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    Prosectors on George Santos Case Seek 7-Year Sentence

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    The disgraced former congressman is set to be sentenced on April 25. His lawyers asked for a penalty of two years, the minimum allowed.Federal prosecutors on Friday asked for a prison sentence of more than seven years for George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York whose career unraveled after he told a series of lies, and who later pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft.Prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York asked in a court filing for a sentence of 87 months to reflect the “seriousness of his unparalleled crimes.”Mr. Santos, 36, is set to be sentenced on April 25, bringing to an end a criminal case that began in 2023. Prosecutors charged him with 23 felony counts while he was still a representative in Congress.A provocateur who insisted on his innocence even as his serial falsehoods came to light, Mr. Santos pleaded guilty last August to two of the counts and admitted to an array of other frauds. Guidelines call for a sentence of roughly six to seven years in prison, though a judge will make the final decision later this month.In his drive to seek higher office, the prosecutors’ filing said, Mr. Santos fabricated his past and engaged in deceitful schemes, including inflating his fund-raising numbers and stealing from donors. “He lied to his campaign staff, his supporters, his putative employer and congressional colleagues, and the American public,” the prosecutors wrote.“Santos’s conduct has made a mockery of our election system,” they added.Lawyers for Mr. Santos, Robert M. Fantone and Joseph W. Murray, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday morning. In a separate filing on Friday, they asked for a sentence of two years, the minimum allowed for the crimes involved, followed by probation. Mr. Santos had acknowledged the gravity of his crimes, the filing said, and agreed to pay nearly $374,000 in restitution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Meet the 23-Year-Old Student Who Raised $25 Million in Democratic Losses

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      A law student in Florida has a lucrative side gig: fund-raising consultant. His firm earns a 25 percent cut of “profit” from donations, and critics have begun to pile up after two special elections.After the Democratic candidates in Florida’s special elections burned through millions and millions of dollars on the way to double-digit losses this week, some Democrats are asking where that money deluge came from — and where it all went.The answer to both questions is, in part, a 23-year-old law student and dungeon master — in Dungeons & Dragons — with a lucrative side gig.In between classes and fantasy play, Jackson McMillan is also the chief executive of Key Lime Strategies, a small fund-raising firm in Florida that scored big when it landed as clients the two Democratic nominees in the Florida congressional elections, Josh Weil and Gay Valimont. Mr. McMillan said they had combined to raise $25 million.“We’ve built a juggernaut,” he said in an interview.Along the way, Mr. McMillan has piled up critics far beyond his years. Much of the focus is on his unusual fee structure, which one top party official excoriated in a cease-and-desist letter as “exorbitant.” His firm received a 25 percent cut of “true profits” — the proceeds after fund-raising expenses — for both special elections.Mr. McMillan is unapologetic.“A lot of the people who are critiquing me online are mad that it wasn’t them,” he said of raising so much money, which he said put a scare into Republicans and injected real money into long-neglected corners of a rightward-drifting state.One secret ingredient to his firm’s success, Mr. McMillan explained, is Dungeons & Dragons.“All the senior fund-raising strategists at my firm — myself, Ryan — we’re dungeon masters,” he said of his college friend and the firm’s chief operating officer, Ryan Eliason. “We run Dungeons & Dragons games. So we weave narratives and tales. It’s like our biggest hobby. We basically tell a really compelling story. And that’s what sets us apart from — that and a lot of technical analysis — is what sets us apart from some of our competitors.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Musk Offers $100 to Wisconsin Voters, Bringing Back a Controversial Tactic

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      By offering cash to voters who sign a petition opposing “activist judges,” Elon Musk’s super PAC can help identify conservative voters in a race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.Elon Musk is bringing back his most controversial gambit from the 2024 presidential election: paying voters as part of a plan to identify and turn out conservative-leaning ones.The super PAC that Mr. Musk founded to funnel his fortune into Republican causes, America PAC, said on Thursday that it was offering $100 to registered voters in Wisconsin who sign a petition “in opposition to activist judges” or refer others to sign it. Mr. Musk has been using the group to spend millions of dollars to elect a conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in an April 1 election.The petition reads: “Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas. By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”The purpose of the petition is multifaceted: Drive attention from the news media, increase awareness and voter registration among conservative voters, and help America PAC collect data on the most energized Wisconsinites who are likely to turn out for the conservative candidate, Brad Schimel. Mr. Musk carried out a nearly identical maneuver in battleground states before the November election, generating significant legal and political debate.The Philadelphia district attorney sued to stop the distribution of those lottery-style payouts, which went up to $1 million to voters who signed a document in support of the First Amendment. But the day before Election Day, a Pennsylvania judge declined to halt the sweepstakes.America PAC’s revival of the use of petitions, and the wording of its new document in Wisconsin, reveal two of Mr. Musk’s priorities as he wields wide power in Washington.The first is his focus on the court election in Wisconsin, which could swing control of the state’s top judicial body back to conservatives after liberals won a major victory there in 2023. Mr. Musk’s super PAC and an allied nonprofit group have spent over $11 million to try to elect Judge Schimel, which would again push the battleground state rightward on issues like redistricting and abortion rights.Mr. Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, has also sued Wisconsin to challenge a state law prohibiting manufacturers from owning dealerships. In January, eight days after Tesla filed the suit, Mr. Musk wrote on X, “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud.”The second is Mr. Musk’s budding obsession with removing judges he sees as thwarting President Trump’s agenda. He posts daily on X about his frustrations with the federal judiciary, and the refreshed language of the new petition points to that focus.But despite the petition from Mr. Musk’s group denouncing judges who are openly political, there are few doubts about where the loyalties of his preferred candidate in Wisconsin lie: Judge Schimel is a longtime defender of Mr. Trump who dressed up as the president last Halloween. More

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      Adams’s Associates Under Federal Investigation Over Ties to China

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      The Justice Department is pushing to drop corruption charges against Eric Adams in Manhattan while federal authorities in Brooklyn have been investigating his top fund-raisers.The Trump administration appears likely to succeed in having federal corruption charges dropped against Mayor Eric Adams in Manhattan.But in Brooklyn, a separate group of prosecutors has been conducting a long-running investigation involving Mr. Adams’s most prominent fund-raiser — and at one point searched her homes and office for evidence of a possible Chinese government scheme to influence Mr. Adams’s election, according to a copy of a search warrant, portions of which were read to The New York Times.Mr. Adams has known the fund-raiser, Winnie Greco, for more than a decade, and he appointed her to be his Asian affairs adviser after he became mayor in 2022. She has been a close collaborator with people and groups linked to the Chinese government over the years, and she has showed a willingness to steer politicians toward pro-Beijing narratives, The Times reported in October.The searches of her homes in the Bronx and office in Queens occurred early last year and were overseen by prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York. The agents conducting the searches were also seeking evidence of solicitation of illegal contributions from foreign nationals, wire fraud and conspiracy, the warrant said.On the day Ms. Greco’s homes were searched, and as part of the same investigation, agents also searched the mansion of another prominent fund-raiser for the Adams campaign, Lian Wu Shao, on Long Island, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The search of Mr. Shao’s home has not been previously reported.A wealthy Chinese businessman, Mr. Shao is the operator of the New World Mall in Flushing, Queens, which housed Ms. Greco’s office. Records show that hundreds of donors associated with his companies boosted Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk Seeks to Put $100 Million Into Trump Political Operation

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      Elon Musk has signaled to President Trump’s advisers in recent days that he wants to put $100 million into groups controlled by the Trump political operation, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.It is unheard-of for a White House staffer, even one with part-time status, to make such large political contributions to support the agenda of the boss. But there has never been someone in the direct employ of an administration like Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, who is leading Mr. Trump’s aggressive effort to shrink the federal government, the Department of Government Efficiency.Over the weekend, Mr. Musk traveled to and from Florida aboard Air Force One with Mr. Trump, and posted on his social media website, X, that he had dinner with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday night after some tense interactions earlier in the week.And on Tuesday, as Mr. Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, faced some violent protests around the globe, Mr. Trump made a display of having five Teslas brought to the White House grounds in a demonstration for the news media, and checked out the cars with Mr. Musk by his side. It was an extraordinary promotion of a company by the most powerful person in the federal government.“I think he’s been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people,” Mr. Trump told reporters, referring to Mr. Musk. “And I just want people to know that he can’t be penalized for being a patriot.”Mr. Musk and White House officials didn’t return a request for comment.Associates of both Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have talked in recent days about Mr. Musk’s planned donation to a Trump-controlled entity. Mr. Musk has signaled he wants to make the donations not to his own super PAC, which is called America PAC and has spent heavily on Mr. Trump in the past, but to an outside entity affiliated with the president.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Crucial Judicial Race in Wisconsin, G.O.P. Now Has a Financial Edge

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      Two years ago, Democratic money carried a liberal jurist to victory and swung the state’s high court to the left. Now, Elon Musk and other wealthy donors have given Republicans a chance to swing it back.The last time Wisconsin held an election for the state’s Supreme Court, Republicans cried foul over the wave of money from out-of-state Democrats that overwhelmed their candidate.Two years later, Republicans have learned their lesson. It is Democrats who are grappling with a flood of outside money inundating Wisconsin.A super PAC funded by Elon Musk has in just the past week spent $2.3 million on text messages, digital advertisements and paid canvassers to remind Wisconsin Republicans about the April 1 election, which pits Brad Schimel, a judge in Waukesha County and a former Republican state attorney general, against Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who represented Planned Parenthood and other liberal causes in her private practice.The spending by Mr. Musk, the tech billionaire who is leading President Trump’s project to eviscerate large segments of the federal government, comes as Judge Schimel and his Republican allies have spent more money on television ads than Judge Crawford and Democrats have — a remarkable turnaround in a state where Democrats have had a significant financial advantage in recent years.“When I was a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be fighting the world’s richest man,” Judge Crawford told a crowd over the weekend at a campaign stop in Cambridge, Wis.As of Monday, Republicans had spent or reserved $13.9 million of television advertising time for the Wisconsin court race, compared with $10.7 million for Democrats, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. Because a larger chunk of Republican spending comes from super PACs, which pay a higher rate for TV ads than candidates do, the amount of advertising on Wisconsin’s airwaves has remained roughly equal. But the heavy Republican spending has eliminated what was a significant advantage for Democrats in the last such contest, in 2023.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Donors Who Give at Least $1 Million or Raise $2 Million Get Inaugural Access

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump is raising money for his inauguration in increments as high as $2 million, according to materials from fund-raisers for the inauguration.A flier titled “Trump Vance Inaugural Committee Benefits” lists the perks of donating $1 million or raising $2 million for the event. Donors who reach that elite level receive as many as a half-dozen tickets to eight inaugural events from Jan. 17 to Jan. 20.After a divisive election, donors and corporations typically put big money into presidents’ inaugural committees as a way to support the president and also to curry favor with an administration that will be in power for four years. There are no limits on the donations that can be made to the Trump committee, which is structured as a political nonprofit for tax purposes, but gifts over $200 are disclosed to the Federal Election Commission.Highlights of the schedule of events for the elite donors and fund-raisers include a reception with cabinet picks and a dinner with Vice President-elect JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, on Jan. 18, and an “elegant and intimate dinner with President Donald J. Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump” on Jan. 19, described as “the pinnacle event.” Before the dissemination of this flier, Mrs. Trump had not confirmed her plans to attend the inaugural festivities, which include a Sunday morning interfaith service that the materials say she plans to attend with Mr. Trump.On Monday, Jan. 20, the big donors will receive six tickets each to attend the inauguration itself.Mr. Trump’s first inaugural committee, which was investigated by federal prosecutors for illegal foreign donations and resulted in a 12-year prison sentence for one donor, raised $107 million in 2016 and 2017. The current inaugural committee is being led by Steven Witkoff, a billionaire real estate mogul who has given nearly $2 million to Mr. Trump’s political causes over the past decade and who has been named a special envoy to the Middle East, and Kelly Loeffler, a former Republican senator from Georgia.Mr. Trump is continuing to raise money for his political efforts, too. On Dec. 19, he is expected to headline an event at his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, for a pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., where tickets cost $1 million a person, according to a copy of the invitation seen by The New York Times. More

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      Trump Is Running His Transition Team on Secret Money

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      Breaking with past practice, President-elect Donald J. Trump has not agreed to disclose the donors paying for his planning effort or to limit their contributions.President-elect Donald J. Trump is keeping secret the names of the donors who are funding his transition effort, a break from tradition that could make it impossible to see what interest groups, businesses or wealthy people are helping launch his second term.Mr. Trump has so far declined to sign an agreement with the Biden administration that imposes strict limits on that fund-raising in exchange for up to $7.2 million in federal funds earmarked for the transition. By dodging the agreement, Mr. Trump can raise unlimited amounts of money from unknown donors to pay for the staff, travel and office space involved in preparing to take over the government.Mr. Trump is the first president-elect to sidestep the restrictions, provoking alarm among ethics experts.Those seeking to curry favor with the incoming administration now have the opportunity to donate directly to the winning candidate without their names or potential conflicts ever entering the public sphere. And unlike with campaign contributions, foreign nationals are allowed to donate to the transition.“When the money isn’t disclosed, it’s not clear how much everybody is giving, who is giving it and what they are getting in return for their donations,” said Heath Brown, a professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies presidential transitions. “It’s an area where the vast majority of Americans would agree that they want to know who is paying that bill.”Mr. Trump’s transition team, led by Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, both of whom were nominated to cabinet positions last week, has repeatedly said it intends to sign the agreements with the Biden administration, known as memorandums of understanding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      La victoria de Trump es un triunfo para Elon Musk y la política de los grandes capitales

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      Es difícil separar el trabajo de campaña de Musk de otras influencias que llevaron a Trump a la Casa Blanca. Su papel podría inspirar iniciativas similares y contribuir a transformar las campañas modernas.En la estridente reunión de la noche electoral del martes, Elon Musk se sentó a dos asientos de Donald Trump, dispuesto a atribuirse mucho del mérito de su decisiva victoria presidencial.“Mi comité independiente de campaña, America PAC, mejoró enormemente la campaña republicana en el terreno en los estados disputados”, dijo Musk al comentarista conservador Tucker Carlson en una entrevista en Mar-a-Lago, la residencia y club privado de Trump en Florida. Publicó un meme desí mismo en el Despacho Oval para sus 203 millones de seguidores en X, su plataforma de redes sociales.Su vuelta de celebración fue el punto culminante de un esfuerzo que comenzó hace solo seis meses y que dependía de una arriesgada apuesta: el nuevo comité independiente de campaña de Musk dirigió eficazmente la operación de captación de votos de Trump en los estados más disputados, y Trump confió una función crucial de la campaña a un neófito en política.Es difícil separar el trabajo de campaña de Musk de otras influencias que llevaron a Trump a la Casa Blanca. Pero no cabe duda de que la elección fue una victoria no solo para Musk, sino también para la política del gran capital: un donante ultra rico aprovechó el cambiante sistema de financiación de campañas de Estados Unidos para inclinar la balanza como nunca antes.Musk financió casi en solitario una campaña que costó más de 175 millones de dólares. Sus representantes tocaron cerca de 11 millones de puertas en los estados disputados desde agosto, incluidos 1,8 millones en Míchigan y 2,3 millones en Pensilvania, según personas con conocimiento del asunto. Se gastaron otros 30 millones de dólares en un gran programa de correo directo y unos 22 millones en publicidad digital, incluso en medios afines a Trump como Barstool Sports.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More