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Tag: George

  • George Santos lied to a judge in 2017 bid to help a ‘family friend’ charged with fraud

    George Santos lied to a judge in 2017 bid to help a ‘family friend’ charged with fraud

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    “You work for Goldman Sachs in New York?” the judge asked.

    “Yup,” Santos responded.

    The New York Republican did indeed have a political future. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a Long Island swing district last November based on a largely fabricated résumé that included the claim he worked for Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment banks in the world.

    A spokesperson for the bank told The New York Times in its original investigation into Santos’ background that there was no record of him working there. He later admitted in a New York Post interview he “never worked directly” for Goldman Sachs, but claimed a financial firm he was employed at, LinkBridge Investors, had “limited partnerships” with the bank.

    Santos now faces investigations by state, federal and international agencies on a range of potential crimes from campaign finance violations to pet charity fraud. He has refused to resign from Congress despite bipartisan calls for him to step down, arguing he never broke any laws, but he did forgo committee assignments citing the “ongoing attention surrounding both my personal and campaign financial investigations.”

    Santos’ attorney Joe Murray did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

    Santos appeared at the 2017 hearing on behalf of Trelha using his full name, George Anthony Devolder Santos. He told the judge he would secure “a long extended-stay apartment through Airbnb” in Seattle during the case if the defendant was released on bail.

    “How do you know this man?” the judge asked.

    “We’re family friends. Our parents know each other from Brazil,” Santos said.

    Trelha was ultimately deported to Brazil in early 2018 after serving seven months in jail and pleading guilty to felony access device fraud. In a telephone interview, Trelha said Santos lied about their relationship, too. Trelha, through a translator, said he met Santos in the fall of 2016 on a Facebook group for Brazilians living in Orlando, Fla., and that his mother died in 2012.

    Trelha eventually moved into Santos’ Winter Park, Fla., apartment in November 2016, according to a copy of the lease viewed by POLITICO. Santos had moved south from New York City, after he was transferred to a new position at the hospitality website HotelsPro, according to Lilian Cabral, a coworker at HotelsPro in Orlando.

    A federal prosecutor who ultimately handled the case described the fraud as “sophisticated,” saying Trelha’s three-day skimming spree in Seattle was only “the tip of the iceberg,” according to a court transcript first reported by CBS News.

    A person close to the investigation who is not authorized to speak publicly said prosecutors ultimately didn’t dig much deeper. The person didn’t remember seeing any forensic reports on Trelha’s phone and said prosecutors didn’t seem eager to pursue any international or domestic co-conspirators.

    New York-based lawyer Tiffany Bogosian, a former friend of Santos who helped him duck a theft charge in 2020 involving the use of canceled checks to purchase puppies from Amish farmers in Pennsylvania, told POLITICO in a Feb. 7 interview that Santos said he was an “informant” in Trelha’s case.

    Santos told Bogosian a warrant for his arrest in the Pennsylvania case was somehow tied to his work as an informant in the Trelha investigation, she said. Bogosian, believing his story at the time, said she called Seattle police detective Lawrence Meyer, who didn’t verify the term “informant” but confirmed Santos had “pointed them in the right direction” and offered some names of people involved in the credit card fraud. POLITICO could not reach Meyer to confirm the exchange.

    When Trelha was arrested on April 27, he was caught on a security camera removing skimming equipment from a Chase ATM on Pike Street in downtown Seattle. He had a fake Brazilian ID card and 10 suspected fraudulent cards in his hotel room, according to arrest documents. An empty Fed-Ex package police found in his rental car was sent from the Winter Park apartment he shared with Santos. Trelha declined to say who sent the package from the apartment.

    His plan was to spend a week skimming numbers and making fraudulent cards using gift cards bought at stores, Trelha said, and then another week taking out the maximum ATM withdrawals with pin numbers captured by the skimmers and cameras he installed.

    “You go at 11 p.m. so you can max it out and then when it turns midnight you take the max amount again,” he said.

    A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Emily Langlie, said sometimes identity and credit card thieves go far from home to collect numbers, so there is less chance of the stolen numbers being connected to the perpetrators later. Langlie told POLITICO she didn’t have any information about Santos’ involvement in the Trelha investigation.

    Trelha said that after he was arrested in Seattle he reached out to a friend who contacted Santos to help him, he said. “He was American and spoke English, so we thought he could help me the most,” Trelha recalled. By then, Santos had moved back north to help care for his sick mother.

    “Mr. Devolder lives in New York,” Trelha’s public defender Virginia Branham said at the bail hearing. “I have spoken to him multiple times over the last few weeks. This is the second time he’s flown out here to assist Mr. Trelha. He has arranged an extended Airbnb for Mr. Trelha to stay at during the pendency of this case,” Branham said in the recording.

    Santos told the judge he’d known Trelha “for a few years,” adding they’d “lost touch [but] got back in touch in September last year in Orlando when I was relocated from New York.”

    Santos said he was staying at a hotel “by the Space Needle” until the judge’s bail decision. At the hearing, Trelha’s bail was reduced from $250,000 to $75,000 — still well above the $10,000 requested by his counsel. Trelha said he was unable to post bail because he didn’t have a local guarantor.

    A Google account under the name George Devolder, with reviews of Brazilian restaurants in Queens and rental car companies in Miami, left a negative review of a Seattle Domino’s Pizza location in 2017, two miles from King County Jail and close to the Space Needle.

    “1 hour viewing the tracker not move! very very very slow giving the time ordered (late night) called the store was on hold for 35mins with no answer!!!! NEVER order from this store, not worth the agrevation!!!”

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Opinion | The George Santos Caucus Is Growing

    Opinion | The George Santos Caucus Is Growing

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    202301 santos francis1

    Liars are supposed to appall us, but in practice, they don’t. America loves its scoundrels. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which is about a prolific liar, ranks near the top polls of America’s best-loved novels. Its enduring lesson teaches that if you can’t make it, fake it, and nobody will be any the wiser by the time you succeed. Spoiler alert if you slept through high school English: Gatsby climbs to the top by lying about his name (it’s James Gatz), the origin of his wealth (bootlegging; moving counterfeit stocks; bribing public officials; working with gangsters), and his past (he was born poor in North Dakota, not rich in San Francisco). He ultimately gets knocked off, not in comeuppance for his lies, but in an act of revenge. (His killer mistakenly thinks Gatsby hit and killed his wife in traffic when actually Gatsby’s mistress Daisy was the wheelwoman.) The moral of The Great Gatsby is if you want to get ahead in American life, lie profusely — but make sure your sweetheart drives safely.

    The Gatsby Directive has long been observed in corporate America, with executives routinely getting busted for resume padding. Academia, too, is shot through with professors who doctor their curriculum vitae. And you could fill a roadside Little Library with bestselling memoirs that turn out to be fake. In spinning their exaggerations and embroideries to political success, Santos, Luna and Ogles resemble President Joe Biden, who has dispensed one large dip of double-fudge after another throughout his entire political career. In a recent unrelenting column, the Washington Post’s Marc A. Thiessen truth-squaded Biden. The president’s many lies include those about his family history; about his college achievements; about getting arrested while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison; about getting arrested for protesting civil rights; about getting arrested for sneaking into the U.S. Capitol; about getting shot at inside Baghdad’s Green Zone; about pinning a Silver Star on a Navy Captain in Afghanistan; about cutting the federal deficit in half. And that’s just a partial list.

    Of course, the volume and scale of Biden’s lies don’t compare to those of Donald Trump, who completely untethered himself from the truth during his administration. According to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker column, Trump made at least 30,573 false or misleading comments during his four years in the White House. Trump maintained such a unique relationship with the truth that it might have been simpler for the Post to tabulate his truthful statements than his lies. When the fact-checker first got going at Trump during the 2016 campaign, it looked like their accountings would fracture his credibility with voters, but it didn’t — or at least not enough to turn the election. Trump supporters discounted the fact that he was full of it because they liked many of the things he said about immigrants, foreign entanglements, Hillary Clinton, trade, economic growth and race. The same — although on a radically different scale — appears to be true with Biden supporters. When Joe blunders or overstates, they cover for him by saying, “Oh, that’s just Joe,” and change the subject.

    If Santos, Luna and Ogles studied the political career of Donald Trump before composing their personal histories, nobody should be surprised. Trump established that while journalists care about the truth, voters can be more forgiving. If voters cared that much about campaign lies, the Democrats would have made the 2020 election an exercise in public shaming about Trump’s lies. But they didn’t. The only lies politicians must avoid are the ones that might trigger legal proceedings against them, like the iffy campaign finance statements Santos filed that have spurred investigations and might result in prosecution. Garden variety lies that aren’t prosecutable are regularly forgotten by voters by the time their speakers run for reelection.

    Politicians lie, lie and lie some more because they’ve learned voters seem not to care much about it when the lies are uncovered. (In a perfect world, the press would fully vet every politician’s every statement, but even before the industry’s decline it didn’t have the resources to perform mass lie detection.) In the long run, voters seem not to care whether a candidate’s credentials are legitimate or if they really climbed Mt. Everest in their stocking feet as they attest on the husting. So why bother fluffing your resume in the first place if voters will only shrug when they discover you stretched the truth? Could it be that, like committing minor acts of vandalism or petty shoplifting, telling lies about ourselves feels too good to resist, especially when engaged in the contest that is politics, where every day brings another public exercise in resume comparison?

    When it comes to politics, a candidate’s lived experience should be less important than where they stand on the issue. For that reason alone, we’d be better off if politicians competed by deflating their resumes instead of ballooning them.

    ******

    I do, however, want my neurosurgeon’s resume to be accurate. Send neurosurgeon references to [email protected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed pitched in the World Series. My Mastodon account has invented a cure for cancer. My Post account saved a baby from being run over in traffic. My RSS feed has accomplished nothing and has no ambitions.



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • George Santos reported spreading campaign cash to other Republicans. The money never showed up.

    George Santos reported spreading campaign cash to other Republicans. The money never showed up.

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    The early donations were just the beginning: Santos’ campaign would go on to become a prolific political donor, giving tens of thousands of dollars to other candidates, groups and nonprofits. Most of the later money was confirmed as received in those groups’ own filings, although there are more reports that did not match up, including $2,000 that Santos’ campaign reported giving in 2021 to Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, though Santos’ disclosure listed a nonexistent Florida address for Masters’ campaign. A spokesperson for Masters, who lost to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), confirmed his campaign did not receive the donation.

    Since Santos launched his first campaign in 2019, more than three years before he was elected to Congress, his campaign reported more than $9,000 in donations that do not align with what was reported by other groups, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance records. Though a relatively small sum out of millions in campaign expenses, the mismatching reports do fit into a pattern of other inaccuracies and discrepancies in the New York congressman’s finances, dating back to the very early days of his first campaign.

    Saurav Ghosh, director for federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit that has filed a Federal Election Commission complaint regarding irregularities in Santos’ second congressional campaign, described the 2019 transactions as part of a “troubling pattern.”

    “The Santos campaign’s disbursements to other political committees should be mirrored on those committees’ disclosure reports, and the fact that they aren’t indicates yet another serious reporting error or perhaps even outright fraud,” Ghosh said.

    Santos’ lawyer, Joe Murray, declined to comment on questions about the reported donations. “It would be inappropriate to comment on an open investigation,” Murray said.

    Santos has previously brushed off questions about his campaign’s finances, saying such matters were dealt with by campaign staff. He is facing several FEC complaints as well as investigations from local and national prosecutors, but he has not been charged with a crime.

    Santos has acknowledged some mistakes in his campaign finance reporting, telling Fox 5 last week that there had been “clerical errors or system errors” with respect to certain transactions, and saying he wanted to see discrepancies rectified. He also agreed to forgo his committee assignments in the House while investigations are ongoing.

    The donation to Trump’s campaign was among the earliest by Santos’ campaign committee, which was formally registered with the FEC in October 2019. The timing of the donation — dated Sep. 26, 2019 — coincided with a Trump fundraiser in New York City. Santos posted a video about the event on social media.

    But neither the Trump campaign nor the former president’s joint fundraising committee or his other political groups ever reported receiving such a donation from Santos or his campaign, according to FEC filings. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to inquiries.

    The amount of the donation reported by Santos’ campaign — $2,800, the maximum individual donation at the time — also would have exceeded contribution limits, as transactions between campaign committees are capped at $2,000 per election cycle.

    Santos’ campaign similarly reported sending money to several local New York groups in the early going, beginning with a $1,500 donation to the Town of Oyster Bay Republican Club in September 2019. No such group with that exact name exists, but neither of the two Republican groups with “Oyster Bay” in their names reported receiving money from Santos’ campaign, according to the New York Board of Elections’ campaign finance database.

    The Santos campaign also reported paying $2,000 to the Nassau County Republican Committee’s federal account in mid-October — but the group reported receiving no money in its federal account at all in 2019, according to FEC filings. Its state-level account also did not report receiving any money from Santos’ campaign around that time, according to the New York Board of Elections’ data.

    The three donations — to Trump’s campaign, the Nassau County Republican Committee and the Oyster Bay group — were reported by Santos’ campaign as being part of the same American Express credit card payment paid in January 2020, noted Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer and deputy executive director at the nonprofit Documented. For later donations, Santos’ campaign did not report using a credit card.

    “It’s impossible to believe that all three of these political committees independently lost track of political donations from Santos’ campaign during this period,” Fischer said.

    Santos’ campaign also reported making a $750 donation to the Queens County GOP in December 2019, but the group did not report receiving it, according to the New York Board of Elections’ data. In fact, no local or county-level committees in the New York campaign finance system reported receiving money from Santos’ campaign at all during the fall of 2019 or spring of 2020, according to a POLITICO review of campaign finance records.

    The Nassau County Republican Committee reported receiving $1,000 from his campaign in August 2020, records show. That donation aligns with one reported by Santos’ campaign, distinct from the $2,000 he previously reported giving the group. A few local groups also reported receiving donations from Santos as an individual, totaling several hundred dollars.

    Santos’ campaign would emerge as a more significant political donor during the next election cycle, ahead of his 2022 victory. State and local groups in New York reported receiving more than $18,000 from his campaign in 2021 and 2022.

    His campaign also reported giving $5,500 to other federal campaigns during the 2022 election cycle, with most of those transactions aligning with what was reported by other groups, although far more funds flowed through his leadership PAC. Most of the later contributions reported by Santos campaign did match what was reported by other groups — with the reported donation to Masters a notable exception.

    Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • ‘Old, rich and dangerous…’ Jaishankar takes on George Soros

    ‘Old, rich and dangerous…’ Jaishankar takes on George Soros

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    Sydney: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday termed billionaire investor George Soros as an “old, rich opinionated person” who still thinks that his views should determine how the entire world works.

    Addressing a session with Australian Minister Chris Brown at the Raisina@Sydney Dialogue , Jaishankar said,”Mr Soros is an old, rich opinionated person sitting in New York who still thinks that his views should determine how the entire world works…such people actually invest resources in shaping narratives.”

    “People like him think an election is good if the person they want to see, wins and if the election throws up a different outcome then they will say it is a flawed democracy and the beauty is that all this is done under the pretence of advocacy of open society,” the external affairs minister said.

    Soros had in his remarks at the Munich Security Conference this Thursday said, “Adani is accused of stock manipulation and his stock collapsed like a house of cards. Modi is silent on the subject, but he will have to answer questions from foreign investors and in Parliament.”

    Terming Modi and Adani as “close allies,” whose “fate is intertwined”, the 92-year-old billionaire investor said, “This will significantly weaken Modi’s stranglehold on India’s federal government and open the door to push for much-needed institutional reforms.” “I may be naive, but I expect a democratic revival in India,” Soros said in his remarks delivered at the 2023 Munich Security Conference.

    In Sydney, Jaishankar today said, “When I look at my own democracy, I’ve today a voter turnout, which is unprecedented, electoral outcomes which are decisive, electoral process which is not questioned. We’re not one of those countries where after elections, somebody goes to arbitrate in court.”

    “Mr Soros said India is a democratic country but he doesn’t think the Prime minister of India is a democrat. He earlier accused us of planning to strip millions Muslims of their citizenship which of course didn’t happen, it was a ridiculous suggestion,” the external affairs minister said.

    Globalisation, Jaishankar said, allows seamless opportunities but also allows narratives to be shaped, money to come in, and organisations to get about their agenda.

    “All this is done under the pretence of advocacy of open society of transparency, etc,” he said.

    Hitting out at Soros’ comments, Jaishankar said, “If you do this kind of scaremongering…millions of people will be deprived of citizenship. It actually does real damage to the societal fabric because somebody out there believes you. You create that kind of fear psychosis.”

    Meanwhile, BJP lashed out over Soros’ comments. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Union Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani on Friday slammed Soros said that the man who broke the Bank of England and a man, who is designated as an economic war criminal, has now expressed his desire to break the Indian democracy.

    She added that Soros wants a government that is pliable to his needs for making his nefarious plans successful.

    “It is evident from his statements that he has pronounced funding over one billion dollars to target leaders like PM Modi. This is significant,” The Minister said during the conference.

    She said, “Those who support Soros need to know that democracy has prevailed in India and continues to do so and as a party worker of the BJP, I can say that these designs to weaken Indian democracy will be met by the might of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

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    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • Chidambaram slams George Soros over ‘revival of democracy’ remark

    Chidambaram slams George Soros over ‘revival of democracy’ remark

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    Saradha: ED attaches assets of 'beneficiaries', including P Chidambaram's wife, ex-CPM MLA

    New Delhi: Congress leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram on Saturday reacted sharply to George Soros’s “revival of democracy” remark.

    In a series of tweets, he said, “I did not agree with most of what George Soros had said in the past and I do not agree with most of what he says now. But to label his remarks as an “attempt to topple the democratically elected government in India” is a puerile statement”.

    The former union minister further said in the tweet that the people of India will determine who will be in and who will be out of the government of India.

    “I did not know that the Modi government was so feeble that it can be toppled by the stray statement of a 92-year-old rich foreign national”, he said in another tweet.

    He further said to ignore George Soros and listen to Nouriel Roubini. “Roubini warned that India is increasingly driven by large private conglomerates that can potentially hamper competition and kill new entrants”.

    “Liberalisation was to usher in an open, competitive economy. The Modi government’s policies have created oligopolies”, he concluded in the tweets.

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    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • Adani row: George Soros says ‘Modi will have to answer’, Govt calls it ‘attempt to break Indian democracy’

    Adani row: George Soros says ‘Modi will have to answer’, Govt calls it ‘attempt to break Indian democracy’

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    Words are of Kejriwal spoken by Italia, says Smriti Irani

    After billionaire investor George Soros foretold that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would “have to answer questions” as a result of Indian business tycoon Gautam Adani’s recent stock market woes, Union Minister Smriti Irani urged Indians to stand as one against “foreign powers who try to intervene in India’s democratic processes.”

    “The man who broke the Bank of England, and is designated by the nation an economic war criminal, has now pronounced his desire to break Indian democracy. George Soros, an international entrepreneur, has declared his ill-intention to intervene in democratic processes of India,” the fiery BJP leader said.

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    #Adani #row #George #Soros #Modi #answer #Govt #calls #attempt #break #Indian #democracy

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • The time George Santos tried to raise crazy money to host a simple rally for Trump

    The time George Santos tried to raise crazy money to host a simple rally for Trump

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    202301 santos magazine francis 23

    Santos was defensive about the unusually high price tag for a local event.

    “Understand that I’m not here for personal gains or for any kind of financial gains,” he said in a spring 2019 video message to the group posted on its Facebook page. “All monies raised are solely for structuring this movement slash organization.”

    Santos was only able to pull in $645 out of a $20,000 goal. It’s unclear what happened to the funds.

    While Santos was ultimately unsuccessful in raising $20,000 for the Trump group, his extravagant asks drew questions about whether he was out for personal, financial gain. The episode has echoes of other fundraising efforts that have made Santos the target of state and federal prosecutors. The Federal Election Commission is probing questionable campaign expenses including nearly $11,000 spent on rent for his Long Island home and the FBI is investigating claims that he absconded with $3,000 in donations meant for a disabled U.S. Navy veteran’s dying service dog.

    Santos was a fringe player in 2019. He’s now a national political figure — but not for anything he’s accomplished. Instead, the Republican congressman who was elected in November in a swing district on Long Island, is best known for largely inventing his campaign biography. He has resisted calls for his resignation, saying his resume was only embellished, although he did step away from committee assignments citing the “ongoing attention surrounding both my personal and campaign financial investigations.”

    Naysa Woomer, Santos’ communications director, said she could not comment on any campaign or personal matters, and calls to Santos’ personal attorney were not returned.

    In spring 2019, a year before his first, unsuccessful run for Congress, Santos became a founding member of United for Trump, a grassroots group supporting President Donald Trump’s reelection. At a March 23 rally at Trump Tower in Manhattan, Santos was filmed holding a “Gays for Trump” sign.

    By March 25, Santos set up a GoFundMe account that other United for Trump members pushed to the group to raise money for a future “Northeast tour” of Trump rallies.

    He posted a video in the United for Trump Facebook group to introduce himself to other members that month.

    Santos had a few specific asks: He said he wanted to establish an LLC with an accountant, at a cost of $500 to $750. United for Trump also needed a lawyer — “to keep in our back pocket and just to retain” — for $2,500.

    In the March video, Santos alluded to “a lot of confusion as to what we are raising money for,” acknowledging it can cost less than $100 to get permits for rallies. But, he explained, United for Trump would be different than what members were used to, calling it “an organization to actually give power.”

    In May 2019, Santos was listed in a Facebook post as the group’s “president” using part of his full legal name, George Anthony Devolder. Other United for Trump committee members included Joseph, who organized central New York rallies for a group called ACT for America, described as a “national anti-Muslim hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    Joseph said she met Santos when he introduced himself to her at the March Trump Tower rally and that he “seemed like a sweet kid.”

    “In grassroots, we accept everyone who wants to join and do a little work,” she said, adding that after the New York City rally, most of United for Trump’s other events envisioned for that year “didn’t get off the ground.”

    Joseph said she was preoccupied with other things and began fading away from the group around the time Santos became its president, and said she didn’t remember the group getting very far with organizing events while she was involved.

    In July 2019, Santos did help organize a counterprotest to an Impeach Trump rally in Buffalo — an event that turned violent.

    Rus Thompson, a longtime conservative activist from Buffalo, was the lead organizer of the counter-rally. He had no recollection of Santos attending the event. The New York congressman should “never have been elected,” Thompson said in a recent telephone interview.

    United for Trump planned to hold another Erie County rally at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center on August 3, 2019, according to administrator posts in the group’s Facebook page.

    Santos had asked United for Trump members to help raise six-figures for the August event.

    “Need your help. The est. cost to bring the pro-Trump rally to Buffalo with credible speakers is $20,000,” according to a call for donations that went out in the Facebook group.

    Thompson questioned the $20,000 price tag for Buffalo speakers.

    “I never paid speakers,” he said.

    Planning for the August Buffalo rally was the last time Santos seemed to be involved with United for Trump. In October 2019, he announced his 2020 candidacy for Congress at a Queens Village Republican Club dinner. His biography for the event doesn’t mention United for Trump.

    Thompson said he didn’t remember an event happening in Buffalo around that time. The location Santos proposed, he said, didn’t make sense.

    “That’s really expensive and not set up for a rally,” Thompson said. “Car or boat show, yes, but political rally? No.”



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • We know George Santos showed up at karaoke night. But did he get as far as auditions for the reality TV singing show The Voice? 

    We know George Santos showed up at karaoke night. But did he get as far as auditions for the reality TV singing show The Voice? 

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    A copy of an audition ticket from 2013 suggests the New York Republican may have pursued his 15 minutes on NBC.

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    #George #Santos #showed #karaoke #night #auditions #reality #singing #show #Voice
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • The Capitol Police is mum about a complaint filed by a former prospective employee of George Santos — which adds to a growing list. 

    The Capitol Police is mum about a complaint filed by a former prospective employee of George Santos — which adds to a growing list. 

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    The complaints filed with the Hill’s police department and the House Ethics Committee allege sexual harassment by the New York Republican.

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    #Capitol #Police #mum #complaint #filed #aformer #prospective #employee #George #Santoswhichadds #growing #list
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Opinion | Fake it Till You Make It: The Generational Explanation Behind George Santos

    Opinion | Fake it Till You Make It: The Generational Explanation Behind George Santos

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    My doctoral research on conservative media influencers features interviews with people like Santos’ new staffer Vish Burra, a Staten Island native who once worked with Steve Bannon on his podcast War Room to break the Hunter Biden laptop story. Later, Burra staffed Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as he was being investigated for sex trafficking (though prosecutors have recommended not making any charges).

    In interviews, Burra told me about the far-right media’s strategy of penetrating mainstream media and delivering lib-owning, attention-seeking performances. Burra himself has claimed “illegal immigrants” were bringing Covid-19 across the border on The Daily Show. He clashed with Asian-American progressives on a VICE panel discussing upticks in hate crimes against Asians. On local news, he lauded his maskless New York Young Republican Club gala during the 2020 pandemic. He is one of many characters in the Trumpian carnival, the self-described “clout Diablo,” who seeks social capital at all costs. All of this performance is in the name of attention.

    Burra and Santos are both just playing to the incentives of the attention economy, which exploded in the past decade. Those trying to shame Santos will find their words falling on deaf ears: For the congressman, it is more important to be noticed than liked.

    Origins of the Attention Economy

    After the global financial crisis in 2008, so many in my millennial generation faced the cold reality that a stable job, home and retirement were not givens. Not only that, it was the corrupt big banks that were getting bailed out by the government, not average Americans. With the additional backdrop of a failing War on Terror, cynicism about power, institutions and truth set into my generation. Creating a “personal brand” became a way to rely on the one thing that would never go out of business: ourselves.

    A “fake it till you make it” attitude pervaded this personal branding environment. If powerful people lied for money or power and got away with it — be it in the 2008 financial crisis or the pretense of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — why could you not embellish the truth a little?

    Luckily, anyone could make a business out of themselves using new social media platforms that could quickly turn a regular person into an internet celebrity. Venture capitalists placed bets on “unicorns” with inspiring stories that could reap fame — while attracting users and investors. Online news, like Breitbart or The Huffington Post (which employed a young Andrew Breitbart before he founded his own site), discovered personality-driven news drove more traffic. Forbes launched its 30 Under 30 list in 2011, jumping on the influencer-driven media bandwagon and creating the heroes-cum-villains of my generation.

    As media scholar Alice Marwick points out in her book Status Update, new Web 2.0 technologies encouraged a fixation on status, attention and getting followers in a world of influential leaders. And the increasing demand for content left little time or incentive to look behind or dig deeper into a click-generating story.

    Politicians have simply adapted to this moment, according to Gaetz, who interviewed Santos while guest hosting on Bannon’s podcast. “If we didn’t seat people on committees who embellished their résumé running for Congress, we probably wouldn’t be able to make quorum,” Gaetz said.

    Santos likely thought he was doing what everyone else was doing in the age of the influencer.

    Although he denies any criminal activity, the congressman has admitted to a number of biographical fabrications. And with that, Santos joins other too-good-to-be-true alleged scammers in the news cycle, albeit in different fields, who doctored their personal stories (and businesses) for influence, power or money. The most recent examples include fallen crypto giant and effective altruism-acolyte, Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, or student aid entrepreneur currently being sued by JP Morgan for $175 million, Charlie Javice of Frank. (Full disclosure: I once made a small attempt to start a company with Javice, but opted to follow a different life-path as a doctoral student.)

    Be it in politics or start-ups, all of these figures played to the incentives of a media and tech landscape that rewards individuals who can sell a niche-story, regardless of its veracity. Such tall tales get clicks, funding, donations and attention from people who want an outsider to do the impossible. In Silicon Valley, it is a story of young people who “do well by doing good” and could growth hack their way to market dominance. In Republican politics, that story may be one of a gay, Brazilian immigrant businessman with “Jew-ish” roots and a questionable animal charity, who also backs Trump’s “Stop the Steal” election denialism.

    It’s a risky game to play, but these attention seekers think their fame — and the influence, money or power they assume will come with it — will insulate them from consequences. And for now, it seems to be true for Santos, who has so far successfully dodged calls for resignation.

    A MAGA Anti-Hero or Villain?

    With Santos joining the orbit of people like Burra and Gaetz, I am even more sure that the performance will not stop. Like a World Wrestling Entertainment fighter, Santos has joined a political promotion where he must fashion a new role for himself. Playing the well-meaning MAGA-dunce may just be it.

    As much as other Republicans, such as Speaker Kevin McCarthy, may express doubts about Santos to the press, Santos and his daily tabloid exposés are now the perfect diversion. Republican-run legislatures around the country are introducing bills banning drag, while Twitter can’t stop talking about Santos’ time as a Brazilian drag queen. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene got a seat on the House Homeland Security Committee, even after saying “we would have won” if she had organized the Jan. 6 riot. Yet, this news is not as salacious as Santos receiving money from a cousin of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. The GOP has little reason to kick out such a welcome distraction.

    Our technology, politics and media have created structural incentives for a scam — and our culture seems to love it. We live in a love-hate relationship with billionaire unicorns and untouchable CEOs. Forty-four percent of Americans believe they can become billionaires, while 40 percent simultaneously hate billionaires. We rue a Gatsby. We live to gossip about a scammer. We may even find it badass (and Netflix-binge worthy) when faux-heiress Anna Delvey, born Russian-German immigrant Anna Sorokin, nearly scammed the world’s biggest banks into investing in her startup.

    In a similar vein, far-right influencer Jack Posobiec wrote in one of his books that “Donald Trump is an anti-hero.” From Tony Soprano to Frank Underwood, Americans love an anti-hero who will do bad things for noble reasons and has a complex moral character.

    Yet lying one’s way into a congressional seat is different from scamming powerful people like venture capitalists, big banks or (in Trump’s case) the Deep State. Santos has reportedly lied about his mom dying in 9/11 to New Yorkers who have experienced the horror of terrorism. Faking to voters about such things is punching down, not up. That, it seems, may have been Santos’ true transgression, and one we might see more often as more members of our generation seek office.



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )