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 in dividends from the Devolder Organization LLC;
He had a checking account with deposits of between $100,001 and $250,000; and
He had a savings account with deposits of between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000.

As alleged in the indictment, these assertions were false: Santos had not received from the Devolder Organization LLC the reported amounts of salary or dividends and did not maintain checking or savings accounts with deposits in the reported amounts. Further, Santos allegedly failed to disclose that, in 2021, he received approximately $28,000 in income from Investment Firm #1 and more than $20,000 in unemployment insurance benefits from the NYS DOL.

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. If convicted of the charges, Santos faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the top counts. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI is investigating the case with assistance from the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office and the IRS-Criminal Investigation.

The government’s case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Public Integrity Section, the Long Island Criminal Division, and the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Ryan Harris, Anthony Bagnuola, and Laura Zuckerwise, along with Trial Attorneys Jolee Porter and Jacob Steiner, are in charge of the prosecution with assistance from Paralegal Specialist Rachel Friedman. Senior Litigation Counsel Victor R. Salgado of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section provided substantial contributions to the prosecution.

The Defendant:

GEORGE ANTHONY DEVOLDER SANTOS
Age: 34
Washington, District of Columbia

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 23-CR-197
Contact


John Marzulli
Danielle Blustein Hass
U.S. Attorney's Office
(718) 254-6323
Updated May 10, 2023

George Santos Was Inevitable

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

David French:

I completely reject the argument I’ve heard from critics on the left who claim that this is what Republicans have truly been all along—or at least since Goldwater. I freely admit that I was wrong about the strength of the reactionary right. A healthy political movement does not produce a Donald Trump. But the Republican river flowed differently when Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney were its leaders. The social, cultural, and moral pressures pushed in different directions.

Let’s put it this way: No one is writing a book called When Character Was King about Trump.

The great challenge for the GOP isn’t beating Democrats. That it can often do. The Democratic Party’s own inadequacies are responsible for many of its electoral weaknesses. A party that nominates Hillary Clinton is not a party that puts character at the center of its own political project.

No, the great challenge for the GOP is reversing the course of its river. To the extent that a person influences a party and a nation, the direction of that influence should flow towards truth, towards courage, towards competence. Make lies exhausting. Make incompetence countercultural. Make cowardice shameful again.

How do we know the conservative Christians of 1998 were correct? The evidence was right in front of our eyes then. Clinton corruption degraded our political culture in plain view. But if there was any remaining doubt at all, conservative American Christianity proved its own thesis. It tolerated serious wrong, its conscience was seared, and now unrestrained lawlessness and moral corruption rots the movement.

George Santos was inevitable. The American right rendered him inevitable. And now it lives with the consequences.

The Santos Story Keeps Getting Worse

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

 Isaac Stanley-Becker and Rosalind S. Helderman at WP:

George Santos, the freshman Republican congressman from New York who lied about his biography, has deeper ties than previously known to a businessman who cultivated close links with a onetime Trump confidant and who is the cousin of a sanctioned Russian oligarch, according to video footage and court documents.

Andrew Intrater and his wife each gave the maximum $5,800 to Santos’ main campaign committee and tens of thousands more since 2020 to committees linked to him, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Intrater’s cousin is Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. government for his role in the Russian energy industry.

The relationship between Santos and Intrater goes beyond campaign contributions, according to a statement made privately by Santos in 2020 and a court filing the following year in a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against a Florida-based investment firm, Harbor City Capital, where Santos worked for more than a year.

Taken together, the evidence suggests Santos may have had a business relationship with Intrater as Santos was first entering politics in 2020. It also shows, according to the SEC filing, that Intrater put hundreds of thousands of dollars into Santos’ onetime employer, Harbor City, which was accused by regulators of running a Ponzi scheme. Neither Santos nor Intrater responded to requests for comment. Attorneys who have represented Intrater also did not respond.

Santos;: Vulnerability Study and Much More

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Nicholas Fandos at NYT:

In late 2021, as he prepared to make a second run for a suburban New York City House seat, George Santos gave permission for his campaign to commission a routine background study on him.

Campaigns frequently rely on this kind of research, known as vulnerability studies, to identify anything problematic that an opponent might seize on. But when the report came back on Mr. Santos, the findings by a Washington research firm were far more startling, suggesting a pattern of deception that cut to the heart of the image he had cultivated as a wealthy financier.

Some of Mr. Santos’s own vendors were so alarmed after seeing the study in late November 2021 that they urged him to drop out of the race, and warned that he could risk public humiliation by continuing. When Mr. Santos disputed key findings and vowed to continue running, members of the campaign team quit, according to three of the four people The New York Times spoke to with knowledge of the study.

Embattled Rep. George Santos persuaded at least one person to make a six-figure investment in a Florida-based company that the SEC later said was a Ponzi scheme https://t.co/v72n0IVeeZ

— Ben Pershing (@benpershing) January 14, 2023

CNN found a 2020 exchange in which George Santos—going by George Devolder—was confronted by a potential customer who looked into his Ponzi scheme and was told by Deutsche Bank that it was "a complete fraud" (Which, it turns out, was true)https://t.co/7sl3gy2Nln pic.twitter.com/9FHsR1rQfU

— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) January 13, 2023

In 2019, George Santos introduced himself as Anthony Devolder, the founder of “United for Trump,” during a Q & A session at a “Walk Away LGBT” event in NYC.

Santos said trans people could benefit from a trans conservative activist educating them. pic.twitter.com/b2RkA3YPnI

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) January 13, 2023

McCarthy: Winning to Lose

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. It also discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  

It took 15 ballots for Kevin McCarthy to overcome hard-right resistance and become speaker.

This is what it came to before #KevinMcCarthy finally secured enough votes to become Speaker. We don't normally get to see all this on TV, and once McCarthy reinstates the C-SPAN camera rules, we won't again. Alabama's Mike Rogers had to be restrained from attacking Matt Gaetz. https://t.co/MIlfclu76l

— Doug Sovern (@SovernNation) January 7, 2023

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, holds her smart phone with former US President Donald Trump on the line, as Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican from Montana, waves it off during a meeting of the 118th Congress in the House Chamber on Friday.#SpeakerVote pic.twitter.com/VWvOGfXd9Q

— Al Drago (@Al_Drago) January 7, 2023

ICYMI — REUTERS snapped this pic of Santos voting for McCarthy as his other hand conspicuously forms the 👌🏻 sign, known by many to mean “white power” and frequently flashed by white supremacist groups.

He also has hired an aide who is a former Bannon producer. pic.twitter.com/P70VBeueGK

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) January 6, 2023

When you can’t tell whether Democrats or Republicans wrote the talking points. https://t.co/IXHx6ffz25

— Francis Wilkinson (@fdwilkinson) January 7, 2023

The Price Stefanik Paid

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. It also discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  Case in point: the infamous Elise Stefanik.

Nicholas Confessore at NYT:

When Congress reconvenes, many of the younger, more Trump-critical Republicans who joined the House alongside Ms. Stefanik eight years ago will be gone. So will all but two of the Republicans who voted to impeach him. Some in Congress believe that if Mr. McCarthy cannot corral the votes to make himself speaker, Ms. Stefanik could offer herself up as a compromise candidate.

Yet her position may be more precarious than it appears. Unwilling to acknowledge that her politics have changed, she has never offered MAGA die-hards a persuasive conversion story, leaving behind lingering suspicion. “One thing I’ve heard consistently from pro-Trump members is that the 180 that she pulled was just so jarring,” said one veteran Republican lobbyist who is in touch with a wide array of Republican lawmakers.

Among her fellow Republicans, according to Republican lawmakers, Hill staff and lobbyists, Ms. Stefanik has a reputation for being both diligent in advancing the party’s message and unabashedly transactional in amassing chits of support for her own climb up the ladder. But her campaign donations and endorsements have given her support that may be more broad than deep. For much of the spring and summer, while serving as conference chair, she quietly tested the waters for promotion to the next highest-ranking House job, that of Republican whip. As the race grew more crowded, however, Ms. Stefanik found herself without a clear constituency for the position. The party’s remaining moderates no longer saw her as one of them, and its right wing preferred a more consistent conservative. Only when another House member announced his interest in succeeding her as conference chair did Ms. Stefanik finally commit to running for another term in her old job.

News stories about the upcoming presidential campaign still mention Ms. Stefanik as a rising star who might join a Trump ticket in 2024 — a political pole vault that would carry her, finally, to the very top of the Republican Party. But within the president’s inner circle, according to two people close to Mr. Trump, stories casting Ms. Stefanik as a potential running mate are regarded as clumsy plants by her own team, and inspire bemusement and mockery. Mr. Trump liked her, they said, and liked watching her defend him. But even he didn’t trust her.

 

“Santos had fundraised off an endorsement from fellow New York House Republican Conference Caucus Chair Elise Stefanik( #NY21 ), who has been mum on the revelations.” pic.twitter.com/5wgIYQNlEz

— GARY HARTMAN (@GARYHARTMAN) December 29, 2022

How Santos Won

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) falsified most of his biography.

Steve Israel at The Atlantic:

When he ran against Tom Suozzi, my successor, in 2020, Santos was a complete unknown. I asked Suozzi if he’d found anything of note in his opposition research, but Suozzi said he hadn’t bothered to do much. “It was the middle of COVID,” he said. Santos “had only $40,000 in his campaign account, and he was a nut. We ignored him and won by 12 points.”

Santos ran again in 2022, maybe because he understood that being ignored was a strategic advantage. This time around, the DCCC prepared an initial research document that raised plenty of red flags. The committee turned that document over to the Democratic candidate, Robert Zimmerman, who says his campaign “was unrelenting in getting people’s attention.” But, according to Zimmerman, the prevailing response was along the lines of This guy isn’t going to win, so he’s not a story.

Only after Santos defied expectations did that dynamic change. And by that time, it was too late for voters to react to Santos’s long con. Here’s where media decline enters the story.

The media’s failure to dig into Santos shows the predicament that local newsrooms face in 2022. Newsday dominates the media landscape on Long Island. And its reporters do quality work—they turned out an important investigation just a few years ago that exposed racism in the local real-estate industry. But they don’t have the resources to cover everything—not even everything in their political backyard—and they appear to have written off NY-3 as low priority given the district’s Democratic tilt. So did all the other once-mighty New York–area media operations.

Some observers have also criticized Zimmerman’s campaign for not fully investing in opposition research based on the initial DCCC project. Perhaps that criticism is justified, but we shouldn’t let the Republican Party off the hook. Republicans accepted Santos’s narrative without due diligence because they prioritized extreme ideology over actual qualifications. Santos was at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, and has even claimed that he helped arrested insurrectionists with their legal fees.

The Republican Jewish Coalition said New York Congressman-elect George Santos "will not be welcome at any future RJC event" after he misrepresented his Jewish heritagehttps://t.co/zrt0quFmpf

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) December 27, 2022