With all that's going to hell in a handbasket in the world today, it may seem frivolous to focus this week's cartoon on the cartoonish Congresscretin from Long Island. And maybe it is.
On the other hand, it's important, at least to his constituents on Long Island, not to overlook the astounding degree of grift and fraud of which George Santos stands accused. According to the federal indictment:
“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign. Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen,” stated United States Attorney [Breon] Peace. “This Office will relentlessly pursue criminal charges against anyone who uses the electoral process as an opportunity to defraud the public and our government institutions.”...
“The defendant — a Congressman — allegedly stole the identities of family members and used the credit card information of political contributors to fraudulently inflate his campaign coffers,” stated District Attorney [Anne T.] Donnelly. “We thank our partners in the US Attorney’s Office and the FBI as we work together to root out public corruption on Long Island.”
Those of us who did not personally donate to Mr. Santos's 2022 campaign may have to wait until a court of law has judged the case against him, but apparently people who did donate are not granting him the benefit of the doubt. Newsday reports that his 2024 campaign is deep in debt, refunding donors more than it receives.
So let's just say that he certainly appears to regard the leader of his party as a role model. From the indictment:
[B]etween approximately December 2021 and August 2022, Santos devised and executed a fraudulent scheme to steal the personal identity and financial information of contributors to his campaign. He then charged contributors’ credit cards repeatedly, without their authorization. Because of these unauthorized transactions, funds were transferred to Santos’s campaign, to the campaigns of other candidates for elected office, and to his own bank account. To conceal the true source of these funds and to circumvent campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely represented that some of the campaign contributions were made by other persons, such as his relatives or associates, rather than the true cardholders. Santos did not have authorization to use their names in this way.
For example, in December 2021, one contributor (the “Contributor”) texted Santos and others to make a contribution to his campaign, providing billing information for two credit cards. In the days after he received the billing information, Santos used the credit card information to make numerous contributions to his campaign and affiliated political committees in amounts exceeding applicable contribution limits, without the Contributor’s knowledge or authorization. To mask the true source of these contributions and thereby circumvent the applicable campaign contribution limits, Santos falsely identified the contributor for one of the charges as one of his relatives. In the following months, Santos repeatedly charged the Contributor’s credit card without the Contributor’s knowledge or authorization, attempting to make at least $44,800 in charges and repeatedly concealing the true source of funds by falsely listing the source of funds as Santos himself, his relatives and other contributors. On one occasion, Santos charged $12,000 to the Contributor’s credit card, ultimately transferring the vast majority of that money into his personal bank account.
But unless Santos turns out to be Joe Biden's bastard son, he's likely to remain in Congress until 2025. Even, that is, if he gets found guilty on all charges. Miss Thang knows no shame, and Gym Jordan (or Paul Gosar, or Marginal Taylor Greene, or whomever the MAGAverse vomits up next as its next candidate for Speaker of the House) needs his vote, and Santos knows it.
No comments:
Post a Comment