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      House Republicans sidestep effort to expel George Santos from Congress

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      Republicans successfully sidestepped an effort to force them into a vote to expel George Santos, the New York representative, from Congress, which could have narrowed their already slim four-seat majority.The House voted along party lines, 221-204, to refer a resolution to expel the congressman to the House ethics committee, with Santos himself joining his Republican colleagues in voting to do so.The freshman congressman has been charged with embezzling money from his campaign, falsely receiving unemployment funds and lying to Congress about his finances. He has denied the charges and has pleaded not guilty.Robert Garcia, a California Democratic representative, introduced a resolution in February to expel Santos, something the House has only done twice in recent decades. He sought to force a vote on that resolution under a process that left three options for Republicans: a vote on the resolution, a move to table or a referral to committee.Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, chose the third option, much to the chagrin of Democrats who described it as a “complete copout”. They noted that the ethics panel is already investigating Santos and that it was time for Republican House members who have called for Santos to resign to back their words with action.“It is simply an effort for the Republicans to avoid having to take an up-or-down vote on whether or not George Santos belongs here,” said Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat.Democrats appealed to Republican lawmakers from New York for support. Many have been highly critical of Santos, and face the prospect of Democrats trying to link them to Santos in next year’s general election.“I say to you, if you vote for this motion to refer it to the ethics committee, you are complicit in George Santos’ fraud and you are voting to make sure that he continues to be a member of Congress,” Goldman said.Anthony D’Esposito, a New York Republican, made the motion to refer the expulsion resolution to the ethics panel. He said he was personally in favor of Santos being expelled, but added that “regrettably”, there were not enough votes to meet the two-thirds threshold necessary.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I firmly believe this is the quickest way of ridding the House of Representatives of this scourge on government,” D’Esposito said.Republican leaders have said Santos deserves to have his day in court before Congress weighs in. The position Republican leaders have staked out generally follows the precedent that Congress has set in similar criminal cases over the years. The House has expelled just two members in recent decades, and both votes occurred after the lawmaker had been convicted on federal charges.The Department of Justice often asks the ethics panel to pause its investigations when a member of Congress has been indicted, but there has been no announcement of that kind from the committee regarding Santos. More

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      George Santos: Democrats move to expel indicted Republican from Congress

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      Democrats moved on Tuesday to expel George Santos from Congress.The New York Republican won election in November last year but his résumé has been shown to be largely made up and his campaign finances and past behaviour, some allegedly criminal, have been scrutinised in tremendous detail.Last week, federal prosecutors indicted Santos on multiple counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and lying to Congress. Appearing in court on Long Island, he pleaded not guilty and claimed to be the victim of a political witch hunt.Now, House Democrats have triggered a political manoeuvre designed to force Republicans to either break with Santos or publicly vote to defend him.To succeed, a privileged resolution introduced by Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, must attract two-thirds support in the House. The resolution could come to a vote within two days.On Tuesday, Garcia told reporters: “The Republicans in the House are actually going to have to go on record and make a decision about if they’re actually going to stand for truth and accountability, or if they’re going to stand with someone that’s clearly a liar.”Some Republicans have said Santos should quit but as yet party leaders have not broken with him, saying he has a right to seek acquittal while representing his district.Republicans control the House by just five seats – and Democrats would be favoured to win Santos’s seat should it fall vacant. In January, amid a far-right rebellion, Santos supported Kevin McCarthy through 15 votes for speaker.Garcia also said Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic minority leader, was “involved” in the process.McCarthy told reporters he would talk to Jeffries about referring the resolution to the House ethics committee, which he hoped would “move rapidly” despite rarely doing so or imposing heavy punishments.Only five members of the House have ever been expelled. Three were kicked out for fighting for the Confederacy in the civil war. Two were expelled after being convicted of crimes.The last, James Traficant of Ohio, was expelled in 2002. Like Santos, Traficant cut a somewhat picaresque path through the halls of power.Reporting his death in 2014, the New York Times said Traficant was known for his “colorful personality and wardrobe, his legislative theatrics and his wild mop of hair.“So it was something of a surprise when the hair turned out to be fake, a fact that was made clear when he had to remove his toupée during booking after his arrest on bribery and racketeering charges.”Traficant did not let his expulsion stop him running for re-election, as an independent and from federal custody in Pennsylvania. Though unsuccessful, he received more than 28,000 votes.Santos has announced a run for re-election. McCarthy has said he does not support such a move.On Tuesday, Garcia told MSNBC McCarthy had “lost all control of his caucus. He needs Santos for key votes on the on the deficit, on the budget, and so … he’s been working with literally a liar and a huge fraudster in the Congress.“So now McCarthy’s going to actually have to make a choice, if he will support George Santos … or if he’s actually going to listen to the American people.“And so we’re gonna continue to push this as best possible. We think it’s absolutely the right approach. And we’ve given plenty of time to George Santos to resign. We’ve been calling for his resignation for months and for months. It’s time for him to do the right thing.” More

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      George Santos, liar and fantasist, fits the Republican party just fine | Moira Donegan

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      When news broke on Tuesday afternoon that the justice department was indicting George Santos – the disgraced Republican Long Island congressman whose election to the House of Representatives in 2022 was enabled by a series of lies about his background and elaborate, inventive frauds – it was at first hard to think of just what he was being indicted for. George Santos, after all, is alleged to have been so prolifically criminal in his 34 years that one imagines law enforcement would have a hard time narrowing things down.Would Santos be charged over the fake pet charity he seems to have invented, collecting money for things like surgery for the beloved dog of a veteran, which was never turned over to the animal’s owner? Or would he face charges stemming from his lies about his professional background, like the claim he made during his most recent congressional campaign, wholly false, that he used to work for Goldman Sachs, or his bizarre story, also a fabrication, about having been a college volleyball star?Would it be something like the check fraud he allegedly committed in Brazil as a teenager, or like the bad check he supposedly wrote to, of all people, a set of Amish dog breeders in Pennsylvania?What George Santos has been indicted for is not one of his funnier or more colorful scandals, but something extremely typical in Washington: lying about money. On Wednesday, prosecutors at a federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York, charged Santos with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, two counts of making false statements to the House of Representatives, and one count of theft of public funds. He pleaded not guilty, and was released on a half-million dollar bond.The indictment against Santos is sprawling and complicated, reflecting the expansiveness of the congressman’s alleged frauds, but the allegations that federal prosecutors make fall essentially into three columns: first, they charge that Santos set up a fraudulent LLC, where he directed donors to give money that he claimed would be spent on his political campaign. Instead, he used the funds to make car payments, pay off his debts, and notably, to buy expensive clothes.Second, the Department of Justice charges that Santos defrauded the government when he applied for and received special Covid unemployment benefits in New York, despite drawing a salary of approximately $120,000 from an investment firm in Florida. (That firm, Harbor City Capital, is itself alleged to be a “classic Ponzi scheme”.)And third, the indictment claims that Santos falsified financial disclosure forms related to his congressional seat, falsely certifying to Congress that he drew a $750,000 salary and between $1m and $5m in dividends, and had between $100,000 and $250,000 in a checking account and between $1m and $5m in savings. It was often remarked upon with wonder, and not a small amount of alarm, that Santos, who had not long before his election to Congress struggled to pay rent and faced eviction, was suddenly in possession of so much income and such apparent good luck. How, exactly, had Santos come across all that money? Now, a federal indictment alleges that he simply didn’t: he made it up, like so many college volleyball championships.Maybe it’s for the best that Santos is being charged, ultimately, for the most typically white-collar of his crimes: it will help dispel the myth that he is not a typical Republican. Since the revelation of Santos’s seemingly bottomless dishonesty and malfeasance, a number of House Republicans have tried to distance themselves from the congressman. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina congresswoman trying to style herself as a moderate, called for his resignation; so did Max Milner, of Ohio, over Santos’s false claims of Jewish heritage and having lost relatives in the Holocaust. Reportedly, Senator Mitt Romney encountered Santos at the State of the Union address and told him, with his signature air of the put-upon patrician: “You don’t belong here.”But doesn’t George Santos belong in the modern Republican party? After all, how different, really, is Santos’s alleged scheme to defraud donors for his own enrichment from Donald Trump’s insistence, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, that his supports should donate to him to fight the “election fraud” that didn’t exist? How different is Santos’s use of his congressional campaign to raise funds for fancy clothes from Clarence Thomas’s use of his seat on the supreme court to get fancy vacations on Harlan Crow’s dime? How different is George Santos’s alleged falsification of his financial records to Congress from the conspicuous omissions on the financial disclosure forms required of justices of the supreme court?Even where the technicalities of the malfeasance are different, the Republican spirit is the same, in everyone from George Santos to Clarence Thomas to Donald Trump: the use of public office for personal enrichment, the contempt for the public interest, the indignant declarations that any efforts to hold them accountable are partisan, illegitimate and conducted in bad faith. Outside the federal courthouse on Wednesday, George Santos channeled Trump, calling the indictment against him a “witch-hunt”. I’d say he fits in with the Republican party just fine.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      George Santos signs deal to avoid prosecution over stolen checks in Brazil

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      A day after New York representative George Santos pleaded not guilty to charges in the US, he signed an agreement Thursday with public prosecutors in Brazil to avoid prosecution for forging two stolen checks in 2008.“What would have been the start of a case was ended today,” Santos’ lawyer in Brazil, Jonymar Vasconcelos, told the Associated Press in a text message. “As such, my client is no longer the subject of any case in Brazil.”Asked about the details of the non-prosecution agreement, Vasconcelos demurred, citing the fact the case proceeded under seal. The public prosecutors’ office of Rio de Janeiro state also declined to comment.Court records in Brazil, first uncovered by the New York Times, show Santos was the subject of a criminal charge for using two stolen checks to buy items at a shop in the city of Niteroi, including a pair of sneakers that he gifted to a friend. At the time, Santos would have been 19. The purchase totaled 2,144 Brazilian reais, then equal to about $1,350, according to the charge prosecutors filed in 2011.That followed an investigation opened in 2008 and Santos’ signed confession, in which he admitted to having stolen the checkbook of his mother’s former employer from her purse and making purchases, including in the store, and recognizing the fraudulent checks as those he had signed, according to the court documents reviewed by the AP.A judge accepted the charges against Santos in 2011, but subsequent subpoenas for him to appear personally or present a written defense went unanswered and, with authorities repeatedly unable to determine his whereabouts, the case was suspended in 2013. That changed after he won a US congressional seat and the subsequent flurry of media attention focused on his dubious credentials. Rio state prosecutors then petitioned to reopen the case.According to the terms of the non-prosecution agreement, Santos will pay 24,000 reais (about $5,000), with the majority going to the shopkeeper who received the bad checks and the remainder to charities, newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported, without saying how it obtained the information. Santos attended the meeting virtually, the paper reported.Resolution of the case removes the possibility Santos might have been obliged to travel to another country to resolve pending charges; that could have been been complicated after he was forced to surrender his passport after recent charges in the US.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Wednesday in New York, Santos pleaded not guilty to charges he stole from his campaign and lied to Congress about being a millionaire, while collecting unemployment benefits he didn’t deserve. More

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      ‘We’re living in madness’: George Santos’s constituents on federal charges

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      “It’s like we’re living in madness,” said Danielle Gentile at a Brazilian restaurant in Long Island’s Westbury, one of a cluster of towns close to the eastern border of the fabulist Republican congressman George Santos’s third congressional district.“I know politicians lie all the time, but you’ve got to at least try to keep up,” Gentile added. “But what’s he going to say? I didn’t mean to lie? He’s like the Brian Williams of politics.”The hostess’s comments came just hours after Santos was hit with 13 criminal counts in federal court. The 34-year-old politician, flanked by just one defense lawyer, was pitted against five attorneys wielding the power of the government.But Santos did not appear overly fazed, later boasting that he had surrendered earlier in the day to authorities so that his entrance to the imposing criminal justice complex would not happen “under the noses” of the media.He pleaded not guilty to charges alleging financial fraud at the center of a political campaign built on a résumé touting his personal wealth and business success that began to unravel six weeks after he won office.Outside the court, Santos appeared almost to relish the attention of a large number of media that gathered. He refused to answer questions until a podium was produced, and then called the investigation and the charges that followed a “witch-hunt”. He was asked if he would resign (he wouldn’t), and if he would campaign for re-election next year (he would).But within the third congressional district, a typically Democratic suburban district north-east of New York City, the first-generation Brazilian American, who ran as a member of a “new generation of Republican leadership”, is received as a deeply oddball figure.The first five people approached by the Guardian – in a diner and a burger joint – professed to be unfamiliar with Santos or his alleged crimes. “Never heard of him, I’m not into politics,” said one woman crossing the street.A sixth approach – to Jerry Spitzkoff, a gas station manager – elicited a response. “He’s a liar and a thief, and he should go to prison,” Spitzkoff, 70, said. “But I blame both parties and the media. No one looked into him. He’s not the first politician to lie, but this is a beauty: he lied about everything.”Santos’s fabrications were the stuff of a committed fantasist. He had not, in fact, worked at Citigroup or Goldman Sachs, graduated from a New York college, or run a pet rescue charity, and his mother had not been in the 9/11 attacks as he claimed. Nor had he been a producer on the Broadway Spider-Man musical. He had, though, perhaps been a Brazilian drag queen called Kitara Ravache.Not surprisingly, Santos’s tall tales made him a laughingstock and fodder for late-night comics.Life-story embellishments do not produce criminal charges, but material wrongdoing can. On Wednesday, the government charged Santos with crimes ranging from duping donors and stealing campaign funds to lying to Congress and illegally collecting unemployment benefits. He was released on a $500,000 bond about five hours after he surrendered to authorities.“It’s absolutely crazy, but for whatever reason George was able to get through all the traditional checkpoints,” said Joshua Sauberman, who ran for Congress in the district on a Democratic ticket in 2018. “There was no vetting and you had the Democratic candidate saying she couldn’t afford it because they needed to run TV ads. Voters did not have the proper information.”Many in his district maintained a broader distaste for politics of which Santos was a symptom, but not the cause of a political system that has produced two roughly octogenarian presidential frontrunners for 2024.“I wouldn’t trust one word from a politician ever again,” said a tow-truck driver who said his name didn’t matter because he had no intention of getting involved in the business of politics. “I think their job has become to demoralize us. If you listen to them, you just be upset. They bring you down.”But others said Santos’s alleged dishonesty did matter and he would be held accountable for it.“They took his word for it and didn’t check him out because they didn’t think he’d win,” said Rafael Joseph at a restaurant in Mineola. “But nobody knows who he is, and I think they’re going to get rid of him.”On Wednesday evening, the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, said he would not support Santos in his re-election bid. “No, I’m not going to support him,” he told CNN. “I think he has other things to focus on in his life other than running for re-election.”But Santos said he was determined to fight. “I appreciate everyone’s patience with my presence in Congress and allowing this process to play out. I believe in innocence until proven guilty, and I have my right to prove my innocence just as the government has a right to try to find me guilty.”However this plays out in the coming days, there was little question that voter anger lies with the system, and not necessarily Santos, whom one local voter described as self-starring in a fictitious remake of the 2022 con artist film Catch Me If You Can.Meanwhile, back at the Brazilian restaurant, Gentile was beginning to seat diners.“He’s a little crazy,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with wearing drag but it seems a little hypocritical to wear it and support a party that opposes it. Everything about him is lie. At least be who you are.” More

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      Santos claims ‘witch-hunt’ after facing fraud charges in New York court – video

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      The Republican congressman George Santos, exposed for lying extensively about his background and campaign finance disclosures, emerged from the federal courthouse in Long Island using Donald Trump-like rhetoric to attack the criminal case against him as a conspiracy to damage him politically. After pleading not guilty to charges of fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements, Santos said he was ‘going to fight the witch-hunt’. ‘I am going to take care of clearing my name, and I look forward to doing that,’ he said More

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      US Senator Dianne Feinstein returns to duty after months-long absence – as it happened

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      From 3h agoPresident Joe Biden has begun his address in New York’s Hudson Valley to make his public appeal the country’s debt limit fight.“They’re literally holding the economy hostage,” Biden told a crowd of supporters about MAGA Republican lawmakers.“It makes huge cuts to important programs for millions of working middle-class Americans, programs they count on. According to estimates, the Republican bill would put 21 million people at risk of losing Medicaid,” Biden said about the Republican debt limit bill.“It’s not right,” added Biden, as he vowed to protect Medicaid and Social Security programs.It is slightly past 4pm in Washington DC. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      Senator Dianne Feinstein has issued a statement following her return to Washington DC after a months-long absence, saying that she is ready to resume her Senate duties as she recovers from shingles. “Even though I’ve made significant progress and was able to return to Washington, I’m still experiencing some side effects from the shingles virus. My doctors have advised me to work a lighter schedule as I return to the Senate. I’m hopeful those issues will subside as I continue to recover,” she said.
      Joe Biden addressed New York’s Hudson Valley in his public appeal the country’s debt limit fight. “They’re literally holding the economy hostage,” Biden told a crowd of supporters about MAGA Republican lawmakers. “It makes huge cuts to important programs for millions of working middle-class Americans, programs they count on. According to estimates, the Republican bill would put 21 million people at risk of losing Medicaid,” Biden said about the Republican debt limit bill.
      George Santos has been arrested on federal criminal charges. Santos, who turned himself into a federal courthouse in New York, has been charged with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. He has maintained his innocence and said he will fight the charges.
      A group of independent advisors to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended that the birth control pill can be sold without requiring a prescription. The advisors said that the benefits of selling the birth control pill over the counter outweighed the risks. The pill in question is HRA Pharma’s Opill, also known generically as norgestrel, which was approved by the FDA as a prescription drug in 1973.
      CNN, the leading 24-hour news network, will host Donald Trump for a “town hall” forum as if he were a regular candidate leading the race for the nomination of a regular party. The forum comes just one day after Trump was found liable for $5m in damages for sexually assaulting and defaming the journalist E Jean Carroll.
      The former House January 6 committee member Liz Cheney released an attack ad against Donald Trump in New Hampshire on the eve of his appearance there in a controversial CNN town hall. “There has never been a greater dereliction of duty by any president,” Cheney warns in the ad, which focuses on Trump’s incitement of the deadly Capitol attack on 6 January 2021. “Donald Trump has proven he is unfit for office. Donald Trump is a risk America can never take again,” the ad said.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Following Santos’s appearance at court earlier today where he faced 13 counts of federal criminal charges, Santos told reporters that he is headed back to Washington DC and that he believes he is innocent.
      “I have to go back and vote. Tomorrow we have one of the most consequential votes in this congress which is the border bill and I’m very looking forward to vote on it.”
      He went on to add:
      “I think this is about innocence until proven guilty… I have my rights to fight to prove my innocence as the government has the right to try and find me guilty… I do my best to be a positive person, life is already as bad as it gets… I believe I’m innocent.”
      Video has emerged of Dianne Feinstein being escorted onto the Senate floor by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer. Feinstein was sitting in a wheelchair as she was being escorted by Schumer.Feinstein’s office saying that she is currently experiencing vision/balance impairments and at times will need a wheelchair to get around the Capitol, ABC7 reporter Liz Kreutz reports.Senator Dianne Feinstein has issued a statement following her return to Washington DC after a months-long absence, saying that she is ready to resume her Senate duties as she recovers from shingles.
      “I have returned to Washington and am prepared to resume my duties in the Senate… The Senate faces many important issues, but the most pressing is to ensure our government doesn’t default on its financial obligations. I also look forward to resuming my work on the judiciary committee considering the president’s judicial nominees.
      Even though I’ve made significant progress and was able to return to Washington, I’m still experiencing some side effects from the shingles virus. My doctors have advised me to work a lighter schedule as I return to the Senate. I’m hopeful those issues will subside as I continue to recover.”
      Feinstein’s ailing health has led to a handful of lawmakers to demand her resignation.In March, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that Feinstein should retire as her absence has affected Democrats’ efforts to fill federal courts with liberal judges.A month earlier, Feinstein announced that she will not be seeking reelection in 2024.George Santos has pleaded not guilty to his charges, the eastern district court of New York announced.Santos, who faces a total of 13 charges including wire fraud, was released on $500,000 bond around five hours after he surrendered himself to federal authorities.Santos spoke only a few words in court, answering “yes, ma’am” to the judge presiding over the 15-minute hearing, the Associated Press reports.His lawyer, Joseph Murray, said Santos plans on continuing his reelection campaign and asked the judge for permission to travel freely, though he did surrender his passport.“We’re bringing jobs back all across America. There is no reason to put all this at risk, to threaten a recession, to…undermine America’s standing in the world,” said Biden following a lengthy address about America’s economic progress and the need to maintain it.
      “Republican threats are dangerous and they make no sense… We have to keep going and finish the job… It’s never a good bet to bet against America,” said Biden as he concluded his speech.
      “Would your rather cut…$30 billion from big oil or cut $30 billion from veterans? Would you rather cut big pharma or cut healthcare for Americans? These are real world choices,” urged Biden.He went on to talk about the need to fund the country’s infrastructure, saying, “Under my predecessor’s infrastructure…you became a punchline. Under my watch, we’re making infrastructure…a headline.”
      “How can we be the most prosperous economy in the world without having the greatest infrastructure in the world?” Biden continued.
      “I don’t have anything against Wall Street or hedge fund executives but just pay your taxes, man,” said Biden as he proceeded to talk about tax cuts.
      “I’m not talking about 70% tax rates. At least pay something… We got past the corporate minimum tax of 15%…and it paid for everything we did…
      No billionaires should be paying a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter,” added Biden.
      He went on to explain that his budget has some of the “strongest anti-fraud proposals ever.
      “I think we should have inspector generals again looking at what we’re spending, where it’s gone and where it’s going to go,” said Biden.
      “The last guy who served in this offie for four years increased the total national debt by 40% in just four years,” Biden said about his predecessor Donald Trump.
      “The Trump tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and large corporations,” he added.
      “I made it clear. America is not a deadbeat nation. We pay our bills… If we default on our debt, the whole world is in trouble,” said Biden, adding that he was pleased but not surprised by Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell’s comment in which he said that the US is not going to default on its debt and that it never has.
      “This is not your father’s Republican party. Here’s what happens if MAGA Republicans get their way. America default on our debt, higher interest rates for credit cards, car loans, mortgages, payments for social security… Our economy would fall into recession and our international reputation will be damaged in the extreme,” warned Biden.
      President Joe Biden has begun his address in New York’s Hudson Valley to make his public appeal the country’s debt limit fight.“They’re literally holding the economy hostage,” Biden told a crowd of supporters about MAGA Republican lawmakers.“It makes huge cuts to important programs for millions of working middle-class Americans, programs they count on. According to estimates, the Republican bill would put 21 million people at risk of losing Medicaid,” Biden said about the Republican debt limit bill.“It’s not right,” added Biden, as he vowed to protect Medicaid and Social Security programs.A group of independent advisors to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended that the birth control pill can be sold without requiring a prescription.The advisors said that the benefits of selling the birth control pill over the counter outweighed the risks.The pill in question is HRA Pharma’s Opill, also known generically as norgestrel, which was approved by the FDA as a prescription drug in 1973.The FDA is expected to issue its final decision this summer on HRA Pharma’s application for over-the-counter sales of its pill.Should it be approved, women across the country will be able to purchase the pill without needing to visit a doctor for a prescription.
      “The FDA has been put in a very difficult position of trying to determine whether it is likely that women will use this product safely and effectively at the nonprescription setting,” Karen Murry, deputy director of the FDA office of nonprescription drugs, said on Wednesday, the New York Times reported.
      “We can’t just approve it based on the experience in the prescription setting without the applicant doing adequate studies to look at what’s likely to happen in the nonprescription setting… But I wanted to again emphasize that FDA does realize how very important women’s health is and how important it is to try to increase access to effective contraception for US women,” she added.
      Our columnist Siva Vaidhyanathan is not a fan of CNN’s decision to host Donald Trump in New Hampshire this evening…CNN, the leading 24-hour news network, will host Donald Trump for a “town hall” forum as if he were a regular candidate leading the race for the nomination of a regular party.The forum comes just one day after Trump was found liable for $5m in damages for sexually assaulting and defaming the journalist E Jean Carroll.Of course, CNN will probably do the same for the three or four others who are likely to challenge him for the Republican nomination (so far, the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson are the only non-crank candidates).A few more might jump in, but the more challenges Trump faces, the more likely he will lock up the nomination on the first primary day, rather than a month later.Putting a microphone and three cameras on Trump as if he were just another candidate and not an instigator of the violent disruption of American democracy and leader of a conspiracy to overthrow the results of a national election is the height of journalistic irresponsibility.Read on…There will be a ghost at the feast – sort of – in New Hampshire later, after the former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney took out an ad attacking Trump over his incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress which will only play on CNN before and during tonight’s town hall event. Here’s more…The former House January 6 committee member Liz Cheney released an attack ad against Donald Trump in New Hampshire on the eve of his appearance there in a controversial CNN town hall.“There has never been a greater dereliction of duty by any president,” Cheney warns in the ad, which focuses on Trump’s incitement of the deadly Capitol attack on 6 January 2021.“Donald Trump has proven he is unfit for office. Donald Trump is a risk America can never take again.”Trump incited the attack by his supporters in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Nine deaths have been linked to it. Thousands of arrests have been made and hundreds of convictions secured – some for seditious conspiracy.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted by Senate Republicans.Cheney, the daughter of the former congressman, defense secretary and vice-president Dick Cheney, was vice-chair of the House committee which investigated the Capitol attack and, regarding Trump, made criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.Cheney lost her Wyoming seat to a Trump-backed challenger last year.Now working on a book – entitled Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning – she has not counted out running for the Republican nomination against Trump, or running for president as an independent conservative.Read on… More

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      New York congressman George Santos charged by federal prosecutors

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