The Week's GOP

All hail Trump The Glorious

Papa Got A Brand New Crush

TX-30

Jasmine Crockett is fire.

Today's Biden-ing

Some dogs are just straight up assholes. They bark all day and all night, and they go charging and snapping and snarling at anyone who even looks like he might step foot in their yard.

They're not just a major nuisance - they're a legit threat to the whole neighborhood.

Pointing out the fact that the dogs are a problem is important, but the people who own those dogs are the real problem.

So you make the owners of the dogs the issue - the subject of the debate. Most people will be able to see that while the dogs are bad, the owners of those dogs are either allowing the problem to persist, or they're encouraging the asshole behavior for very possibly nefarious purposes.

"Get your fuckin' dogs under control, Kevin." --Joe Biden

Opinion

Biden has a theory of MAGA that just might be working

Now that Congress has passed the debt limit deal, explanations for President Biden’s success in negotiating the outcome are abounding. Among them: Biden drew on his long experience in Washington to achieve bipartisan compromise; he avoided claiming a win so Republicans could support it; he didn’t get distracted by the media’s second-guessing.

Here’s another way to understand this unexpected outcome: Biden is operating from a largely unappreciated theory of MAGA, and in some ways, it’s working.

Passage of the deal, which averts default and economic calamity, was decisively bipartisan. The Senate approved it Thursday night with 17 Republicans backing it, after it passed the House with support from more than two-thirds of House Republicans.

This happened even though the deal’s spending cuts are not close to what Republicans sought. Yes, the outcome legitimizes the debt limit as a tool of extortion and imposes cruel new work requirements on many food stamp recipients. But Republicans didn’t use this showdown to crash or cripple the economy, as some observers (including me) worried they might.

Biden’s theory of MAGA helps explain this outcome. Biden ran in 2020 on the idea that the country faced an existential threat from the far right, highlighting white supremacy, political violence and President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attacks on democracy. This year’s reelection launch highlighted the assault on the Capitol and cast “MAGA extremists” as a threat to American “freedom.”

However, in promising to restore “the soul of the nation” in the face of this threat, Biden has continually distinguished between MAGA Republicans and more conventional ones. This approach has been criticized by those of us who see much of the GOP as extreme and dangerous — after all, many elected Republicans helped whitewash Trump’s insurrection — and think Biden’s characterization of non-MAGA Republicans plays down that broader threat.

But Biden’s reading served him well in the debt limit standoff. Contrary to much criticism, Bidenworld believes that refusing to negotiate at the outset was key: It forced Republicans to offer their own budget, which created an opening to attack the savage spending cuts in it.

Notably, Biden and other Democrats relentlessly characterized those cuts as destructive and dangerous in the MAGA vein. Bidenworld did believe that some MAGA Republicans were willing to default and force global economic cataclysm to harm the president’s reelection, a senior Biden adviser tells me, but also that many non-MAGA Republicans ultimately could be induced not to go that far.

That seems to be what happened. As political scientist Jonathan Bernstein points out, the outcome falsified the prediction that the GOP as a party would use that leverage to inflict maximum chaos. Meanwhile, the cuts themselves won’t be nearly as damaging to the economy as the ones in the 2011 standoff, as the New York Times’s Paul Krugman explains.

This illuminates Bidenworld’s broader theory of the MAGA GOP: The way to defeat the MAGA threat to the country is to marginalize it within the GOP coalition — that is, to contain it.

“He has never hesitated to call out the extreme MAGA wing of the Republican Party,” Kate Bedingfield, a senior adviser to the 2020 Biden campaign and to the White House through February, told me. “But he gives Republican voters and legislators who reject that wing of the party a place to go.”

Something similar happened in the 2022 elections. Biden and Democrats in tough races tried to strike a balance between reaching out to Republican voters and GOP-leaning independents while casting MAGA extremism as a clear and present danger to the country. It worked: Many prominent MAGA senatorial and gubernatorial candidates lost, partly because many Republican voters decided to vote Democratic.

The debt limit outcome was far from a uniform victory: Most of the GOP did engage in hostage-taking and debt limit extortion throughout much of the process, legitimizing extreme tactics before balking at going all the way.

Despite all this, the fact that so many non-MAGA Republicans voted for the deal — and that Democrats and Republicans alike are celebrating this as a bipartisan success — could mean the party as a whole isn’t broadly perceived as extreme and hostage to MAGA heading into 2024.

“The downside of the deal is that it gives vulnerable House Republicans separation from their MAGA counterparts,” Dan Sena, a senior Democratic operative during the 2018 Democratic House takeover, told me. “That could be a challenge.”

There is a tension in Biden’s approach to the GOP. His initial rationale for running was that the GOP is largely hostage to an extremism that foundationally threatens the American experiment. His reelection case is that he has begun to defuse that threat and another term will complete that task.

Yet Biden also plainly believes that conducting the nation’s business on a bipartisan basis is inherently stabilizing. That sometimes requires treating the opposition — or a large swath of it — as a mostly conventional political party, which risks mitigating perceptions of the threat it poses.

In the debt limit outcome, that tension proved far more navigable than many, including me, expected. How this tension will play out in 2024 is hard to predict, but for now, the Biden theory of MAGA has mostly been vindicated.

Stop underestimating Joe Biden.

An Upset

When the big horse gets his ass handed to him, we call it an upset - cuz once upon a time there was a dinky little racehorse named Upset who is the only horse ever to beat the big-n-bad Man O' War.

While the winner in the campaign for Mayor is a registered Independent, there's plenty to say about voters not wanting to go with some generic Democrat, but way more definitely wanting to vote against another fuckwit Republican.

Mr Mobolade beat the Republican by 15 points.

Political newcomer Yemi Mobolade wins Colorado Springs mayor’s race

In what can only be described as a stunning turn of events, political veteran and former Secretary of State Wayne Williams conceded the Colorado Springs mayoral runoff to political newcomer and businessman Yemi Mobolade not long after the polls closed Tuesday night.

The concession came shortly after the first results were posted. That stood in stark contrast to the spring general election, where it took days to discern the top two vote-getters.

“Wow,” said Mobolade as he took the stage with his family at the COS City Hub community center where his watch party was held. “This is our win. We are Colorado Springs. It’s a new day in our beloved city.”

As of 9:40 p.m., when the final vote count of the evening was released, unofficial results showed Mobolade leading in the race for Colorado Springs mayor with 57.5 percent of the vote to Williams' 42.5 percent. Counting is expected to resume Wednesday morning.

"I think folks were, as indicated by their vote, were looking for something new as opposed to the tried and proven track record and that's certainly their right to make that decision," Williams told KRCC at The Pinery event venue where his watch party was held. "Being the top two out of 12 sounds better than being second."

The Williams campaign noted that while 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl won El Paso County, she lost Colorado Springs.

"It's clear Colorado Springs is less conservative than it used to be. When I was chairman here (of the El Paso County GOP) we had no Democratic state reps. Now we have three," Williams said. "So there are significant changes that have taken place and I congratulate Yemi on an excellent campaign."

When asked if Tuesday night's results signal a larger change in the political alignment in Colorado Springs, Mobolade said, “I don't know, I can't speak to that. But what I can speak to is the hunger in our city at this moment in time. The hunger is not one that is partisan, as clearly evident in this room. We have Democrats, Republicans and Independents all gathered. The hunger is for vision that transcends political party lines and the tiredness and the frustration in our city and in our nation is around (the) partisan divide and the fighting that happens and people are just ready for a new type of leadership that puts our quality of life ahead of party politics.”

He also noted the city charter calls for the mayor to be non-partisan, “I'm glad that I could restore the spirit of the law that we should be abiding by.”

Mobolade, who is a naturalized citizen and identifies as a political independent, is the co-founder of two local coffee shops and has also founded a church.

In the public sector, Mobolade has been an advocate for small businesses with the city. He has worked with the Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corp. Mobolade said he sees his new role as an opportunity to "restore public trust in local government."

Mobolade called his preparation for the runoff his “longest job interview” to prove to the community that he is the leader for the job.

In a survey sent out by KRCC, Mobolade said he would prioritize safety, growth, and the economy.

While Williams gained the endorsement of John Suthers, the outgoing mayor, as well as more than half the current council, Mobolade was able to secure the endorsement of third-place finisher Sallie Clark.

In the general election last month, Mobolade garnered the most votes among the dozen candidates, separating himself from Williams by more than 11,000 votes.

Williams' campaign said he started the runoff down 25 points.

Williams said all of the GOP attacks and infighting also didn't help.

"So you had a number of Republican candidates beating up on each other in the initial round," Williams noted. "I think that carried through."

Though some Republicans disagreed with Williams in the past, the GOP did coalesce around him during the runoff. State Party Chair Dave Williams showed his support as well as El Paso County GOP Chair Vickie Tonkins.

Williams is a familiar name in El Paso County’s Republican circles and Colorado politics. He was elected Secretary of State in 2014, after serving as a county commissioner and then the county clerk. He’s currently an at-large city councilman for Colorado Springs.

Republican and former state Rep. Lois Landgraf, a Williams ally, was not thrilled with the result.

"I just hope people don't fall for the running the city on love," Landgraf said. "Because it takes a lot more than that to be able to negotiate with two sides, both sides of issues."

Don Kidd, a businessman and long-time resident who spent 27 years in the Air Force, is worried to see the less conservative candidate win.

"I see nice commercials, but I don't see a whole lot more," Kidd said. "I'm concerned about progressive policies if (Mobolade) brings those to the city. I'm concerned what they might do to Colorado Springs. We've got a large, large military presence. And I think we are right now very favored and have been for many, many years in the defense department. I'm afraid that that might turn just like the rest of Colorado."

At his Tuesday night watch party, Williams said his early concession was not what he'd hoped for, but that it was necessary for the city to move forward.

"I believe that the future of Colorado Springs is still strong, and I've been honored to serve this city and state for the last 28 years," Williams told the crowd. "I appreciate all the opportunities I've had to make this city and state and county a better place."

Colorado Springs 2023 election results for the mayoral runoff
Voters dropping off their ballots earlier in the day said population growth and higher property taxes were issues of concern for them.

Gary Turner, who voted for Williams, said he hopes the new mayor will address growth in the city.

“It’s ridiculous,” Turner said. “It’s gone way too far out of sight. My property taxes went up 60 percent. Yeah and I’m a senior citizen living on social security. How in the hell do they expect me to… what am I supposed to do without? Heat or food?”

Mike Clouse didn’t participate in the April municipal election but cast his ballot for Mobolade on Tuesday.

“It’s just kinda making up for not voting last time,” Clouse said. “I would’ve voted for Yemi before and I want to do it now to do my part too. Hopefully he’ll get in.”

Back at his watch party Tuesday night, Mobolade had a message for the skeptics: “To anyone who doubts that politics can be disrupted… tonight is for you.”

Daddy State Awareness, Rule 1

House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden

After months of investigation and many public accusations of corruption against Mr. Biden and his family, the first report of the premier House G.O.P. inquiry showed no proof of such misconduct.

So sad

After four months of investigation, House Republicans who promised to use their new majority to unearth evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden acknowledged on Wednesday that they had yet to uncover incriminating material about him, despite their frequent insinuations that he and his family have been involved in criminal conduct and corruption.

At a much-publicized news conference on Capitol Hill to show the preliminary findings of their premier investigation into Mr. Biden and his family, leading Republicans released financial documents detailing how some of the president’s relatives were paid more than $10 million from foreign sources between 2015 and 2017.

Republicans described the transactions as proof of “influence peddling” by Mr. Biden’s family, including his son Hunter Biden, and referenced some previously known, if unflattering, details of the younger Mr. Biden’s business dealings. Those included an episode in which he accepted a 2.8-carat diamond from a Chinese businessman. G.O.P. lawmakers also produced material suggesting that President Biden and his allies had at times made misleading statements in their efforts to push back aggressively against accusations of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden.

But on Wednesday, the Republicans conceded that they had yet to find evidence of a specific corrupt action Mr. Biden took in office in connection with any of the business deals his son entered into. Instead, their presentation underscored how little headway top G.O.P. lawmakers have made in finding clear evidence of questionable transactions they can tie to Mr. Biden, their chief political rival.

It has not stopped them from accusing the president of serious misconduct.

“I want to be clear: This committee is investigating President Biden and his family’s shady business dealings to capitalize on Joe Biden’s public office that risks our country’s national security,” said Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight Committee. He emphasized that the president — not just his son — would be the target of his investigation, which he said would now “enter a new phase,” in which he would subpoena specific financial information based on material learned through bank records.

Federal prosecutors have examined Hunter Biden’s international business activities as part of a criminal investigation. But the only charges they are considering, according to people familiar with the case, are unrelated to his work abroad. They include tax charges related to his failure to file his tax returns over several years, and a charge of lying about his drug use on a federal form he filled out to purchase a handgun.

To date, Mr. Comer’s committee has issued four bank subpoenas, obtained thousands of financial records and spoken with several people he describes as whistle-blowers. Mr. Comer has also hired James Mandolfo, a former federal prosecutor who has experience investigating foreign corruption, to oversee the inquiry.

Here’s what we know so far.

Businesses connected to Hunter Biden received more than $10 million from foreign companies, some with criminal ties.

The House Oversight Committee report focused on payments made to companies connected to Hunter Biden from businesses and individuals in Romania and China. Bank records obtained by the committee show the receipt of money from a foreign company connected to Gabriel Popoviciu, who was the subject of a criminal investigation and prosecution for corruption in Romania.

In 2015, Mr. Popoviciu retained Hunter Biden, who is a lawyer, while his father was vice president, to help try to fend off charges. That effort was unsuccessful and, in 2016, Mr. Popoviciu was convicted on charges related to a land deal in northern Bucharest, the Romanian capital.

A Shanghai-based company, State Energy HK Limited, that was affiliated with CEFC China Energy sent millions to Robinson Walker LLC, a company associated with Mr. Walker, who then made payments to Hunter Biden and other Biden family members.

Hunter Biden had cultivated a business relationship with Ye Jianming, the founder of CEFC, who has been investigated by the Chinese authorities on suspicion of economic crimes. In 2017, Mr. Ye gave Hunter Biden a 2.8-carat diamond as a thank-you for a meeting.

“What would they be bribing me for? My dad wasn’t in office,” Hunter Biden told The New Yorker in 2019, adding that he gave the diamond to his associates. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea to take it. I just felt like it was weird.”

CEFC had hoped to invest in a liquefied natural gas venture in Louisiana, but that deal ultimately flopped.

Representatives of Hunter Biden characterize his business offerings at the time as providing legal and consulting services.

The payments came at a time when Hunter Biden’s life and finances were spiraling amid his drug addiction, and after the death of his brother, Beau Biden, from brain cancer. Hunter Biden had begun a romantic relationship with his brother’s widow. His business partner, Mr. Walker, and his uncle James Biden were pursuing international business work.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, said in a statement that House Republicans had revealed nothing new in their report.

“Today’s so-called ‘revelations' are retread, repackaged misstatements of perfectly proper meetings and business by private citizens.” Mr. Lowell said.

President Biden has falsely denied his son had ties to Chinese businesses.

None of the payments detailed in the report went to President Biden himself, nor has Mr. Comer’s investigation produced any evidence that Mr. Biden ever took a corrupt action in connection with his son’s business dealings.

But Mr. Biden has made several false or misleading statements about the matter.

During the 2020 presidential debate, Mr. Biden claimed that no one in his family had received money from China.

“My son has not made money in terms of this thing about — what are you talking about, China,” Mr. Biden said, turning the charge on his opponent, President Donald J. Trump. “The only guy who made money from China is this guy. He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China.”

This year, Mr. Biden also claimed that it was “not true” that family members received more than $1 million from a Chinese firm.

Aides to Mr. Biden said he was speaking colloquially and was pushing back generally on claims that his administration had been corrupted by Chinese money.

Presidents’ families have long made money off the family name.

During his news conference, Mr. Comer acknowledged that Hunter Biden would have been far from the first relative of a president or vice president to try to make money off the family name.

He invoked Billy Carter, the brother of former President Jimmy Carter, who visited Libya and received a $220,000 loan; and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law whose firm has received hundreds of millions from Persian Gulf nations.

“This has been a pattern for a long time,” Mr. Comer said. “Republicans and Democrats have both complained about presidents’ families receiving money.”

However, Mr. Comer has conceded that he has no interest in investigating Mr. Kushner’s conduct.

Officials allied with Mr. Biden played a role in wrongly discrediting Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The report from Mr. Comer came as a second Republican-led House committee is investigating a related issue. The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released a report about a letter from 51 former intelligence and security officials in 2020 that questioned materials — substantial portions of which were later verified as authentic — from a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware repair shop and suggested they might be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

The Republicans argue that the letter influenced the public to discount the materials on the laptop, which contained evidence of Hunter Biden’s drug use and sex life, which they believed would harm his father’s electoral chances against Mr. Trump.

The Judiciary Committee report detailed the role played by Antony J. Blinken, now the secretary of state and then a Biden campaign official, in spearheading the letter, and said a C.I.A. employee had been involved in soliciting at least one signature for it.

The intelligence officials maintain their letter stated they had no evidence of a Russian disinformation campaign, and that they were merely stating an opinion.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer who represents seven signatories to the letter, said on Twitter that the report merely proved that “private citizens lawfully exercised 1st Amendment rights” and added that there was not “even one falsehood” in the letter.

“I know of no signatory who retracts a single word,” Mr. Zaid wrote.

It's classic. Spend months on DumFux News spouting off about the Biden Crime Family, then spend lots of time and money and effort finding nothing to support your suspicions, and then issue your findings, claiming to have found all kinds of shady shenanigans on the part of every relative of every American politician since the dawn of the republic - and so "we've proven what a scum that Biden guy is - and his demon spawn too!"

Some things:

• "Everybody does it" is a way to tear down government in general, which is what the basic plan has been for a long time. So when their latest Blockbuster Investigation du Jour fizzles - as they always do - the fallback position is "Both Sides", and they know they can count on the Press Poodles to run with it (as the NYT just did) 
• They need to gaslight the shit outa the rubes. ie: "The fact that there's no evidence of wrongdoing is itself evidence of wrongdoing, because it just goes to show you how diabolically clever those guys are"
• GOP accusations are confessions (Daddy State Awareness Guide, Rule 1) - because they can't believe it's possible for anyone to live his life while not breaking the law

This stoopid shit ends only when we smarten up enough to vote these fuckers out. So let's do that.

Be Woke

Takeaways:

• The US military is once again more progressive than the meathead Republicans who want us to believe that somehow they're the ones who love the military best - which is why they're going out of their way to shit on the Pentagon (?) 
• Whenever the military has recognized the need to move forward - desegregation, women, LGBTQ, whatever it was - every time, the GOP has dragged its feet to prevent the military from becoming more representative of, and responsive to, the American population, which has made it a far more effective force.
• "Performative Fascism"
• There is no normal here
• "What's up with the baby formula? Hunter Biden!!"

Today's Non-Accountable Accountability

House Republicans Quietly Halt Inquiry Into Trump’s Finances

G.O.P. leaders are declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement for Mazars, Donald J. Trump’s former accounting firm, to turn over records in an investigation into whether he profited from the presidency.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans have quietly halted a congressional investigation into whether Donald J. Trump profited improperly from the presidency, declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement agreement that demanded that Mazars USA, his former accounting firm, produce his financial records to Congress.

Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, made clear he had abandoned any investigation into the former president’s financial dealings — professing ignorance about the inquiry Democrats opened when they controlled the House — and was instead focusing on whether President Biden and members of his family were involved in an influence-peddling scheme.

“I honestly didn’t even know who or what Mazars was,” said Mr. Comer, who was the senior Republican on the oversight panel during the last Congress, while Democrats waged a lengthy legal fight over obtaining documents from the firm.

“What exactly are they looking for?” Mr. Comer added in a brief statement to The New York Times on Monday. “They’ve been ‘investigating’ Trump for six years. I know exactly what I’m investigating: money the Bidens received from China.”

He confirmed the end to the inquiry into Mr. Trump after Democrats wrote to Mr. Comer raising concerns about the fact that Mazars, the former president’s longtime accounting firm that cut ties with him last year, had stopped turning over documents related to his financial dealings. The top Democrat on the panel suggested that Mr. Comer had worked with Mr. Trump’s lawyers to effectively kill the investigation, an accusation the chairman denied.

“It has come to my attention that you may have acted in league with attorneys for former President Donald Trump to block the committee from receiving documents subpoenaed in its investigation of unauthorized, unreported and unlawful payments by foreign governments and others to then-President Trump,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the panel, wrote on Sunday evening to Mr. Comer.

Mr. Comer on Monday denied knowledge of any attempt to coordinate with Mr. Trump’s lawyers to block the investigation, but he made it clear he did not plan to keep it going. His committee has issued no subpoenas concerning Mr. Trump’s finances.

Democrats fought in court for years to get financial documents from Mr. Trump’s former accounting firm, and only last year — after entering into a court-ordered settlement — began receiving the documents and gaining new insights into how foreign governments sought influence using the Trump International Hotel. The company has been delivering the documents to the committee in batches.

A Divided Congress

• The 118th Congress is underway, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding the Senate.
• I.R.S. Commissioner: The Senate voted to confirm Daniel Werfel to be the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, filling a critical position at the agency as it starts an $80 billion overhaul.
• F.B.I. Surveillance: The revelation by Representative Darin LaHood, Republican of Illinois, that he was the target of surveillance material searches conducted by the F.B.I. put a twist on a murky incident that has loomed over a debate on reauthorizing an expiring surveillance law.
• D.C. Crime Law: The Senate voted overwhelmingly to block a new criminal code for the District of Columbia, with Democrats bowing to Republican pressure to take a hard line on crime.
• A Freshman Republican on the Road: As Representative Josh Brecheen travels his district in eastern Oklahoma, his pitch to constituents reflects how the party has intertwined its spending fight with cultural battles.
• In the letter, Mr. Raskin wrote that he had reviewed communications between Patrick Strawbridge, Mr. Trump’s counsel, and a lawyer for Mazars in which the Trump lawyer indicated he had been told that House Republicans would no longer insist on additional document production. On Jan. 19, Mr. Strawbridge wrote, “I do not know the status of Mazars production, but my understanding is that the committee has no interest in forcing Mazars to complete it and is willing to release it from further obligations under the settlement agreement.”

Mr. Raskin wrote that Mr. Strawbridge had confirmed that assertion had been made to him twice by the acting general counsel of the House of Representatives, who at the time was Todd Tatelman.

Mr. Tatelman did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Mr. Strawbridge or lawyers for Mazars.

Democratic staff aides on the committee said they had repeatedly sought written confirmation from Mazars that House Republicans had agreed to release the firm from its obligations under the subpoena and court-supervised settlement agreement. But Mazars said it had not received such a release nor was any filed with the court, which has retained jurisdiction over the matter.

Even so, Mazars informed Democratic staff members that, as a result of Mr. Strawbridge’s assertions, it would cease production after the delivery of a small tranche of documents that it had already identified as responsive to the subpoena, the letter states.

Enforcement of a court-supervised settlement agreement made with one Congress during a subsequent Congress under new leadership remains a legally murky gray area. Subpoenas in cases involving the House expire at the end of each Congress, but Mazars had continued to produce documents even after the House changed hands into Republican control. Still, a judge would be unlikely to enforce the settlement if the parties involved were no longer interested in enforcement, according to lawyers in both parties.

The documents from Mazars have thus far provided new evidence about how foreign governments sought to influence the Trump administration. In November, for instance, documents the committee received from Mazars detailed how officials from six nations spent more than $750,000 at Mr. Trump’s hotel in Washington when they were seeking to influence his administration, renting rooms for more than $10,000 per night.

“In the face of mounting evidence that foreign governments sought to influence the Trump administration by playing to President Trump’s financial interests, you and President Trump’s representatives appear to have acted in coordination to bury evidence of such misconduct,” Mr. Raskin wrote to Mr. Comer.

At the same time that Mazars has stopped producing documents about Mr. Trump’s finances, Mr. Comer has ramped up his investigation into Mr. Biden and his relatives.

Mr. Comer has issued a broad subpoena to obtain bank records of associates of the Biden family, requiring Bank of America to produce “all financial records” for three private individuals from Jan. 20, 2009, to the present — a 14-year period, Mr. Raskin wrote.

He has focused in particular on John R. Walker, an associate of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, whose business dealings are under investigation by the Justice Department. Mr. Walker was involved in a joint venture with CEFC China executives, a now-bankrupt Chinese energy conglomerate.

Mr. Raskin accused Mr. Comer of using a “wildly overbroad subpoena” to conduct “a dragnet of political opposition research on behalf of former President Trump.”

Mr. Comer responded that Mr. Raskin was trying to distract “from the real issue here, and that is the Biden family money trail from China.”

“I now possess documents to prove it; Raskin knows it, and Raskin has had a meltdown,” Mr. Comer added.

When Congress was in Democratic hands, the House Oversight Committee waged a yearslong battle to obtain Mr. Trump’s financial records from Mazars in one of the major legal sagas of the Trump presidency.

Mazars cut ties with the Trump Organization in 2022, saying it could no longer stand by a decade of financial statements it had prepared.

Today's Crooked Politician

It's not always a Republican, because it can't always be a Republican.

But it seems like it's always a Republican, because something like 95% of the time, it's a Republican.

So yeah - for all practical purposes, it's always a fucking Republican.

Former Ohio House speaker convicted in $60 million bribery scheme

Former state House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges were convicted Thursday in a $60 million bribery scheme that federal prosecutors have called the largest corruption case in state history.

A jury in Cincinnati found the two guilty of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving bribery and money laundering, after about 9.5 half hours of deliberations over two days.

U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker said the government's prosecution team showed that "Householder sold the Statehouse, and thus he ultimately betrayed the people of the great state of Ohio he was elected to serve." He called Borges "a willing co-conspirator."

"Through its verdict today, the jury reaffirmed that the illegal acts committed by both men will not be tolerated and that they should be held accountable," Parker said.

Attorneys for Householder and Borges did not immediately respond to messages left by The Associated Press on Thursday.

Prosecutors alleged that Householder orchestrated a scheme secretly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. to secure his power in the Legislature, elect his allies — and then to pass and defend a $1 billion nuclear power plant bailout benefiting the electric utility. They alleged that Borges, then a lobbyist, sought to bribe an operative for inside information on the referendum to overturn the bailout.

Householder, 63, had been one of Ohio's most powerful politicians — and twice elected speaker — until the Republican-controlled House ousted him after his indictment from his leadership post, and then in a bipartisan vote, and with Householder vigorously objecting, from the chamber. It was the first such expulsion in 150 years.

He took the stand in his own defense, contradicting FBI testimony and denying that he attended swanky Washington dinners where prosecutors allege he and executives of FirstEnergy hatched the elaborate scheme in 2017.

Borges, 50, did not testify at trial but has insisted that he's innocent. Both men face up to 20 years in prison.

The verdict comes two-and-a-half years after Householder, Borges and three others were arrested. Over the past seven weeks, jurors at the trial were presented with firsthand accounts of the alleged scheme, as well as reams of financial documents, emails, texts and wiretap audio.

"... alleged ..." ? - it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt, to the satisfaction of 12 regular everyday people who returned a unanimous verdict. It's not fucking "alleged" anymore.

The prosecution called two of the people arrested — Juan Cespedes and Jeff Longstreth, who pleaded guilty — to testify about political contributions that they said are not ordinary, but bribes intended to secure passage of the bailout bill, known as House Bill 6.

Householder's attorneys described his activities as nothing more than hardball politics.

Jurors also heard taped phone calls in which Householder and another co-defendant, the late Statehouse superlobbyist Neil Clark, plotted a nasty attack ad — and, in expletive-laced fashion, contemplated revenge against lawmakers who had crossed Householder.

Householder testified that he never retaliated against those who voted counter to his wishes or who donated to his rivals.

Under a deal to avoid prosecution, FirstEnergy admitted using a network of dark money groups to fund the scheme and even bribing the state's top utility regulator, Sam Randazzo.

Randazzo resigned as chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio after an FBI search of his home, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing.

Democrats Bring It

I've backed off my criticism of the Dems in recent years, and I think Jamie Raskin (D-MD08) puts my reasoning into words in pretty good shape (at about 5:50, 8:01, and especially 20:53).

"We are the democracy". We're the party in favor of getting everybody out to vote. We're the party of freedom - the freedoms of self-determination - choice and opportunity - as well as FDR's four freedoms. We're the party that wants everybody to have a real shot at making their lives what they they need their lives to be.

Today's Brian

Brian Tyler Cohen

Here's the Jonathan Weisman piece:

In Fog of East Palestine’s Crisis, Politicians Write Their Own Stories

The train derailment in Eastern Ohio has spawned conspiracy theories and contradictory narratives, with politicians from both parties parading through town to further their agendas.

To Democrats, the train derailment and chemical leak in the hamlet of East Palestine, Ohio, is a story of logic, action and consequences: Rail safety regulations put in place by the Obama administration were intended to prevent just such accidents. The Trump administration gutted them.

All of which is actually true, but notice how the phrasing invites the inference that it's really just a political opinion on the part of the Dems.

And that's an important preface, cuz here comes the Both-Sides Razor-Blade-In-The-Apple:

To Republicans, East Palestine is a symbol of something far larger and more emotional: a forgotten town in a conservative state, like so many others in Middle America, struggling for survival against an uncaring mega-corporation and an unseeing government whose concerns have never included the likes of a town of 4,718 souls.

Carrying those irreconcilable narratives, politicians have begun parading through East Palestine with their own agendas to pursue. On Wednesday, it was the former president and current presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, handing out branded water and campaign hats, while assuring the supportive crowd, “You are not forgotten.”

On Thursday, three weeks after 38 Norfolk Southern rail cars carrying toxic chemicals skipped the tracks in East Palestine and, days later, a plume of vinyl chloride was intentionally released over the town, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg arrived, having spent days jousting with Republicans over safety regulations.

“What I’m really proud of is the community that I saw here,” he told a retinue of right-wing reporters shouting questions at him. “You’ve got federal agencies, you’ve got local first responders, you’ve got states, but most of all you’ve got a community that’s been through a lot, that I think is pretty frustrated with people trying to take political advantage of this situation.”

In some sense, both sides are right, both sides are wrong and, in the bifurcated politics of this American moment, none of the arguments much matter.

In 2015, after the deadly derailment of an Amtrak train traveling too fast outside Philadelphia, President Barack Obama moved to mandate the installation of lifesaving automatic braking technology by 2023 over the protests of the largest rail companies. In 2018, as part of a broad regulatory rollback, Mr. Trump repealed the rule.

But, according to the website PolitiFact, the rule would have had no impact on the East Palestine derailment. The Norfolk Southern train would not have been covered because it would not have been categorized as a high-hazard cargo train. Besides, the National Transportation Safety Board initially pointed to the failure of a wheel bearing, not the train’s speed, as the cause of the derailment.

Such details did not stop the White House from issuing a formal statement on Wednesday with the headline, “Republicans, stop dismantling rail safety and selling out communities like East Palestine to the rail lobby.” Nor did it dissuade the anti-Trump Lincoln Project from releasing a video on Wednesday squarely blaming the former president.

Still, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jennifer Homendy, called the accident “100 percent preventable” at a news conference on Thursday in Washington.

“I don’t understand why this has gotten so political — this is a community that is suffering,” she added.

Republicans have simply ignored that debate, instead pressing the seemingly contradictory cases that the Biden administration cares more about Ukraine than East Palestine and that the White House concocted the downing of three unidentified flying objects to distract attention from the derailment — which would imply that, in fact, officials care a lot.

The derailment’s aftermath coincided with Mr. Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine — by rail — and his speech in Poland, in which he pledged billions of dollars more in military support for Ukraine. That fed the Republican narrative that, for all his talk of caring for blue-collar workers, the president would rather deal with geopolitics than a domestic problem.

Neglect and the late arrival of assistance became the dominant talking points about Eastern Ohio on Fox News and in an array of other conservative news outlets, even as the Biden administration said repeatedly that federal officials had arrived on the scene of the accident within hours.

And in Columbiana County, where East Palestine sits, Republicans have been playing on their home field. Mr. Trump won the county with 72 percent of the vote in 2020, against Mr. Biden’s 27 percent.

“On Presidents’ Day in our country, he is over in Ukraine,” Mayor Trent Conaway of East Palestine fumed this week. “That tells you what kind of guy he is.”

Conspiracy theories have only deepened the trauma, bouncing around far-right podcasts and conservative celebrities’ social media accounts before reaching Congress via Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the once-fringe Republican from Georgia whose alliance with Speaker Kevin McCarthy has brought her to the center of congressional power.

“East Palestine, Ohio, is undergoing an ecological disaster because authorities blew up the train derailment cars carrying hazardous chemicals and press are being arrested for trying to tell the story,” she wrote on Twitter over dramatic footage of the fiery plume and its aftermath. “Oh but UFO’s!”

The Trump campaign on Thursday abetted the narrative with a day-by-day timeline of “Neglect and Betrayal,” including “Feb 5: Shoots the spy balloon down” and “Feb 13: Dodges questions about unidentified objects downed on Sunday,” followed by, “Feb 16: Delivered a response to unidentified objects in the sky and screened the movie ‘Till.’”

Batting down another conspiratorial rumor, the East Palestine fire chief, Keith Drabick, had to spend time this week assuring people that medical identification bracelets being passed out to residents in case they showed signs of debilitation were not tracking devices for the government.

The fever pitch of distrust was understandable for a community that saw what appeared to be an apocalyptic plume of chemicals rise from the wreckage on the rail line, then filmed dead fish and frogs in East Palestine’s streams and complained of headaches, sore throats, coughing and skin rashes — all as government officials assured them the air and water were safe.

But if East Palestine felt ignored in the immediate aftermath of the derailment, its travails are now playing out on a vast national tableau of partisan politics.

The environmental activist Erin Brockovich is planning a town hall event on Friday at the town high school. Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman-turned-conservative-gadfly, took a spin through the town earlier in the week, then rushed to the television cameras to describe it.

The Fox News anchor Bret Baier did concede that visits to train derailments by transportation secretaries, including Mr. Trump’s, Elaine Chao, were rare, especially when the accidents did not cause fatalities.

But more broadly, the derailment has been a chance for Republicans and their supporters in the conservative news media to showcase the white, working-class voters who flocked to Mr. Trump, and whom Mr. Biden has struggled to win back — and the power that Mr. Trump and other celebrities who remain in his orbit still hold in places like East Palestine.

After Mr. Trump on Wednesday praised John Rourke, the owner of the Florida-based company Blue Line Moving, for his relief efforts in Ohio, Tucker Carlson invited Mr. Rourke onto his top-rated cable news show to let him rip into the current president.

“The fact that President Biden has refused to come to this small town when he’s supposed to be Scranton Joe, a small-town hero of the working man, and he can’t even show his face in a town of American citizens that need his leadership, that need the government’s help terribly, he proved what everybody, I think, already knew in this country, is that he’s not the leader for this country,” Mr. Rourke said Wednesday night. “Donald J. Trump is the leader that we all know he is, and he is the leader of this country.”

On Thursday, Mr. Buttigieg showed up after weeks of Republican taunts demanding to know why he had not bothered. But it was Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump confidant, who garnered much of the attention from residents and local politicians as he toured the accident site and signed memorabilia.

“Politicians come in and they make a big show and then they don’t come back,” he said, promising, “This is a come-back situation.”

SOTU 2023

Biden laid it down, and certain Republicans couldn't help but show their ass, as the rancor was on full display last night.

"It was one of a number of moments in which he was heckled in the chamber, and he seemed to relish the open exchanges that broke out in the House chamber and played on national television. McCarthy, sitting directly behind Biden and in view of the cameras, several times appeared to shush his colleagues."

"McCarthy ... several times appeared to shush his colleagues."

Kevin McCarthy will be remembered as a pretty bad Speaker - like Ryan and Boehner before him.

I can't condemn the antics completely. There has to be room for protest no matter what the venue. That said, protest can be lodged in a way that's less egregiously demagogic - less like some asshole teenager who covets attention so badly, he has to stand up at assembly and call his ex-girlfriend a scumbag slut for dumping him or some such.

Greene is indulging in bullshit theatrics because that's her brand. It's who she is. She's being egged on by her fellow assholes, but what gets ever more disgusting is the fact that the "normal" Republicans sit by and do nothing.

Marjorie Taylor Greene yells ‘liar’ during combative State of the Union

After guidance to behave themselves from Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Republicans had plenty to say in the chamber

Midway through the State of the Union address, the room turned feisty as some Republican lawmakers began booing President Biden. Some pointed fingers toward his position at the center of the House chamber. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) stood and yelled at him: “Liar!”

It was a remarkable display of partisan animosity, one that illustrates the challenges gripping a deeply divided Washington. And it put on vivid display the power of Greene as leader of the Outburst Caucus — and the struggles that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has in controlling the behavior, let alone the votes, of his conference.

Hours before the speech, McCarthy (Calif.) and other Republican leaders had told lawmakers during their weekly conference meeting that all eyes would be on them as Biden delivered his remarks, according to people in the room for the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it freely.

That guidance echoed a similar message sent out by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.): “Cameras are always on and microphones are always hot.” Ahead of the speech, Republicans did not anticipate any outbursts, and McCarthy had said Monday that he would not shred the president’s speech as then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did with President Donald Trump’s.

But about 40 minutes into his speech, Biden turned to one of the most contentious current topics facing Congress. Halfway through a speech that was by turns folksy and feisty — and contained more than a hint of swagger — he looked to the Republicans sitting in the chamber to his left, chiding them for a lack of specificity in their approach to cutting the budget.

Their decisions under Trump, he said, added more to the national debt than any president, triggering boos from Republicans.

“They’re the facts!” Biden responded. “Check it out. Check it out!”

It was one of a number of moments in which he was heckled in the chamber, and he seemed to relish the open exchanges that broke out in the House chamber and played on national television. McCarthy, sitting directly behind Biden and in view of the cameras, several times appeared to shush his colleagues.

As Biden mentioned potential cuts to Social Security and Medicare — and how some Republican-backed proposals could lead to cuts in the entitlement programs — it triggered one of the most disruptive moments of the night, and loud protests that had been kept at bay for much of the speech were unleashed.

Greene stood up, jabbed her finger, and yelled toward Biden: “Liar!” Others followed. It was one of several outbursts from Greene who interrupted Biden’s speech by yelling, “China’s spying on us!” and later, “Secure the border!”

Biden, seeming both perplexed and energized by the sudden shift in the room, responded by saying, “Anyone who doubts me, contact my office ... I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.” He emphasized that it was “not a majority” of Republicans who support such a plan and that it probably was not “even a significant” portion of them.

At least one Republican lawmaker yelled, “Then don’t say it!”

“I enjoy conversion,” Biden quipped, suggesting that minds in the room had changed on the topic.

After some of the commotion had died down, Biden said that everyone in the room apparently agreed that “Social Security and Medicare is off the books! We got unanimity!”

“So tonight, let’s all agree — and apparently we are — and stand up for seniors,” Biden added, after which most in the chamber stood up. “Stand up and show them! We will not cut Social Security! We will not cut Medicare! Those benefits belong to the American people. They earned it. ... If anyone tries to cut Medicare, I’ll stop them. I’ll veto it ... But apparently it’s not going to be a problem.”

To get scoops, sharp political analysis and accountability journalism in your inbox each morning, sign up for The Early 202.

White House staffers watching on televisions in the West Wing cheered and high-fived at that moment, according to an administration official speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Biden’s focus on Social Security and Medicare was one of his chief arguments during the midterm elections. He often pointed to a plan from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) that was aimed at cutting the federal deficit with a proposal to “sunset” all federal programs after five years, meaning they would expire unless renewed.

Scott’s plan does not specifically say Social Security or Medicare will expire, but it recommends that “all federal legislation sunsets in 5 years.”

Some top Republicans had suggested that Scott’s approach was unwise — “That will not be part of the Republican Senate majority agenda,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said when Scott’s plan was released — but that didn’t stop Biden from trying to make Scott the face of the GOP.

More recently, Biden has said that Republicans need to offer more specifics about which programs they want to cut. He has accused them of being vague even as they threaten not to raise the debt limit without budget cuts.

“Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage,” he said during the speech.

After the speech, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Biden was wrong to keep associating his party with wanting to cut those programs. “He tries to keep spreading this false narrative about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare,” he said. “And I think by the end he finally acknowledged it’s not true, but he was trying to imply something about Republicans. That’s just not true.”

Sorry not sorry, Steve, but until you stand up and forcefully condemn the ongoing efforts of your party to kill Social Security outright, or to privatize it so you can boost the GOP's Wall Street Welfare program, you're squarely in opposition of what practically all of us want. Live with it.

The back-and-forth in the chamber was a discordant note and had the feel of the rambunctious, free-flowing nature of the British Parliament at question time with the prime minister, rather than the traditionally more stately setting of the presidential address.

Much of Biden’s earlier portions of the speech was focused on seemingly bipartisan basics — blue-collar job growth, boosting American manufacturing, promoting infrastructure projects — that dared Republicans not to stand. And through much of it, McCarthy remained seated.

McCarthy and Greene have come a long way since the Georgia congresswoman was elected to the House in 2020. McCarthy’s defense of her when Democrats stripped Greene of her committee assignments ultimately led to the two forging a closer relationship. She was a vocal supporter of his bid for speaker, but it wasn’t enough to ensure an easy path to the gavel for the California Republican.

While McCarthy ultimately won by hashing out deals, he remains beholden to the splintered factions of the conference. Greene’s display against Biden underscored that tenuous grip — that McCarthy couldn’t contain an ally, even after he and other GOP leaders warned lawmakers not to hastily react to Biden during his speech.

“He did, frankly, lie, talking about Republicans and Social Security and Medicare,” Greene said in a video she released after the speech.

“We have not talked about cutting Social Security and Medicare ... We’re not,” she said. “So we called him out on the House floor. I called him a liar because that’s what Joe Biden is.”

She went on: “Joe Biden doesn’t know anything he’s talking about. That’s the state of our union.”

China's Balloon Stunt

Michael Clarke, with a quick look:

And a report on the shoot-down, and a brief overview of a few ramifications:

Interesting how Republicans have been jumping up and down screaming about Biden not taking action, and how this could never have happened with Trump in the White House - except for the inconvenient fact that it did happen - like 2 or 3 times - when Trump was in the White House.

But as soon as it becomes pretty obvious that either it wasn't quite the threat they need us to believe it is, or they start to look a little panicky and idiotic, they just drop it and move on to the next "crisis" in the rotation.

They never ever say, "This seems like a threat to our sovereignty - we should all get together and present a unified front so China doesn't get the idea they can pull this shit whenever they want ..." All they ever do is shit on Biden, or the Pentagon, or the CIA, or the FBI, or your dying Aunt Tillie in Pittsburgh, or whatever the fuck they think they can use to score a few points.

Today's Crooked Politician

I know, I know - it can't always be a Republican. So why is it always a Republican?

  via 

Newly-Elected Georgia Rep Steps Down After Drug Arrest

Republican Danny Rampey was arrested last month after investigators said he stole prescription narcotics at the retirement complex he manages.

WINDER, Ga. (AP) — A Republican arrested after winning his race for a seat in the Georgia House has decided to step aside instead of facing a possible suspension as soon as he was sworn into office later this month,

The decision by Danny Rampey means a special election will be held on Jan. 31 to choose the new representative for the House seat based around Winder, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Rampey, 67, was arrested last month after investigators said he stole prescription narcotics at the retirement complex he manages.

Republican leaders were pressuring Rampey to step aside before new legislators are sworn in on Jan. 9 because the special election to fill the seat would only be for Republicans since Rampey didn’t have a Democratic opponent in November’s election.

Rampey’s withdrawal ”will ensure his constituents have a voice in this session of the General Assembly after the special election is held,” said House Speaker Jan Jones and incoming House Speaker Jon Burns in a joint statement to the newspaper.

The newspaper couldn’t reach Rampey’s attorney.

Rampey was charged in Barrow County with six counts of obtaining drugs by misrepresentation or theft, six counts of exploiting an elder or disabled adult, five counts of burglary and one count of drug possession.

Rampey and his family own a chain of personal care homes in northeast Georgia. Authorities said they began investigating him after missing prescription narcotics were reported.

That Old Feelin'

I get a sneaking suspicion about George Santos and the GOP - and the Dems too.

Maybe they didn't vet him properly, and maybe they did.

Maybe he's a Kremlin stooge and maybe he's not.

This is where I say I kinda hate myself when I start thinking a little too much about the 'maybes'.

With (some) Republicans coming out seemingly to take a giant dump on George's head, they're speaking in some pretty generic terms - the passive voice (ie: mistakes were made). So there's a fair probability they're taking this opportunity to shit on Trump using George as a surrogate, while maintaining a little cover - they'll play those very reasonable and down-the-middle comments in their ads come 2024 when they need "the undecided" voters to think kindly of them.

"But what about the Democrats?"

First, fuck that noise. Democrats are not to blame for the shitty behavior of Republicans.

Second, maybe they did vet old George, and they figured on slamming the GOP for it all along. That doesn't make a great deal of sense because the district was up for grabs, but a Dem win in NY03 wouldn't have changed the overall outcome, and it's way more fun to sit here idly speculating.

The talented Mr. Santos: A congressman-elect’s unraveling web of deception

Even by the low standards for truth-telling in politics, the scope of the falsehoods from the newly elected House Republican has been breathtaking

The Republican who won a congressional seat on Long Island before his claims of being a wealthy, biracial, Ukrainian descendant of Holocaust survivors were debunked had, for a while, been generally consistent about two details in his improbable life: He has long said his first name is George and his last name is Santos.

But not always.

Before George Santos, 34, made a name for himself in politics, he had insisted on being called Anthony — one of his middle names — and often used his mother’s maiden name, Devolder, eventually incorporating a company in Florida with that name.

“He hated that we called him George,” a former friend and onetime co-worker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid being associated with him publicly. “His whole family called him Anthony. He wanted to be called Anthony. He would use the name Anthony Devolder.”

With echoes of the fabulist protagonist at the heart of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” book and movie, Santos has spun an elaborate web of lies and deceptions about his identity and his past, according to acquaintances, public records, media reports and, in some cases, by his own admission. He also claims to have suddenly come into millions of dollars in wealth over the past 18 months, even as the financial data company Dun & Bradstreet estimated in July that his private family firm, the Devolder Organization, only had $43,688 in revenue.

He said he is part Black. He said he is the grandson of Holocaust survivors. He claimed he helped develop “carbon capture technology.” He claimed to have worked at companies that never employed him. He claimed to be a graduate of two universities, only to admit that he has no college degree at all. He even said his parents’ financial hardship forced him to leave the prestigious Horace Mann School in the Bronx “months” before he could graduate. But that claim and numerous others have either been shown to be false or lacking evidence by The Washington Post and other news organizations.

Even by the low standards for truth-telling in politics, the scope of Santos’s falsehoods has been breathtaking. It has surprised Democrats who researched him and missed so many details, as well as Republicans who vouched for him.

In an unsuccessful House race in 2020 and his successful race for New York’s 3rd Congressional District in November, Santos pitched himself as a gay man of Brazilian descent at home in the Republican Party of Donald Trump. He spoke at a rally in D.C. on Jan. 5, 2021, telling the assembled crowd one day before the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol: “Who here is ready to overturn the election for Donald Trump?”

In interviews as a congressional candidate, he described himself as “the American Dream.”

He told Lara Trump in an interview this year, “I’m a business guy. I’ve done private equity for 11 years in New York,” adding that he “had the privilege of doing business” with the Trump Organization. He told another interviewer, “I’ve gone up the chains of Wall Street. I’ve developed many companies. I’ve opened my own business.” His campaign website said he had previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and had degrees from Baruch College and New York University.

On Dec. 19, the New York Times reported that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Baruch College and New York University had no records of him. On Monday, Santos spoke about the revelations for the first time, telling WABC he was guilty of “résumé embellishment” but insisting the larger story about his life is true: “I’m not a criminal who defrauded the entire country and made up the fictional character and ran for Congress.”

Rep.-elect George Santos acknowledges 'résumé embellishment' but offers few answers on finances

Later, Santos’s claims of having Jewish ancestors who fled persecution during World War II were challenged by a report in Jewish Insider. An undisclosed marriage, and divorce, to a woman was revealed by the Daily Beast. He also wrote on Twitter that “9/11 claimed my mothers life”; she actually passed away in 2016.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Gerard Kassar, chair of the Conservative Party of New York State. “His entire life seems to be made up. Everything about him is fraudulent.”

Santos and his representatives did not respond to numerous telephone, email and text messages seeking comment for this article. On Wednesday, Santos wrote on Twitter that he is looking forward to working in Congress.

But even before his scheduled swearing-in on Jan. 3, Santos has already spawned new proposed legislation in Congress. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said he will introduce legislation requiring that when candidates for federal office provide details of their education, employment and military history, they do so under oath. Torres calls the bill the Stop Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker (SANTOS) Act.

The offices of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly (R) and Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz (D) each said they are examining whether Santos broke any laws in their jurisdiction. ABC News reported that the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York, which covers Long Island, was also examining Santos’s activities; spokespeople for the office declined to comment when contacted by The Post.

Last week, Santos gave a handful of interviews that only raised more questions. Still unknown is the exact source of the $700,000 he claimed to have loaned his campaign in 2022, just two years after filing a financial disclosure report that said he had no major assets or earned income. The Times also reported suspicious spending by Santos’s campaign.

A spokesperson for the House Ethics Committee declined to comment when asked whether the committee will launch an investigation into Santos if he is sworn in next week.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent body that reviews ethical complaints from the committee, could also scrutinize Santos if the office is reauthorized by the Republican-controlled House. Kedric Payne, a former deputy chief counsel at the office, said he would expect an investigation.

“They are not going to let something like this just happen,” he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters on Wednesday that Santos is now “tattooed” on Republicans in Congress. House Republican leaders, as well as Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who endorsed Santos, did not respond to messages seeking comment about him. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told the Washington Examiner that he is not supportive of Santos joining their conference.

Rep.-elect Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) said in a statement that Santos should be investigated by the House Ethics Committee and “if necessary, law enforcement, is required.” Rep.-elect Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said in a statement that Santos should “cooperate fully” with the investigations. And Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman (R) told CNN that Santos needs to address the “emotional issues” that led to his lying.

“A normal person wouldn’t do that,” Blakeman said.

The North Shore Leader, a small paper on Long Island, had raised questions about Santos in September, but those threads were largely ignored by other outlets. Robert Zimmerman, the Democrat whom Santos defeated in November, and whose campaign spent thousands of dollars on research, told The Post that “frankly a lot of folks in the media are saying they didn’t have the personnel, time or money to delve further” into the story.

A tiny paper broke the George Santos scandal but no one paid attention

Kassar, the Conservative Party of New York State’s leader, said he spoke with Santos soon after the first Times story was published. “When I spoke to him, he clearly told me he had no intuition of running again and I told him that was a good idea and the Conservative Party would have a hard time endorsing him,” he said.

When Santos’s mother died on Dec. 23, 2016, he collected money from people at a church in Queens after saying he had no money for a funeral, according to a priest who spoke with CBS News.

Around this time, Santos asked the former friend and co-worker to set up a GoFundMe page so that he could raise money for the funeral, telling the person he was too distraught to submit the necessary ID and bank record requirements for the crowdfunding service.

The page shows that several hundred dollars was raised, and the friend said it went directly to Santos, who at the time was using the name Anthony Devolder on Facebook and with acquaintances around New York. The friend said they believed the money had been used for the funeral, which they attended in late December that year. Then on Jan. 6, 2017, the friend said Santos contacted them to ask if they wanted go skiing in the Poconos, where he had just rented a room. The friend declined.

In June 2020, Santos wrote on Twitter that he is the “grandson of Holocaust refugees.” This month, Jewish Insider cast doubt on that claim, noting that the dates Santos cited for his grandparents departure from Belgium to Brazil do not line up, nor do immigration records support his version of his family’s history. The Republican Jewish Coalition, which featured Santos as part of its annual November conference in Las Vegas, denounced his false claims about his heritage and said that “he will not be welcome at any future RJC event.”

In March, Santos said in a podcast interview that he was “raised Catholic, born to a Jewish family — very, very confusing religious background.” Last week, he told the New York Post: “I never claimed to be Jewish.”

Even early parts of Santos’s life story were fabricated by him.

In an October 2020 interview, Santos recalled an allegedly painful childhood experience. He said of his parents: “They sent me to a good prep school — which was Horace Mann Prep in the Bronx. And in my senior year of prep school, unfortunately, my parents fell on hard times.” Santos went on to say that at the time, his family couldn’t “afford a $2,500 tuition” and “I left school [with] four months till graduation.”

After the school was contacted by The Post and provided with several variations of Santos’s name that he has used in public, Ed Adler, a spokesman for Horace Mann, wrote in an email: “George Santos or any of the aliases you [cite] never attended HM.”

In that same March podcast interview, Santos also said, “I’ve been to Moscow many times in my career.” He also referred to “carbon capture technology” as something “that I’ve helped develop and fundraised for in my career. I’ve had a very extensive role in gas and oil in this country.” Santos and his representatives have provided no proof of those claims.

The only time Santos provided a specific defense about his falsehoods was during his interview on WABC. When asked why Goldman Sachs and Citigroup had no record of him as an employee, as he had previously claimed, Santos admitted to both lying and being sloppy in describing his actual work in the industry.

“[A] lot of people overstate in their résumés or twist a little bit,” he said. He said he worked with Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup, just not as an employee at those companies. “I did extensive work on the LP side with Goldman Sachs in my time at LinkBridge,” he said, referring to a one-time employer. “I did extensive work with Citigroup, in my time in the LP position in LinkBridge Investors, just like I did work with firms on the GP side of things like Blackstone, and Deloitte, and Robbins, Geller, Dowd and so many other big firms in the industry of private equity.”

Goldman Sachs and Citigroup declined to comment on this latest explanation. Deloitte and Blackstone did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesman for Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, a law firm that sues corporations, told The Post, “We cannot verify this claim. We have no record of Mr. Santos or his business having any business relationship with our firm.”