US Politics

‘Do you have no shame?’: Tulsi Gabbard grills congressman-elect George SantosThe former presidential candidate called resume-inflating Santos’s claims ‘blatant lies’ in Fox News interview In a Fox News interview with former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday, Republican congressman-elect George Santos claimed he is not a “fraud” when questioned about the recent revelations – and his eventual admission – that his claims about his career and identity are riddled with lies and fabricated records.First Gen Z congressman Maxwell Frost says he’s part of the ‘mass shooting generation’Read moreThe Fox interview came the same day as fresh allegations that he falsely claimed a Jewish identity.Even though Santos told the New York Post that he never claimed to be Jewish, there is documentation proving otherwise. Santos had been loud about his identity as a “proud American Jew”, and enjoyed coverage in Jewish media where he was celebrated as the “only Jewish Republican member of New York’s House delegation”.He regularly attended events with rabbis and campaigned in Jewish neighborhoods, according to the New York Times.When asked about this, Santos told Gabbard that he has Jewish heritage but was raised Catholic. He said he has joked that he is “Jew-ish”.Santos, who has also admitted to lying about graduating from Baruch College and working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, said he was not “a fake” and that “everybody wants to nitpick” at him now.But Gabbard put Santos on the spot by asking him how he defines “integrity”.Santos initially talked about the role of integrity for politicians, but Gabbard pushed back: “What does it mean though? … Because the meaning of the word actually matters in practice.”In Tuesday’s interview, he claimed he was courageous to be admitting this on national television, but fell short of an apology.He insisted that somehow this “courage” in his admission would make him fit to serve his district, to which Gabbard asked: “Do you have no shame?”“Do you have no shame [inaudible] the people who are now you’re asking to trust you to go and be their voice for them, their families and their kids in Washington?” she asked, after clarifying that what he keeps referring to as “embellishments” on his resume are much bigger, “blatant lies”.Santos responded, once again deflecting the answer, this time to Democrats and Joe Biden, who he claimed has been “lying to the American people for 40 years”.When Gabbard confronted him further about his lies regarding his work at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and how he can expect his constituents to trust him, Santos said the lies on his resume are “debatable” and “not false at all”.He added that he could easily explain how things such as private equity work.“We can have this discussion that can go way above the American people’s head”, he said, “but that’s not what I campaigned on”.“Wow,” Gabbard responded. “You just kind of highlighted, I think my concerns and the concerns people at home have – you’re saying that this discussion will go way above the heads of the American people, basically insulting their intelligence.”As of Wednesday morning, Santos’s website no longer had information about his relations with Baruch College, Goldman Sachs or Citigroup.TopicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesNew YorkUS politicsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

Michigan governor kidnap plot: man sentenced to over 19 years in prisonBarry Croft Jr, the co-leader of the stunning plot to abduct the governor from her vacation home, is the final defendant in the case A Delaware trucker described as a co-leader of the conspiracy to kidnap Michigan’s governor has been sentenced to more than 19 years in prison.Leader of plot to kidnap Michigan governor sentenced to 16 yearsRead moreBarry Croft Jr was the fourth and final federal defendant to learn his fate, a day after ally Adam Fox was sentenced to 16 years in prison. The two men were convicted in August of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids.They were accused of running a stunning plot to abduct Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation home just before the 2020 presidential election. The conspirators were furious over tough Covid-19 restrictions that Whitmer and officials in other states had put in place during the early months of the pandemic, as well as perceived threats to gun ownership.Whitmer was not physically harmed. The FBI was secretly embedded in the group and made 14 arrests.Fox, 39, and Croft, 47, were convicted of two counts of conspiracy at a second trial in August. Croft also was found guilty of possessing an unregistered explosive. A different jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan, could not reach a verdict on the pair at the first trial last spring but acquitted two other men.“The abduction of the governor was only meant to be the beginning of Croft’s reign of terror,” assistant US attorney NilsKessler said. “He called for riots, ‘torching’ government officials in their sleep and setting off a ‘domino’ effect of violence across the country.”A key piece of evidence: Croft, Fox and others traveled to see Whitmer’s vacation home in northern Michigan with undercover agents and informants inside the cabal.At one point, Croft told allies: “I don’t like seeing anybody get killed either. But you don’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, you know what I mean?”Croft’s attorney tried to soften his client’s role. In a court filing, Joshua Blanchard said the Bear, Delaware, man did not actually have authority over others and often frustrated them because he “just kept talking”.Croft was smoking 2 ounces (56g) of marijuana a week, Blanchard said.“Simply put, to the extent that the jury determined he was a participant, as they necessarily did, he was a participant to a lesser degree than others,” Blanchard insisted.How Michigan Democrats took control for the first time in decadesRead moreTwo men who pleaded guilty and testified against Fox and Croft received substantial breaks: Ty Garbin already is free after a 2.5-year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.In state court, three men recently were given lengthy sentences for assisting Fox earlier in the summer of 2020. Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim county, where Whitmer’s vacation home is located.When the plot was extinguished, Whitmer blamed then-President Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division”. In August, 19 months after leaving office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal”.TopicsMichiganUS politicsUS crimenewsReuse this content More

Arizona judge declines to sanction Kari Lake for lawsuit challenging electionCase contesting race for governor was rejected and Republican candidate ordered to pay $33,000 to cover legal costs An Arizona judge declined a request on Tuesday to sanction Kari Lake for filing a lawsuit trying to overturn the result of the state’s gubernatorial race.Peter Thompson, a superior court judge in Maricopa county, rejected the case on Saturday, saying Lake, a Republican, had failed to prove there was intentional misconduct that cost her the race.‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismRead moreBoth Maricopa county and Governor-elect Katie Hobbs subsequently asked the court to sanction Lake, writing: “This matter was brought without any legitimate justification, let alone a substantial one.” But Thompson disagreed on Tuesday. Even though Lake did not win the case, it did not mean that her lawsuit was in bad faith.“There is no doubt that each side believes firmly in its position with great conviction,” he wrote. “The fact that Plaintiff failed to meet the burden of clear and convincing evidence required for each element of [Arizona statute] does not equate to a finding that her claims were, or were not, groundless and presented in bad faith.”While he declined to order sanctions, Thompson did order Lake to pay Hobbs about $33,000 to cover some legal costs in the case. Maricopa county and Hobbs had requested about $695,000 in costs from her.Lake, who lost the race by about 17,000 votes, was one of the most prominent spreaders of election misinformation in the 2022 campaign. She repeatedly said on the campaign trail, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen. Ahead of the gubernatorial race this year, she declined to say whether she would accept the results if she lost.Lake is appealing her loss in the case as well as the order to pay legal fees. She has indicated she will take the case all the way to the Arizona supreme court, though any appeal would have to move quickly since Hobbs is set to be sworn in on Tuesday, the Arizona Republic reported.TopicsArizonaThe fight for democracyUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

TikTok banned on devices issued by US House of RepresentativesPoliticians ordered to delete Chinese-owned social video app that House has said represents ‘high risk to users’ TikTok has been banned from any devices issued by the US House of Representatives, as political pressure continues to build on the Chinese-owned social video app.The order to delete the app was issued by Catherine Szpindor, the chief administrative officer (CAO) of the House, whose office had warned in August that the app represented a “high risk to users”.According to a memo obtained by NBC News, all lawmakers and staffers with House-issued mobile phones have been ordered to remove TikTok by Szpindor.“House staff are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app on any House mobile devices,” NBC quoted the memo as saying. “If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it.” The move was also reported by Reuters.In a statement the US house of representatives confirmed the ban, saying “we can confirm that the Committee on House Administration has authorized the CAO Office of Cybersecurity to initiate the removal of TikTok Social Media Service from all House-managed devices.”In August the CAO issued a “cyber advisory” labelling TikTok a high-risk app due to its “lack of transparency in how it protects customer data”. It said TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, “actively harvests content for identifiable data” and stores some user data in China. TikTok says its data is not held in China, but in the US and Singapore.The U.S. House of Representatives’ Chief Administrative Officer has issued a cyber advisory on TikTok, labeling it “high-risk” with personal info accessed from inside China:“we do not recommend the download or use of this application due to these security and privacy concerns.” pic.twitter.com/F87qwFiHhR— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) August 17, 2022
The CAO move comes amid multiple attempts to restrict the use of TikTok by government and state employees.Last week Congress passed a $1.7tn spending bill, which includes a provision banning TikTok from government devices. The ban will take effect once President Joe Biden signs the legislation into law. According to Reuters, at least 19 US states have partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over security concerns. In a statement released after the Congress ban, TikTok said the move was a “political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests”.TikTok admits using its app to spy on reporters in effort to track leaksRead moreThis month the US senator Marco Rubio, a former Republican presidential contender, unveiled a legislative proposal to ban TikTok from the US entirely. Rubio said it was time to “ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good”.Biden has revoked presidential orders targeting TikTok issued by his predecessor, Donald Trump, which included requiring TikTok to sell its US business. However, the US Committee on Foreign Investment, which scrutinises business deals with non-US companies, is also conducting a security review of TikTok.According to a recent Reuters report, TikTok is offering to operate more of its US business at arm’s length and subject it to outside scrutiny.The office of the House’s chief administrative officer and TikTok have been approached for comment.TopicsTikTokUS CongressUS politicsChinanewsReuse this content More

‘Who should pay?’: student debt relief in limbo as supreme court decides fate of millions Over 26m student loan borrowers are waiting for the country’s highest court to decide if they can receive debt reliefDebt-laden borrowers will be nervously watching the US supreme court come February when the justices hear arguments for two cases that will ultimately decide the fate of over 26 million student loan borrowers who have applied for loan forgiveness.US student debt relief: borrowers in limbo as lawsuits halt cancellation programRead moreThough the future of student loan forgiveness is uncertain in the hands of a deeply conservative court, two researchers who have studied public opinion on student debt and college accessibility see room for optimism, even amid uncertainty around the issue.The millions of Americans who applied were set to get at least $10,000 (£8,320) in relief for their loans under a plan that Joe Biden released over the summer. But the plan’s rollout was halted in November by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, putting the possibility of forgiveness into question.“[Student loan forgiveness] is something that five years or 10 years ago, we wouldn’t have seen. It shows that there’s movement for politicians and the public to do something about student debt that has meaningful effects for a lot of people,” said Natasha Quadlin, a professor at University of California, Los Angeles who co-wrote a book this year, Who Should Pay?: Higher Education, Responsibility and the Public that documents the change in public opinion on how much the government should pay for higher education.Quadlin, along with her co-author Brian Powell, a professor at Indiana University, started administering surveys in 2010 asking people who should pay for college: parents, students or the government.In 2010, nearly 70% of respondents believed that only parents and students should be funding higher education. In 2019, the number dropped to 39%. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who believe the government, both federal and state, should primarily fund college rose from 9% in 2010 to 25% in 2019. All other respondents indicated that the government should help parents or students pay for college.When Quadlin and Powell set off to do this decades-long research in 2010, they did not realize how dramatically people’s perspectives on who should pay for college would change.“When we started working on the book and collecting data, the idea of loan forgiveness was not even really part of the American consciousness,” Powell said.The researchers note a few factors that went into this rapid shift. First, student debt nearly doubled in size between 2010 and 2015, reaching $1.3tn (£1tn) by the end of 2015. The cost of college was also rising, especially since states were slashing higher education budgets during the Great Recession.Fight against inflation raises spectre of global recessionRead more“It became apparent that the current generation that was going through higher education just wasn’t getting a very good deal in terms of the returns they were seeing,” Quadlin said.Some respondents also noted that the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, showed them that government can offer broad support for certain areas of life.“Several people said: ‘If we can do this for something as important as healthcare, and ensure health insurance, then we should be able to do that for education as well,’” Powell said.Sentiment had changed so much that some states were discussing the possibility of free college, a policy that Quadlin and Powell did not even consider putting on their survey in 2010. By 2019, over 20 states offered programs that either reduced or eliminated the cost of public college. Nearly 40% of respondents on the survey strongly and 32% somewhat agreed that public college should be free for those who are qualified to attend.Loan forgiveness and free college, while similarly addressing accessibility to higher education, are ultimately two different issues. While the researchers note that both should be pursued simultaneously, it appears that much of the current focus is on addressing debt forgiveness as the immediate problem.How quickly either will be addressed is unclear, but “the costs and burden [of student debt] is so high and so widespread”, Quadlin said.“There is a recognition that college is necessary for such a large percentage of the problem … and [its] not getting fixed,” she said.Throughout the book, Quadlin and Powell note how quickly public opinion had changed on same-sex marriage in a short amount of time. Powell, who has studied this change in opinion, noted that Congress just recently passed a bill protecting same-sex marriage with bipartisan support. In 2010, Gallup reported 28% of Republican support same-sex marriage. In 2021, the percentage rose to 55%.While Republicans have largely been against Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, there is some evidence that there could be Republican support one day. In 2014, Tennessee, under a Republican governor, created a scholarship program for free community college – an initiative that is still thought to be too radical at the federal level.“We’ve had examples of bipartisan support. Education is one of those areas that people believe in – the American Dream, that people can be able to have the education they need to have a fulfilling life and successful career,” Powell said. “It’s hard to envision the changes in the past year without the dramatic change in public opinion that occurred in a really short period of time.”TopicsUS student debtHigher educationUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsBiden administrationDebt relieffeaturesReuse this content More

First Gen Z congressman Maxwell Frost says he’s part of the ‘mass shooting generation’ Maxwell Frost places curbing gun violence at the top of his political agenda, along with addressing the housing crisisMaxwell Frost might not yet have a permanent address in Washington DC, but that hasn’t stopped the hate mail from reaching him. “I got a letter the other day,” he says. “And when I opened it, it just said: ‘Fuck you.’”Frost expected there would be a fair amount of negative reaction after he became the first member of Gen Z to be voted into Congress in last month’s midterm elections.But a heavy campaign focus on gun safety measures has made the 25-year-old Democrat from Orlando, Florida, a marked man. The issue couldn’t be more important to Frost, who calls Gen Z “the mass shooting generation”.‘I’ve been Maced, I’ve been to jail …’ Can 25-year-old Maxwell Frost now be the first Gen Z member of Congress?Read more“It feels like I’ve been through more mass shooting drills than fire drills,” he says.Frost not only came of age with many of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas 2018 high school shooting, but barnstormed the country with them to advocate for tougher gun controls.Shortly after Frost beat Republican rival Calvin Wimbish by a considerable margin in Florida’s 10th congressional district in November (which includes Frost’s Orlando home town and many of its surrounding theme parks), the gun-saturated country was rocked by seven more mass shootings in as many days.It’s why passing more substantive measures to curb gun violence is at the top of his list of priorities for his first six months in office.“I think we have an opportunity, even in a Republican Congress, to pass legislation that can help get money for community violence intervention programs that help end gun violence before it even happens,” he said.He further insists that any prospective legislation needs to have a mental health component.“Folks with serious mental health issues are often scapegoated as the reason why there’s gun violence,” Frost says. “But as someone who’s been doing the work, when you look into the numbers, having a serious mental health issue doesn’t make you more likely to shoot someone. It actually makes you more likely to be shot.”Frost intends to keep the pressure on both Republicans “who sweep the deaths of children under the rug” and on members of his own party who have been otherwise disinclined to take bold action. “I’d venture to say that gun control is the slowest-moving issue in the federal government that has the most media coverage when something happens,” he says. “I have to be the consistent voice.”You’d be hard-pressed to take in Frost’s sudden emergence on the national scene without harking back to the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AKA AOC) who, at age 29 in 2019, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Like Frost, she boasts Latino heritage, has a working-class background, counts Bernie Sanders as a close mentor and espouses politics that lean left of most fellow Democrats. All of that has made AOC an easy enemy of the right as she joined up with Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and other young liberals since to alloy the informal progressive caucus known as the Squad.Frost would be a natural fit on that team. But he’s not in much hurry to join forces with them or any other groups right now. “You’re gonna have different allies in different battles and I think it’s really important,” says Frost, who still has plenty of love and admiration for the Squad. “I mean, Cori Bush slept on the Capitol steps and as a result of that, people weren’t evicted from their homes. That is a case study in how working-class people and organizers in Congress are good for our country.”Housing will be another focus of Frost’s first 100 days – one that his own situation, a limbo complicated by bad credit and a $174,000 (£143,687) federal salary that he won’t begin drawing until February, has thrust into the spotlight.“We have the worst affordable housing crisis in the country, per capita in central Florida as of a few months ago,” he says.Senator Chris Murphy: ‘victory after victory’ is coming for US gun safetyRead more“We need to do work to increase the power of renters in the marketplace and ensure that renting is actually accessible for people. It’s really hard right now and I know this personally not just from being houseless in DC, but also from being houseless for a month in central Florida and not having enough capital to move into a place.”He also thinks he can make a credible pitch for more funding for the arts, the cherished avocation that initially got him and his high school band to Washington DC to play in Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration parade.“The arts are a huge part of my life,” he says. “I went to [an] arts middle school and high school. I work on music festivals and have my own here in Orlando, and I really believe in the power of the arts – and it’s not equitable for everybody right now.”All the while he intends to use his time in Congress to inspire young people to get involved in the political process, starting with making the federal government more approachable. “I want to do a kids’ day on the Hill,” he says. “I want to do concerts on the Hill – with young artists, so we can get young people super excited. I’ve been doing these blogs about what’s going on on the Hill. So just little things like that. I’m just really focused on stretching what it means to be a member of Congress.”TopicsDemocratsUS gun controlHousingUS politicsFloridaUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesfeaturesReuse this content More

Donald Trump’s tax returns to be made public by US House panel on FridayThe House ways and means committee confirmed that the former president’s tax records from 2015 to 2021 will be released Donald Trump’s redacted tax returns will be made public on Friday after a powerful congressional committee voted last week to release them.A spokesperson for the US House of Representatives ways and means committee confirmed the timing of the release in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.The Democratic-controlled committee obtained the returns last month as part of an investigation into Trump’s taxes, after a lengthy court battle that ended with the US supreme court ruling in the committee’s favor.The move is set to ignite a political firestorm in the US, where the former president’s taxes have long been a contentious matter. Trump broke with decades of presidential precedent by refusing to release his tax returns when he ran for office in 2016, and has fought to keep them under wraps.The New York Times previously released extensive portions of Trump’s tax returns as part of a major investigation that showed how the real estate mogul and reality TV star had suffered serious losses and engaged in extensive tax avoidance.The committee released a report into its findings last week, which said the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) broke its own rules by not auditing Trump for three of the four years of his presidency.The findings raised stark questions about Trump’s insistence that he could not publicly release his tax returns – as other presidents routinely have done to give people a glimpse into their livelihoods – because he said his filings were under an ongoing IRS review. The committee’s report also highlighted shortcomings at the IRS, which has been criticized for auditing lower-income people more often than the rich.House committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns to the publicRead moreThe documents to be released on Friday are expected to include Trump’s tax returns filed between 2015 and 2021, the years he ran for and served as president. It would be the first formal release of his financial records from his time in office.A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment.Trump’s tax returns were not released alongside last week’s report because they contain sensitive information that had to be redacted before publication, committee members said.Democrats on the committee said that making the returns public was necessary to understanding the context of its report, which also included proposed legislation that would mandate the IRS to audit presidents.Trump was the first presidential candidate in decades not to release his tax returns during either of his campaigns for president. He also bragged during a presidential debate that year that he was “smart” because he paid no federal taxes.Democrats on the committee had only a few weeks to decide how to handle the returns once they got them, before Republicans retake control of the US House in January after winning a narrow margin of victory in November’s midterm elections.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

New York congressman-elect admits lying about college and work historyRepublican George Santos, elected to represent parts of Long Island and Queens, admits ‘embellishing résumé’ George Santos, the New York Republican congressman-elect at the center of a storm over his apparently fabricated résumé, has admitted he lied about his job experience and college education during his successful US House campaign.I’m a Pulse survivor. Rightwing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric made the Club Q massacre inevitableRead moreSantos first ran for Congress in 2020. In November this year he was elected to represent parts of northern Long Island and north-east Queens.His exaggerations were first identified by the New York Times, which questioned claims including that he had worked at two prominent Wall Street banks; had obtained degrees in finance and economics from two New York colleges; that he was Jewish; and that four employees of his company were killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016.On Monday, Santos told the New York Post: “My sins here are embellishing my résumé. I’m sorry.”Santos, 34, also said he “campaigned talking about the people’s concerns, not my résumé … I intend to deliver on the promises I made during the campaign”.But he acknowledged he “didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my résumé. I own up to that. … We do stupid things in life”.Democrats including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have suggested Santos is unfit to sit in Congress. Some have called for him to resign his seat before taking it.Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, said on Twitter: “George Santos, who has now admitted his whopping lies, should resign. If he does not, then [Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House leader] should call for a vote to expel” him.Joaquin Castro, from Texas, said allowing Santos to enter office would set a dangerous precedent.“We’ve seen people fudge their résumé but this is total fabrication,” Castro said, suggesting Santos “should also be investigated by authorities”.Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming Democratic House leader, has said Santos “appears to be a complete and utter fraud”.Republican officials began to publicly respond to Santos’ remarks on Tuesday. Joe Cairo, chairman of the Nassau county GOP on Long Island, said the congressman had “broken the public trust” but “must do the public’s will in Washington”.Santos, Cairo said, “has a lot of work to do to regain the trust of voters and everyone who he represents in Congress”.Santos said he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. Neither company could find relevant records. Santos told the Post he “never worked directly” for either firm and had used a “poor choice of words”. He said LinkBridge, an investment company where he was a vice-president, did business with both.The Times also uncovered Brazilian court records showing Santos was once charged with fraud for using a stolen checkbook.“I am not a criminal here – not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world,” Santos told the Post. “Absolutely not. That didn’t happen.”Santos said he experienced financial difficulties that left him owing landlords and creditors.Another news outlet, the Jewish American site the Forward, questioned a claim on Santos’s website that his grandparents “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium and again fled persecution” during the second world war.“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos said. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish’.”Cairo said: “The damage that his lies have caused to many people, especially those who have been impacted by the Holocaust, is profound.”The Daily Beast has reported that Santos, who has identified as gay, was divorced from a woman in September 2019.“Though the past marriage isn’t necessarily at odds with his sexuality,” the site noted, Santos has never acknowledged that relationship and his biography says he lives with his husband, Matt, and four dogs.“I dated women in the past. I married a woman. It’s personal stuff,” Santos told the Post, adding that he was “OK with my sexuality. People change”.Revising claims that a company he worked for “lost four employees” in the Pulse nightclub shooting, Santos said the four were in the process of being hired.TopicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsNew YorknewsReuse this content More