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      ‘A bit of a clown’: a look at Congressman George Santos’s endless fabrications

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      In a way, George Santos is one of the great success stories of American politics.The New York congressman is not responsible for exceptional legislative achievements. His brief tenure in Congress will not be held up as a success story for students of political history.Santos’s accomplishment has instead been to win election by weaving a staggering, barely believable web of lies, deception and deceit that is surely unmatched in the modern age.That wave of fabrication helped Santos win election in November 2022. But a year later, the 35-year-old has been charged with 23 federal crimes, and while he has managed to cling on to his seat in the House of Representatives, he could find himself booted out of there when Congress returns to DC next week.The list of Santos’s lies bears digging into.While he was running for Congress, Santos lied about almost everything that had ever happened to him. Sometimes it was to embellish his résumé and make himself appear more electable, but frequently, and fascinatingly, he lied for no reason at all, about things of zero consequence to his political career.Santos claimed he was privately educated at an elite New York City high school. He wasn’t. He said he went to Baruch College, where – according to Santos – he graduated in the top 1% of his class. Baruch, based in Manhattan, said it has no record of him going there, and Santos later confessed he “didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning”.While running for election, he said his mother was working in the south tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York. Her immigration history shows that she wasn’t even in the country.Santos said he was Jewish and his grandparents escaped the Holocaust. That wasn’t true. He claimed he owned 13 properties. That was also a lie; in fact, in 2022, he was living at his sister’s home.He said he worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, which he didn’t, and said he ran a pet charity, only for the New York Times to discover that a) it wasn’t a registered charity and b) there were serious questions about how the charity had spent the money it raised.Some of Santos’s lies were so banal it is unclear what the benefit was in telling them. Santos claimed he had been a “star” on Baruch’s volleyball team. (He hadn’t, obviously, but what was the point of making it up? Is the college sports vote that crucial in Nassau county?)Santos also told a roommate that he had worked as a model, and said he produced a Spider-Man musical on Broadway. Neither of those things happened.But, over a period of two years, the lies worked.Santos was an unknown when he ran against Thomas Suozzi, the Democratic incumbent in New York’s third district, in 2020. After a stronger-than-expected showing, Santos ran again in 2022. Suozzi, who had been in office for six years, had stepped down, and Santos defeated Democratic nominee Robert Zimmerman by seven points, winning a seat to represent the majority of Nassau county, just east of New York City.“I ran, I lost and from defeat I grabbed the power and harnessed the energy to run again,” Santos said at a Republican Jewish Coalition event, 11 days after his win last year.“Many said I couldn’t win. Pundits across the nation, insiders, DC people [said]: ‘George Santos can’t win, let’s not pay attention to him.’“Well baby, you got that wrong.”Santos might now be wishing people had paid even less attention to him.After the New York Times reported on Santos’s litany of fabrications in December 2022, the web of lies began to fall apart. More seriously for Santos, alleged crimes were soon catching up with him, too.In October federal prosecutors charged Santos with 10 new crimes, including an allegation that he stole donors’ identities and used their credit cards without their knowledge. Santos had previously been charged with applying for and receiving unemployment benefits, even though he had a job, and misusing campaign contributions, and the total number of crimes Santos is now charged with is 23.Despite mounting evidence, the House has twice voted against expelling him. But on 17 November, when the ethics committee issued a damning report on Santos, the tide seemingly began to turn.The Republican-led committee found “substantial evidence” that Santos had used campaign funds for personal purposes, with the report detailing extravagant – and possibly illegal – spending of campaign money.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSantos allegedly spent almost $3,000 of campaign money on Botox treatments, while the committee also found that $4,127.80 had been spent at the luxury brand Hermès.Other expenditures by Santos allegedly include payments to OnlyFans, an online platform known for sexual content, and purchases at Sephora, a cosmetics store.Given what we now know about Santos, it’s barely believable that he got this far. Political campaigns normally conduct extensive opposition research on candidates, but Jay Jacobs, chair of the Nassau County Democrats, said that Santos “wasn’t considered a serious candidate by Republicans or Democrats”, and so slipped through the cracks.“He had run before, he was looked upon as kind of a joke, so nobody took it seriously,” Jacobs said.“Had they taken him seriously, had they felt that he had the slightest chance, I think the [Democratic] congressional campaign committee [DCCC], which does the research on this, would have dug a lot deeper.The DCCC, Jacobs said, has “435 contests across the country” that it needs to monitor. It has to choose where best to invest money and time in opposition research and background checking.“With George Santos being – and I’m sorry, but this is how I’d refer to him – a bit of a clown, they just didn’t give it that kind of attention,” Jacobs said.There was arguably a failure among the media too. The New York Times did great work in breaking the extraordinary story on Santos’s deceit, but it only did so on 19 December 2022 – more than a month after Santos had been voted into office. Santos slipped by other New York-focused newspapers and TV news channels, and slid into office.For almost a year Republicans, who have a slim majority in the House, have been willing to hold their nose regarding Santos. The damning ethics committee report, however, may prove the final nail in the coffin.After the report was published Santos said he would not run for re-election, but he is expected to face a third expulsion vote, likely to come next week. Two-thirds of the House would need to vote to remove Santos, and reports suggest that there are enough members ready to oust him, bringing an end to one of the great political con jobs of our age.“We did it! #NY03 has spoken!” Santos declared after his victory in 2022.“I promised one thing throughout this entire campaign: to be your champion in DC. Thank you for this opportunity to be your voice!”Instead, Santos has spent almost the entirety of his time in DC fending off accusations of criminal behavior and apologizing for a vast array of deceptions and mistruths.In retrospect, that promise to champion the residents of New York’s third congressional district was just another lie, in a political career defined by dishonesty. More

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      ‘It doesn’t look good’: George Santos expects to be expelled from Congress

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      Republican George Santos has said he expects to be expelled from Congress following a scathing report by the House ethics committee that found substantial evidence of lawbreaking by the lying New York representative.In a defiant speech Friday sprinkled with taunts and obscenities aimed at his congressional colleagues, Santos insisted he was “not going anywhere”. But he acknowledged that his time as a member of Congress may soon be coming to an end.“I know I’m going to get expelled when this expulsion resolution goes to the floor,” he said Friday night during a conversation on X Spaces. “I’ve done the math over and over, and it doesn’t look really good.”The comments came one week after the Republican chair of the House ethics committee, Michael Guest, introduced a resolution to expel Santos once the body returns from Thanksgiving break.While Santos has survived two expulsion votes, many of his colleagues who formerly opposed the effort now say they support it, citing the findings of the committee’s months-long investigation into a wide range of alleged misconduct committed by Santos.The report found Santos used campaign funds for personal purposes, such as purchases at luxury retailers and adult content websites, then caused the campaign to file false or incomplete reports.“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” investigators wrote. They noted that he did not cooperate with the report and repeatedly “evaded” straightforward requests for information.On Friday, Santos said he did not want to address the specifics of the report, which he claimed were “slanderous” and “designed to force me out of my seat”. Any defense of his conduct, he said, could be used against him in the ongoing criminal case brought by federal prosecutors.Instead, Santos struck a contemplative tone during the three-hour livestream, tracing his trajectory from Republican “It girl” to “the Mary Magdalene of the United States Congress”. He lashed out at his congressional colleagues, accusing them of misconduct – such as voting while drunk – that he said was far worse than anything he’d done.“They all act like they’re in ivory towers with white pointy hats and they’re untouchable,” he said. “Within the ranks of United States Congress, there’s felons galore, there’s people with all sorts of shystie backgrounds.”His decision not to seek re-election, he said, was not because of external pressure, but due to his frustration with the “sheer arrogance” of his colleagues.“These people need to understand it’s done when I say it’s done, when I want it to be done, not when they want it to be done,” he added. “That’s kind of where we are there.” More

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      George Santos faces new move to expel him from Congress after ethics report

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      The embattled Republican US representative George Santos faced a fresh effort to expel him from Congress on Friday, the day after fellow lawmakers released a report that suggested federal prosecutors should bring additional criminal charges against him.The House of Representatives ethics committee chairman, Michael Guest, introduced the bill targeting the first-term lawmaker from New York, who is now known as much for being a fabulist and a criminal defendant as a politician.Santos has been engulfed in scandal since his 2022 election, following revelations that he lied about much of his past and federal fraud charges.Santos, 35, previously pleaded not guilty to federal charges of laundering campaign funds to pay for personal expenses and charging the credit cards of donors without permission, among other campaign finance violations.Guest, a Republican, released a statement on Friday that said, in part: “The evidence uncovered in the ethics committee’s investigative subcommittee investigation is more than sufficient to warrant punishment and the most appropriate punishment, is expulsion. So, separate from the committee process and my role as chairman, I have filed an expulsion resolution.”The resolution also includes the remark that: “Santos must be held accountable to the highest standards of conduct in order to safeguard the public’s faith in this institution.”The House, which Republicans control by a narrow 221-213 majority, is expected to vote on the expulsion effort when it returns from a two-week recess, so as soon as 28 November. Santos’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Despite the narrow margin in the House, Santos is not likely to get support from the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, who described the report’s findings as “very troubling”, according to a statement from his spokesperson, Raj Shah.“Speaker Johnson encourages all involved to consider the best interests of the institution as this matter is addressed further,” Shah said.Santos’s district, which includes a small slice of New York City and some of its eastern suburbs, is seen as competitive.The bipartisan ethics committee on Thursday released a report into Santos’s alleged campaign finance fraud, which documented a pattern of poor bookkeeping and misuse of campaign funds so pervasive that his election “has called into question the integrity of the House”. Santos said on Thursday he would not run for re-election in 2024, but refused to step down before then.The ethics committee said it referred more “uncharged and unlawful conduct” to the justice department for possible criminal prosecution.The report also detailed extravagant – and possibly illegal – spending of campaign money, including thousands of dollars on Botox treatments, luxury brands such as Hermès, and “smaller purchases” from OnlyFans, an online platform known for sexual content.A motion to expel requires two-thirds support in the House. Last time, 182 Republicans voted against expulsion as they need Santos’s seat to protect their narrow House majority, that result is expected to be less favorable to Santos next time.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      George Santos: the four strands of the Republican congressman’s web of lies

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      George Santos’s extensive lies and financial improprieties have started to catch up to the New York representative, with criminal charges in New York and a newly released House ethics committee report.The congressman built a campaign on a fake résumé, made-up personal stories and a host of complex financial transactions that benefited his personal bank account, the report and other reporting show. His falsehoods ranged from serious to mundane and, at times, bizarre.“Representative Santos’ congressional campaigns were built around his backstory as a successful man of means: a grandson of Holocaust survivors and graduate from Baruch College with a Master’s in Business Administration from New York University, who went on to work at Citi Group and Goldman Sachs, owned multiple properties, and was the beneficiary of a family trust worth millions of dollars left by his mother, who passed years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a result of long-term health effects related to being at one of the towers,” the House ethics report says.“No part of that backstory has been found to be true.”Financial irregularitiesThe House ethics report concluded that Santos used campaign funds and his position to enrich himself. He allegedly claimed to have loaned his campaign money, despite not having done so, then paid himself back. His financial disclosure forms were not accurate, and, the report said, one was “filled with falsehoods designed to make him appear wealthier than he was and furthered the fictional persona he had concocted by falsely reporting more than half a million dollars in loans to the FEC”.He also used campaign funds for personal purposes. Some examples in the House report: purchases at Ferragamo and Hermès, hotel stays in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, ATM withdrawals, paying his personal rent and personal credit card bills, spa services like Botox and “smaller purchases” at OnlyFans, an adult content service.His campaign filed a list of false donors as another way to “artificially inflate” his required financial reports, the House investigation claims. The New York indictment further alleges Santos defrauded donors and charged their credit cards without authorization.The New York criminal charges include allegations that Santos improperly received unemployment insurance despite being employed at a $120,000-per-year job. He received more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic, the charges state.Ironically, Santos touted his financial acumen when running for office, claiming he had an “extensive background in money management/growth” and was “good at it”. This background would help the House during budgeting and serve his constituents well, he said.If they’d known about his inaccurate and false financial statements, the House ethics group said, “his constituents may have had cause to question whether he was actually ‘good at’ money management and growth, or balancing costs and budgets – or, indeed, whether he had any experience in finance at all”.Personal historyThe New York Times first detailed lengthy fictions Santos told about himself, his education and his work experience, finding that his résumé was beyond embellished and outright false. He didn’t receive degrees from the schools he claimed he had. He hadn’t worked jobs he included in his work history.He also claimed to be a landlord who owned 13 properties, though no records of any property ownership have been found for him.His background has also come into question. He claimed his grandparents were Jewish and fled Europe because of persecution during the second world war, but genealogical research by Forward contradicted his story.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSantos also said his mother was at the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks, but records show she was not in the US at that time.Stolen election claimsWhile claiming the 2020 election was stolen isn’t rare for congressional Republicans, Santos also boosted election denialism. In a speech on 5 January 2021, Santos claimed his election was stolen, as was Trump’s. He said he had been ahead in the vote count for days until the results changed, which happened because more ballots were counted.“They did to me what they did to Donald J Trump, they stole my election,” Santos said. He then asked the crowd: “Who here is ready to overturn the election for Donald J Trump?”Dog-related storiesA few stories about pets also plague Santos. He claimed to run a charity that rescued more than 2,500 animals, though the group wasn’t registered as a non-profit and it appears Santos’s claims related to its work were greatly exaggerated.In a strange side story, Santos was also charged with writing bad checks to dog breeders with “puppies” in the memo line, though he had the charge dismissed and his record expunged because he claimed someone stole his checkbook and wrote the checks in his name.In a separate fraud case in Brazil, Santos admitted he stole a man’s checkbook and made purchases with it.Yet another dog-related story claims Santos raised thousands of dollars in a GoFundMe to help a veteran who was homeless take care of his pit bull, then pocketed the money instead of helping the dog. More

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      George Santos will not seek re-election after House details ‘pervasive’ fraud

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      The New York Republican congressman, fabulist and criminal defendant George Santos said he would not seek re-election next year, after the US House ethics committee issued a report detailing “grave and pervasive campaign finance violations and fraudulent activity” and recommended action against him.“I will NOT be seeking re-election for a second term in 2024 as my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time,” Santos said, calling the report “biased” and “a disgusting politicised smear”.But after the report detailed his conduct, moves for a new expulsion resolution began.“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” the committee said.“He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.“He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign – and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported ‘repayments’ of those fictitious loans.“He used his connections to high-value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings. And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.”Santos, 35, was elected last year, as Republicans retook the House in part thanks to a strong performance in New York. But as his résumé unraveled amid increasingly picaresque reports about his life before entering Congress, including questions about his actual name, he admitted “embellishing” his record.Allegations of criminal behaviour emerged. Santos has now pleaded not guilty to 23 federal criminal charges, including laundering funds and defrauding donors.He has survived attempts to expel him from the House, including from members of his own party. Most recently, 31 Democrats voted against making him only the sixth member ever expelled, saying he should not be thrown out without being convicted. Three congressmen were expelled in 1861, for supporting the Confederacy in the civil war. Two have been expelled after being criminally convicted, the last in 2002.Republican leaders, beholden to a narrow majority, had said they would wait for the ethics report.On Thursday, the New York Democrat Dan Goldman said: “More than 10 months after Congressman [Ritchie] Torres and I filed a complaint … the committee has … concluded that George Santos defrauded his donors, filed false Federal Election Commission reports, and repeatedly broke the law in order to fraudulently win his election last November.”Promising to “file a motion to expel Santos from Congress once and for all” after the Thanksgiving break, Goldman said Republicans “no longer have any fictional excuse to protect Santos in order to preserve their narrow majority”.Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who has tried to expel Santos, said Santos should “end this farce and resign immediately. If he refuses, he must be removed from Congress. His conduct is not only unbecoming and embarrassing, it is criminal. He is unfit to serve and should resign today”.Mike Johnson, the new Republican speaker, has said Santos deserves due process. Speaking to Fox News last month, he also said Republicans had “no margin for error”.But according to the Washington Post, citing an anonymous source, Michael Guest of Mississippi, the Republican committee chair, planned to file a motion to expel Santos on Friday, setting up a possible vote after the Thanksgiving holiday next week.Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said she “intend[ed] to vote yes on any privileged expulsion resolution … as the work of the committee is now complete, and I am no longer obligated to maintain neutrality”.Santos said: “If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the ‘ethics committee’, they would have not released this biased report. The committee went to extraordinary lengths to smear myself and my legal team about me not being forthcoming (my legal bills suggest otherwise).“It is a disgusting politicised smear that shows the depths of how low our federal government has sunk. Everyone who participated in this grave miscarriage of justice should all be ashamed of themselves.”Somewhat optimistically, he called for a constitutional convention to formalise action against Joe Biden for supposed crimes. More contritely, Santos said he was “humbled yet again and reminded that I am human and I have flaws”.The report was accompanied by extensive appendices including evidence of apparent malpractice. Santos was shown to have spent donor money on vacations, luxury goods, Botox treatment and the website OnlyFans.One exhibit showed a suggestion by a staffer to place a microphone under a table bearing donuts for reporters, an offering that made headlines earlier this year.The committee said Santos had not cooperated, “continues to flout his statutory financial disclosure obligations and has failed to correct countless errors and omissions in his past [financial disclosure] statements, despite being repeatedly reminded … of his requirement to do so.“The [committee] also found that, despite his attempts to blame others for much of the misconduct, Representative Santos was a knowing and active participant in the wrongdoing. Particularly troubling was Representative Santos’ lack of candour during the investigation itself.”The committee said it would refer its findings to federal prosecutors. Members of Congress, it said, should take any action “appropriate and necessary … to fulfill the House’s constitutional mandate to police the conduct of its members”.Outside Congress, Brett Edkins, of the pressure group Stand Up America, said: “This report has one clear conclusion: Santos is wholly unfit to hold office.“If George Santos had any shame or remorse over deceiving hard-working New Yorkers and his colleagues in Congress, he would resign immediately. Instead, he continues to use every possible lie and excuse to cling to power … since he refuses to step down, House Republicans should grow a backbone and expel him.” More

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      Speaker Johnson says decision coming ‘very soon’ on Biden impeachment – as it happened

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      The Republican speaker of the House Mike Johnson said a decision will be made “very soon” on whether to push forward with the effort to impeach Joe Biden.His predecessor Kevin McCarthy announced the inquiry into the president’s conduct in September, weeks before rightwing Republicans and Democrats removed him from the speaker’s post. The investigation centers on allegations of corruption surrounding the president and his family, particularly his son Hunter Biden.Republicans held a single committee hearing into the matter, which was widely seen as a flop after their witnesses said the investigation had merit but there was still no evidence the president broke the law. Another blow to the effort came when Ken Buck, a conservative Republican who yesterday announced he would not seek re-election in 2024, wrote a column in the Washington Post to argue that impeaching Biden was a bad idea.The investigation was put on pause for weeks while the House grappled with McCarthy’s ouster, and whether and how to continue it is one of the major issues Johnson has to decide. Here’s what the speaker had to say when asked about it at a press conference today:The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, says the party will soon decide on whether to continue its impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, but all indications point to the GOP pressing on. Republicans have been showing off evidence they say proves the president received money from a Chinese company, but the White House says Biden merely received a loan repayment from his brother during the period when he was out of office. Elsewhere in the House, George Santos survived a removal attempt, while Marjorie Taylor Greene is furious at some of her Republican colleagues for refusing to support her resolution to censure progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib, which died on the House floor last night.Here’s what else happened:
      The White House said Biden would veto the House GOP’s proposal to send Israel security assistances while slashing funding to the IRS, and Senate leader Chuck Schumer said he would not bring the bill up for a vote anyway.
      Jamie Raskin, a Democrat who voted against expelling Santos, said he did so over concerns for due process.
      Biden appeared to endorse “a pause” in Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
      The Minnesota supreme court began hearing a case in which voters want to keep Donald Trump off the ballot for his involvement in an insurrection.
      Indiana’s supreme court found that the state’s Republican attorney general, Todd Rokita, “engaged in attorney misconduct” for comments he made about an obstetrician-gynecologist who performed an abortion for a 10-year-old rape survivor.
      Indiana’s supreme court has found that the state’s Republican attorney general, Todd Rokita, “engaged in attorney misconduct” for comments he made to Fox News about a doctor in the state who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old girl who had traveled from Ohio, the Indianapolis Star reports.The incident was one of the first high-profile examples of the fallout from the supreme court decision in June 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade and allow states to ban abortion entirely. In Ohio, a state law immediately went into effect that cut off access to the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, but it was later halted by a court ruling.The Indiana supreme court took issue with Rokita’s description of Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist, as an “abortion activist acting as a doctor – with a history of failing to report” in a Fox News interview in July 2022. In September, the supreme court’s disciplinary commission filed charges against Rokita, saying he violated professional conduct rules, and three of the state’s five supreme court justices agreed in today’s ruling. The court has ordered that Rokita receive a public reprimand and pay a $250 fine, though the two justices who dissented said the punishment was too lenient.Ohio voters will next week decide on a ballot measure to enshrine abortion access in the state’s constitution. Here’s the latest on that, from the Guardian’s Carter Sherman:The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, now says the House GOP’s Israel aid proposal will not be put up for a vote in his chamber:That means that even if the House approves the bill, the Senate will not send it to Joe Biden’s desk – whose administration said he will veto it anyway.Joe Biden would veto a proposal by House Republicans to send military aid to Israel while slashing funding for the IRS tax authority, White House national security council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at today’s briefing.“The president would veto an only Israel bill. I think we’ve made that clear,” Kirby said.Biden last month requested a $106b security measure to help Israel respond to Hamas’s terrorist attack, shore up Ukraine’s defenses against Russia’s invasion and improve border security. Led by speaker Mike Johnson, House Republicans responded by offering to approve Israeli security assistance, while considering funding for Ukraine and the southern border at a later date. Johnson has billed cutting the IRS as a way to pay for the cost of the foreign assistance, but an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office yesterday found it would actually cost the government money because it would lower tax revenues.The White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that a call by Joe Biden on Wednesday evening for a pause in fire by both Israel and Hamas in Gaza “does not mean we are calling for a general ceasefire”.At the daily press briefing from the west wing, Kirby asked rhetorically whether the White House thought a strategic and temporary “pause by both sides” was a good idea to help facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the evacuation of foreign citizens and hostages taken by Hamas from southern Israel on 7 October. Kirby answered himself: “You betcha we do.”He went on to explain why the US is willing to accept Qatar’s assistance with the passage of Americans and hostages out of Gaza, despite the small Arab country’s harboring of Hamas members, including the leader Ismail Haniyeh. Reporters questioned Kirby about this at the daily briefing at the White House moments ago.“Qatar has lines of communication with Hamas that almost no-one else has,” Kirby said.A reporter asked why the US was not asking Qatar to hand over the Hamas chief. Kirby said the US was busy working with Qatar on evacuations “and we are also helping Israel go after Hamas”.Kirby also said the US supports pauses in hostilities, not just a single pause. This is a point he’s made before.Kirby said the White House “has not seen evidence that Hezbollah is ready to go full force”. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening in the latest escalation on Israel’s northern border. The Guardian’s report is here.The Guardian’s global live blog with all the details on the crisis in Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war is here.Antony Blinken has urged Russia to hold to its commitment not to resume nuclear weapons testing, Reuters reports.The secretary of state said the US is deeply concerned by Moscow’s planned action to withdraw its ratification of the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT).“Unfortunately, it represents a significant step in the wrong direction,” Blinken said in a statement released by the state department.The latest development happened this last month, when, the Guardian’s Julian Borger reported, a senior Russian diplomat said that Moscow will revoke its ratification of the CTBT, in a move Washington denounced as jeopardising the “global norm” against nuclear test blasts.Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian representative to the international nuclear agencies in Vienna, was speaking after Vladimir Putin suggested Moscow might resuming testing for the first time in 33 years, signalling another downward turn in relations between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.Ulyanov said on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Russia plans to revoke ratification (which took place in the year 2000) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.“The aim is to be on equal footing with the #US who signed the Treaty, but didn’t ratify it. Revocation doesn’t mean the intention to resume nuclear tests.”The US signed the CTBT in 1996 but the Senate did not ratify the treaty. Successive US administrations however have observed a moratorium on testing nuclear weapons.Any Russian nuclear test would be the first since 1990, the last conducted by the Soviet Union. Renewed testing by a nuclear superpower would undo one of the principal advances in non-proliferation since the cold war.Since the all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin and other Russian officials have frequently drawn attention to the country’s nuclear arsenal, the biggest in the world, in an attempt to deter other countries from helping Ukraine resist the invasion.The US has been able to get 74 Americans with dual citizenship out of Gaza, Joe Biden said at the White House a little earlier, one day after evacuees began crossing into Egypt, Reuters reported.Meanwhile the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, talked to reporters before leaving Washington for a flight to Israel and said the US is determined to prevent escalation of the war there on all fronts, including southern Lebanon, the West Bank or elsewhere in the region.He will be talking to the Israeli government “and partners” in the region, he said.You can follow more details on all the developments in the crisis in Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war in our global live blog, here.This post was updated at 2.56pm ET to reflect a clarifying detail in a later wire piece by Reuters to specify that the 74 dual citizens Biden referred to were Americans with dual citizenship.The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, says the party will soon decide on whether to continue their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, but all indications point to them pressing on. The GOP has been showing off evidence it says proves the president received money from a Chinese company, but the White House says the president merely received a loan repayment from his brother during the period when he was out of office. Elsewhere in the House, George Santos survived a removal attempt, while Marjorie Taylor Greene is furious at some of her Republican colleagues for refusing to support her resolution to censure progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib, which died on the House floor last night.Here’s what else is going on:
      Jamie Raskin, a Democrat who voted against expelling Santos, said he did so over concerns for due process.
      Biden appeared to endorse “a pause” in Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
      The Minnesota supreme court began hearing a case in which voters want to keep Donald Trump off the ballot for his involvement in an insurrection.
      All signs point to the House GOP continuing its impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.Yesterday, the oversight committee, one of three bodies tasked with handling the effort, published an infographic purporting to show how the president received money from a Chinese company that was funneled through his family members:They even have an image of the check:The White House replied by saying that the money was a loan repayment to Biden from his brother, James, and it all took place in the period after Biden concluded his term as vice-president, and before he returned to the White House in 2021.As Ian Sams, the Biden administration spokesman handling the GOP’s inquiries, put it:This post has been corrected to say Biden received the loan repayment from his brother James.The Republican speaker of the House Mike Johnson said a decision will be made “very soon” on whether to push forward with the effort to impeach Joe Biden.His predecessor Kevin McCarthy announced the inquiry into the president’s conduct in September, weeks before rightwing Republicans and Democrats removed him from the speaker’s post. The investigation centers on allegations of corruption surrounding the president and his family, particularly his son Hunter Biden.Republicans held a single committee hearing into the matter, which was widely seen as a flop after their witnesses said the investigation had merit but there was still no evidence the president broke the law. Another blow to the effort came when Ken Buck, a conservative Republican who yesterday announced he would not seek re-election in 2024, wrote a column in the Washington Post to argue that impeaching Biden was a bad idea.The investigation was put on pause for weeks while the House grappled with McCarthy’s ouster, and whether and how to continue it is one of the major issues Johnson has to decide. Here’s what the speaker had to say when asked about it at a press conference today: More

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      George Santos pleads not guilty to new fraud charges

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      US congressman George Santos pleaded not guilty on Friday to revised charges accusing him of several frauds, including making tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on credit cards belonging to some of his campaign donors.The New York Republican appeared at a courthouse on Long Island to enter a plea to the new allegations. He had already pleaded not guilty to other charges, first filed in May, accusing him of lying to Congress about his wealth, applying for and receiving unemployment benefits, even though he had a job, and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses like designer clothing.The court appearance came the morning after some of Santos’ Republican colleagues from New York launched an effort to expel him from Congress.Santos’ attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf and a tentative court date of 9 September 2024 was set.Santos has been free on bail while he awaits trial. He has denied any serious wrongdoing and blamed irregularities in his government regulatory filings on his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, who he claims “went rogue”.Marks in turn has implicated Santos. She told a judge when she recently pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy charge that she had helped Santos trick Republican party officials into supporting his run for office in 2022 through bogus Federal Election Committee filings that made him look richer than he really was, partly by listing an imaginary $500,000 loan that had supposedly come from his personal wealth.Santos has continued to represent his New York district in Congress since he was charged, rejecting calls for his resignation from several fellow New York Republicans.Congressman Anthony D’Esposito, who represents a congressional district next to the one that elected Santos, introduced a resolution on Thursday calling for Santos to be expelled from the House, saying he wasn’t fit to serve his constituents. He was joined by four other New York Republicans, US representatives Nick LaLota, Michael Lawler, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams.Santos posted a cryptic note on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying: “Everything has an end in life,” but later added three points of clarification.“1. I have not cleared out my office. 2. I’m not resigning. 3. I’m entitled to due process and not a predetermined outcome as some are seeking,” he wrote.He has previously said he intends to run for re-election next year, though he could face a lengthy prison term if convicted.During his successful 2022 run for office, Santos was buoyed by an uplifting life story that was later revealed to be rife with fabrications. Among other things, he never worked for the major Wall Street investment firms where he claimed to have been employed, didn’t go to the college where he claimed to have been a star volleyball player, and misled people about having Jewish heritage. More

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      Republicans to introduce resolution to ‘rid the House of George Santos’

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      New York Republicans in the US House on Wednesday moved to expel one of their own: George Santos, the serial fabulist and accused fraudster who faces new charges under a superseding federal indictment.“Today, I’ll be introducing an expulsion resolution to rid the People’s House of fraudster George Santos,” the GOP congressman Anthony D’Esposito said in a post on social media.In response, Santos said he was going nowhere, asking his “fellow Americans” to “stay strong … and trust that the process will unfold as it should”.D’Esposito said the resolution was co-sponsored by Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams – all House Republicans from New York.Santos won his own New York seat last year, in midterm elections that saw the House swing to Republican control in no small part due to success in the Empire state.Santos’s résumé swiftly unraveled, as news outlets reported allegations of wrongdoing beyond the mere “embellishment” to which he admitted, even bringing into question his actual name.Santos remained defiant and party leaders, beholden to a narrow majority, chose not to act against him.That stance endured even after Santos pleaded not guilty in New York in May to multiple charges of fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements.Last week, Santos’s former campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to fraud. Then, on Tuesday, a superseding indictment introduced 10 new charges against Santos relating to allegedly stealing donors’ identities and charging thousands of dollars to their credit cards.Santos now faces 23 criminal charges. As reported by CNN, on Wednesday he told reporters: “I’m pretty much denying every last bit of charges.” He also said he would not resign and still intended to run for re-election.The same morning, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a watchdog group, said Santos was the only member of the current Congress who has not yet filed a mandatory personal financial disclosure. Consequences can include fines and civil or criminal penalties.Expulsions, however, are rare: only five House members have ever been expelled: three for fighting for the Confederacy in the civil war and two after being convicted of crimes including fraud and bribery.Kevin McCarthy, the speaker ejected by hard-liners last week, had resisted attempts to add Santos to that list, instead referring him to the House ethics committee.On Wednesday, as Republicans voted to make Steve Scalise of Louisiana their nominee to succeed McCarthy, Lawler told CNN: “It takes two-thirds [of the House] to expel a member from Congress. There were not two-thirds votes back in May when the initial expulsion resolution was brought, which is why it was referred to the ethics committee.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Myself and my New York colleagues wanted to allow the time for the investigation to be handled. But with the guilty plea of [Santos’s] treasurer, admitting to the very scheme he has been now twice indicted on, with 23 felony counts, he cannot serve.“I’ve said repeatedly since December he needed to resign. I believe that in the absence of his resignation, the time to act is now … it’s clear with his treasurer’s guilty plea what occurred, and as far as I’m concerned he should not be a member of Congress.”Santos issued a statement.Republicans, he said, “must remain steadfast in our commitment to upholding due process and respecting the constitution”, which he called “the cornerstone of our democracy and the guiding light that ensures justice and fairness for all”.Santos added: “An expulsion of myself as a member of Congress before being found guilty from a criminal investigation will set a dangerous precedent. This will do nothing other than erase the voices of the electorate. Let us not succumb to the distractions and let the political games take precedence over the people’s welfare. We must stay focused on the task at hand, working diligently to address the pressing issues that affect the lives of our constituents.D’Esposito said in a statement that Santos’s “many deceptions coupled with the ever-expanding legal case against him further strengthen my long-held belief that he is unfit to serve in Congress”. More