Santos

 

Via NBC News.

To my amazement, I find I've never written a blogpost on Congressman George Santos. How could that be?

I've given him plenty of attention on Twitter, in any case, mostly to the effect that his hilarious tall tales, from the story of his having been on a championship Baruch College volleyball team to his having been a producer of the doomed Spiderman musical to his mother's having actually died on two separate occasions, a pretty unique experience, are of far less importance in the broad scheme of things than the corruption involved in his getting into Congress, the fraudulent fundraising, the misuse of campaign funds for his own personal enjoyment, and the feeding of really large amounts of money from secret sources, all of which play roles in the federal indictments that arrived today from New York's Eastern District in an Islip courtroom.

Four-minute story on NPR this morning predicted he'd serve full term and be up for reelection in '24, without even once mentioning these campaign-finance issues. I'm glad somebody's in the legacy media is starting to notice.

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) February 13, 2023

Certainly you're right about McCarthy, but I think he belongs in prison, not a fine. I'm convinced it's big financial crimes. Have we talked this out before? If so I'll drop it for now.

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) February 13, 2023

Duncan Hunter of California, specifically for diverting campaign funds to personal use (which he could have gotten away with the way Trump does if he weren't so stupid). Santos has done that really blatantly. But I think there's big-time money laundering in there too...

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) February 13, 2023

It's pretty clear that Santos is a straw donor of $750,000 to his own campaign. That's extremely criminal, and also it's important to find out who the real donor was. That's the difference to me.

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) December 28, 2022

It'll be a thing this time.

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) December 28, 2022

Prosecute a few fall-guys, maybe.

Not a principal.

— DOJ Pretext Bot (@parrhizzia) December 28, 2022

That's false on Senator Warren, as we've known for at least 5 years. You're nearly as big a liar as George Santos yourself. https://t.co/W9eXbYiyfm

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) January 26, 2023

Of course you've got a lot in common with Santos. He played the same criminal game as you and Wendy Long, only his secret donor gave him $700,000 instead of the $20,000 you gave Wendy.

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) January 26, 2023

Santos scandals show how very corruptly it is set up https://t.co/X77HU5s14w All these laundered donations through the platform

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) February 4, 2023

Stefanik knew all about Santos, but up to now she has stuck with him. https://t.co/EvZvCSLFdt I think it's because she's so far in there's no way out. https://t.co/5AObjuP9Ee

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) January 21, 2023

Yes. Most recent case Duncan Hunter Jr., in 2019, for one of the three major crimes Santos is accused of. Doesn't happen very often, but people don't commit felony violations very often (of course lots of them are too rich to think about diverting campaign funds to personal use)

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) January 9, 2023

to have taken illegal contributions of two or three million dollars and served as a straw donor for himself. "lending" over $700,000 to his campaign. This is wild stuff.

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) January 9, 2023

That last is the most important. Somebody set him up with that $750K, and the prosecutors still don't know who it was. I think it's clear it wasn't Viktor Vekselberg's American cousin:

Looks like Intrater probably broke no laws donating to Santos, though he was pretty dumb. The criminal donor who slipped him millions is somebody else. https://t.co/ukRgVHKm0k via @MotherJones

— Yas You Like It (@Yastreblyansky) January 19, 2023

It's hilarious that he was collecting COVID-relief unemployment checks even as he was taking a $120K salary from Investment Firm #1 (which isn't named in the indictment but must have been the Ponzi scheme Harbor City Capital, as the Miami Herald corroborates), given how rabid the Republicans have been about denouncing the program, of course the biggest case of unemployment fraud had to be a member of their caucus. Looks like Speaker Kevin will hang on to him (he couldn't have passed that stupid debt ceiling bill without Santos's vote) as long as he can. 

I wouldn't mind hearing from some of the people who told me he'd never get busted because MERRICK GARLAND WON'T DO ANYTHING. Looking forward to the coming Trump indictments, including the very Santos-like but gigantic scheme in which he raised $250 million by falsely telling donors the money was for fighting to overturn the 2020 election. I'd love to know how he spent it.