Federal prosecutors in New York have charged congressman George Santos, the embattled House Republican who has been under scrutiny for months by the justice department over questions surrounding his 2022 campaign and finance activities, according to people familiar with the matter.
The exact nature of the indictment – earlier reported by CNN – is unclear because it remains under seal.
Santos is expected to turn himself in to authorities at the federal court in Brooklyn as soon as Wednesday morning, one of the people said. There, he will likely make an initial appearance at an arraignment, where the specific charges against him are expected to be released.
The news of the indictment appears to have come as a surprise to Santos, who was informed about the charges on Tuesday hours before they were widely reported, and neither a spokesperson in his congressional office nor his attorney responded to a request for comment.
For months, the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of New York and the FBI have been pursuing several lines of inquiry over Santos’s federal campaign filings as part of a criminal investigation into whether he unlawfully used funds for non-election-related purposes.
The irregularities in Santos’s filings, reported by news outlets, were apparent on their face: 1,200 payments of $199.99 – two cents below the threshold where receipts would be required – an unregistered fund that raised vast sums for Santos, and around $40,000 for air travel.
When Santos and his campaign eventually amended the campaign finance disclosures, as they did 36 times, some donors complained in interviews that they misrepresented how much they gave, while some contributions later disappeared entirely from the record.
The irregularities also included bizarre payments, such as $11,000 to a company called Cleaner 123 ostensibly for “apartment rental for staff” for a house on Long Island that neighbors told the New York Times in interviews that Santos had been living in himself.
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Santos has so far managed to evade any serious political repercussions for his extensive dishonesty to voters, probably due to the fact that Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House and Santos was a key vote for House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy to win the speakership.
The most pressing issue until the indictment was confined to a House ethics investigation, by a congressional committee that rarely disciplines House members. After the charges were widely reported, McCarthy told reporters he would ask Santos, who last month announced his 2024 re-election campaign, to resign if found guilty.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
