Tag: Santos

Israeli military veteran tapped as GOP candidate in special election to replace George Santos | Long Island Business News

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Republicans have picked a little-known county lawmaker who once served in the Israeli military as their candidate in a special election to replace ousted New York congressman George Santos, party officials said Thursday.

Nassau County legislator and former Israeli paratrooper Mazi Pilip will face off against Democratic former congressman Tom Suozzi in a Feb. 13 special election for the seat, which includes northern parts of Queens and Long Island.

The selection pits Pilip, a relatively unknown local lawmaker originally from Ethiopia, against a political veteran in Suozzi, who previously represented the district for six years during a lengthy career in Long Island politics.

In a statement, Republicans in Queens and Nassau County loosely outlined some of her potential policy positions and said she would bring a new perspective to the House.

“Pilip is an effective tax fighter who will prioritize public safety, economic recovery, border security and tax relief in Congress,” the statement read. “She will bring a fresh new perspective to Washington, starkly contrasting her from the candidate for the other major political party.”

The party will hold a formal announcement ceremony for Pilip on Friday. She did not immediately return a message left at her office.

The election is expected to draw significant attention as both parties zero in on New York as a potential battleground for control of the House.

Republicans picked Pilip after vetting a number of potential candidates following the expulsion of Santos from Congress earlier this month for fabricating much of his life story and being criminally charged with defrauding donors.

The selection process appeared to be slowed after media began digging into the personal and professional histories of potential candidates, revealing damaging information that could become public during a campaign.

Politico reported last week that Pilip is a registered Democrat, though she holds her current position as a Republican and has been backed by Republicans when she was running for county office. The arrangement is not entirely uncommon in states that have closed primaries, where so-called crossover voters who identify with one party register under another so they can vote in primary elections.

Suozzi was tapped by Democrats last week after emerging as the party’s frontrunner for the nomination. His extensive political experience could be a major advantage when it comes to name recognition and fundraising for the special election.

Suozzi, a centrist Democrat, was elected to the House in 2016 and won reelection in 2020, before leaving to launch the unsuccessful campaign for governor. He also served as the mayor of Glen Cove from 1994 to 2001, and as Nassau County’s elected executive from 2002 to 2009.

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December 15, 2023
Australia energy giants Woodside and Santos in talks to create $52 billion gas powerhouse

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Bloomberg/Contributor | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares of Australia’s Santos jumped to a five-week high on Friday on news the company is in talks to merge with Woodside Energy.

Santos and Woodside Energy, two of Australia’s largest oil and gas producers, have opened talks to discuss a potential merger in what could create an 80 billion Australian dollar ($52 billion) oil and gas behemoth.

“Concurrently, Santos is assessing a range of alternative structural options with a view to unlocking value,” according to a statement issued by Santos on Thursday.

Shares of Santos spiked 11% in early trade on Friday while Woodside slipped 0.7%.

Santos, which has a market capitalization of around AU$22 billion, said during an investor briefing last month that it was working on options to lift its value. Woodside boasts a market capitalization of around AU$57 billion.

Discussions are still at an early stage — in statements to the press, both companies emphasized there is “no certainty” the discussions would lead to a deal.

In June last year, Woodside merged with BHP Group’s oil and gas arm. Santos in 2021 acquired energy exploration company Oil Search, but a multibillion-dollar gas drilling project has been derailed by a court challenge.

Santos shares rose to a five week high

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December 7, 2023
New York Gov. Hochul picks February date for special election to Santos seat in House

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A special election to pick a successor to George Santos, the New York Republican who was expelled from the U.S. House last week, will be held on Feb. 13, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday.

The race for a seat representing some Long Island suburbs and a small part of the New York City borough of Queens is expected to be a high-profile contest that will mark the start of a year of consequential congressional elections in the state.

For Democrats, the election will be a test of the party’s ability to flip districts around New York City that are seen as vital to their plans to retake control of the House. Republicans enter the contest with heavy momentum on Long Island and will fight to hold on to the district as they look to maintain their narrow House majority.

From the archives (December 2022): Yes, top House Republicans knew of George Santos’s lies before his election in November

Candidates in the special election will be picked by party leaders, not voters.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi has emerged as the potential frontrunner nominee for Democrats. Suozzi, 61, represented the district for six years before launching an unsuccessful campaign for governor last year, and previously held political posts as a county executive and mayor on Long Island.

The centrist Democrat’s deep ties in Long Island politics may provide name recognition and the ability to quickly stand up a campaign — vital attributes in an narrowly focused election where voters will have a limited amount of time to pick their representative.

From the archives (January 2023): George Santos has ‘disgraced’ U.S. House and should resign, say fellow Long Island Republicans

Suozzi had announced his campaign for the seat before Santos was expelled, and has been promoting a series of endorsements from local politicians and labor groups after the district became vacant.

Also vying for the Democratic nomination is former state senator Anna Kaplan, who has in recent days taken potshots at Suozzi’s record and sought to center the special election on passing federal legislation guaranteeing abortion rights.

On the Republican side, potential names include retired police detective Mike Sapraicone, Air Force veteran Kellen Curry and Nassau County legislator Mazi Pilip, an Ethiopian-born Jewish woman who served in the Israeli military.

Sapraicone, who is also the founder of a private security company, said he has been interviewed by county Republicans who will select the nominee, with the panel quizzing him on his political stances, his ability to fundraise and quickly launch a campaign.

Like Suozzi, Sapraicone launched his campaign before Santos was expelled and has already begun to fundraise, with his campaign coffers including $300,000 of his own money, he said.

“For us to maintain the House and retain the majority is so important,” Sapraicone said. “It’s so important that New York sets the tone here in February.”

Democrats want to flip at least five House seats in New York next year, with the Santos seat being a potential early indicator of their chances in November.

The party has dedicated significant financial and organizational resources to the state, after a series of losses last year in the New York City suburbs helped Republicans take control of the House and brought down heavy criticism on state Democrats.

President Joe Biden won the district in 2020, but Republicans have notched electoral gains on Long Island in recent years as moderate suburban voters there, in contrast to urban areas in much of the country, have shown signs of gravitating toward the GOP.

In the latest sign of Republican strength on Long Island, the GOP won several local elections last month, including races in the now-vacant district.

Santos was expelled from the House last week following a scandal-plagued tenure in Congress and a looming criminal trial. He is only the sixth member in the chamber’s history to be ousted by colleagues.

He had survived an expulsion vote just a month earlier.

Read on:

Will George Santos still qualify for a pension and strolling around the House floor?

There’s a George Santos bobblehead with a Pinocchio-style nose — and that’s no lie

John Fetterman buys a George Santos Cameo for ‘ethically challenged colleague’ Bob Menendez

House Republicans scuttle Democrats’ effort to expel George Santos

Why Republicans are opposing a Senate bid to tighten up Supreme Court ethics amid Clarence Thomas questions

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December 6, 2023
George Santos Was Finally Too Much for Republicans

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So long, George Santos, we hardly knew ye—and that was pretty much the problem.

This morning, House members evicted one of their own for only the sixth time in history, terminating the congressional career of the Long Island Republican barely a year after he won election on a campaign of lies and alleged fraud. The vote to expel Santos was 311–114, easily clearing the two-thirds threshold needed to pass. As with most other consequential votes this year, a unified Democratic caucus carried the resolution along with a divided GOP, whose members struggled with the decision of whether to trim their already narrow majority by kicking Santos out of Congress. A slim majority of Republicans stood by Santos, while all but four Democrats voted to expel him.

Santos’s tenure was as memorable as it was brief; to the bitter end—and it was bitter—he seemed to be auditioning for a reality show, or perhaps the title role in a sequel to Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can. Ultimately, a Republican Party that has largely embraced a former president indicted in four separate criminal cases was unwilling to offer the same support to a freshman member of Congress whom a large majority of GOP lawmakers would not have recognized before January. The vote suggested that some ethical line remains that a Republican politician cannot cross without reproach—at least if that person is not named Donald Trump. Where exactly that line sits, however, is unclear.

Republicans largely stood by Santos through earlier efforts to oust him this year after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, false statements, and theft of public funds; just a month ago, the House overwhelmingly rejected an expulsion resolution across party lines. Then came a damning report by the House Ethics Committee that alleged in striking detail just how flagrantly Santos had deceived his campaign donors. He used campaign funds on OnlyFans and Botox, among other salacious tidbits investigators uncovered. “Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” the report concluded. “He blatantly stole from his campaign.”

David A. Graham: The non-end of George Santos

Santos denounced the report and generally denied the allegations, but he has refused to offer a specific defense of his actions. Still, Republican leaders resisted expelling him. Speaker Mike Johnson privately urged Santos to resign in order to spare his party the difficult vote of removing him. But Santos, who had already announced that he would not seek a second term next year, was done with party loyalty. “If I leave, they win,” he told reporters, accusing his colleagues of “bullying” him.

Johnson tried to pressure Santos, but he would not lobby other Republicans to expel him. He described the expulsion resolution as “a vote of conscience”—which is Capitol code for “vote however you want.” But in the hours before today’s vote, he and Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters that they would vote to save Santos.

The reason GOP leaders would protect Santos was plain: With such a small majority, they couldn’t spare a single vote, even one as ethically and legally compromised as his. “Do you think for a minute if Republicans had a 25-seat majority, they would care about George Santos’s vote?” Representative Pete Aguilar of California, the House Democratic caucus chair, asked earlier this week. “They needed him to vote for Speaker McCarthy. They needed him to vote for Speaker Johnson. That’s the only reason why he’s still a member of Congress.”

A few House Republicans acknowledged that the party could ill afford to jettison Santos when it has had enough trouble passing bills as is. The contingent pushing most aggressively for expulsion was Santos’s New York Republican colleagues, who were both personally appalled that he had slipped into Congress alongside them and most likely to suffer politically from his continued presence. A handful of GOP-held seats in Long Island and upstate New York—including the one formerly held by Santos—could determine whether Republicans keep control of the House next year.

Santos won his competitive seat in 2022 after somehow evading the scrutiny that usually accompanies closely fought House races; not until weeks later did The New York Times report that he had almost entirely invented his life story. Santos had lied about attending a prestigious prep school and earning degrees from Baruch College and NYU. He lied about working on Wall Street for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He said that his grandparents survived the Holocaust and that his mother was working in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Both were lies. “He has manufactured his entire life,” Representative Marc Molinaro, a fellow New York Republican, said yesterday in a floor speech arguing for Santos’s expulsion.

Publicly, the Republicans who voted with Santos—mainly staunch conservatives—argued against his removal on procedural grounds. The only other lawmakers the House has expelled were either members of the Confederacy during the Civil War or convicted of crimes in court. Ousting Santos based on accusations alone, these Republicans said, would set a dangerous new precedent and overturn the will of the voters who sent him to Congress. Yet none of them was actually willing to vouch for him. “I rise not to defend Geroge Santos, whoever he is,” Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida said in a floor speech, “but to defend the very precedent that my colleagues are willing to shatter.”

Maria Konnikova: What psychology can teach us about George Santos

Santos was a performer until his very last moments in Congress. “I will not stand by quietly,” he declared on the House floor. It was one statement of his that was indisputably true. Santos was a ubiquitous presence in the days leading up to the vote, willing to attack anyone standing against him. During a three-hour appearance on X (formerly Twitter) Spaces, he accused his colleagues of voting while drunk on the House floor. When one Republican, Representative Max Miller of Ohio, called Santos a “crook” to his face, Santos replied by referring to him as “a woman-beater,” dredging up allegations that Miller had physically abused his ex-girlfriend. (Miller denied the accusations.) Finally, Santos attempted one last bit of retribution by filing a motion to expel Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York, the Democrat who pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor charge for falsely pulling a fire alarm en route to a House vote.

“It’s all theater,” Santos declared yesterday with no hint of irony, on his penultimate day as a member of Congress. He had scheduled a press conference outside the House chamber, using the Capitol dome as a picturesque tableau. In the background, however, was a different icon: a garbage truck, presumably there to take out the congressional trash.

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Russell Berman

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December 1, 2023
Rep. George Santos Faces Expulsion From Congress

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Rep. George Santos (R-NY) faces a another motion to expel him from Congress this week following a House Ethics Committee report that found “substantial evidence” that he broke federal laws, including deceiving his donors, filing false campaign finance statements, and using campaign funds for personal expenses including travel, Botox, and OnlyFans. What do you think?

“I wish him luck in whatever identity he assumes next.”

Phyllis Sadler, Bell Toller

Amazon Fires Employee Who Tested Positive For Having Food In Their System

“I pray the people of New York’s third district will find an equally entertaining replacement.”

Lamar Eriquez, Microfiche Archivist

“It’s only his first term—if we give him a chance, I’m sure he can get better at crime.”

Conrad Campos, Systems Analyst

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November 29, 2023
Rep. Santos faces new charges he stole donor IDs, made unauthorized charges to their credit cards | Long Island Business News

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U.S. Rep. George Santos stole the identities of donors to his campaign and then used their credit cards to ring up tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges, according to a new indictment filed Tuesday.

He then wired some of the money to his own personal bank account, prosecutors said, while using the rest to inflate his campaign coffers.

The 23-count indictment replaces one filed in May against the New York Republican charging him with embezzling money from his campaign and lying to Congress about his wealth, among other offenses.

In the updated indictment, prosecutors accuse Santos of charging more than $44,000 to his campaign over a period of months using cards belonging to contributors without their knowledge. In one case, he charged $12,000 to a contributor’s credit card and transferred the “vast majority” of that money into his personal bank account, prosecutors said.

Santos is also accused of falsely reporting to the Federal Elections Commission that he had loaned his campaign $500,000 when he actually hadn’t given anything and had less than $8,000 in the bank. The fake loan was an attempt to convince Republican Party officials that he was a serious candidate, worth their financial support, the indictment said.

“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,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.

Santos came out of a two-hour Republican conference at the U.S Capitol and told reporters he had no comment on the superseding indictment. “I was in conference like everyone else, without my phone, so I have nothing to say,” he said. He has previously maintained his innocence, claiming he is the victim of a “witch hunt.”

The new charges deepen the legal peril for Santos, who likely faces a lengthy prison term if convicted. So far, he has resisted all calls to resign, insisting he intends to run for reelection next year.

Santos’ personal and professional biography as a wealthy businessman began to unravel soon after winning election to represent parts of Long Island and Queens last year, revealing a tangled web of deception.

In addition to lying to voters — about his distinguished Wall Street background, Jewish heritage, academic and athletic achievements, animal rescue work, real estate holdings and more — Santos is accused of carrying out numerous schemes meant to enrich himself and mislead his donors.

He was initially arrested in May on a 13-count federal indictment, which charged him with using funds earmarked for campaign expenses on designer clothes and other personal expenses and improperly obtaining unemployment benefits meant for Americans who lost work because of the pandemic.

Free on bail while awaiting trial, Santos has described his litany of lies as victimless embellishments, while blaming some of his financial irregularities on his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, who he claims “went rogue.”

Last week, Marks, a longtime Long Island political bookkeeper, pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy charge, telling a judge she helped her former boss hoodwink prospective donors and Republican party officials by submitting bogus campaign finance reports.

Tuesday’s indictment said Marks and Santos were involved in the same scheme to fake a $500,000 campaign loan in order to meet a benchmark that would unlock additional support from a Republican Party committee. Santos has now also been charged with recording fake donations from at least 10 people, all his or Marks’ relatives, as part of the same effort to make the campaign look like it hit those fundraising goals.

Santos was not initially charged in the criminal complaint against Marks, but was identified in court papers as a “co-conspirator.”

The new indictment alleges a multi-part fraud by Santos, who allegedly duped both his donors and his family members.

In one instance, Santos allegedly swiped the credit card information of one of his contributors, who had already donated $5,800 to the campaign, to give himself an additional $15,800 in payments, the indictment said. Because the unauthorized charges exceeded contribution limits under federal law, Santos listed the additional payments as coming from his own unwitting relatives, prosecutors allege.

The credit card fraud scheme began in December 2021, prosecutors said, shortly after Santos failed to qualify for a Republican Party program that would have provided financial and logistical support to his second congressional campaign.

In text messages to Marks at the time, he described himself as “lost and desperate,” prosecutors said.

Financial questions have continued to swirl around Santos, who claimed to be rich but spent much of his adulthood bouncing between low-paying jobs and unemployment, while fending off eviction cases and two separatecriminal charges relating to his use of bad checks.

A separate fundraiser for Santos, Sam Miele, was also previously indicted on federal charges that he impersonated a high-ranking congressional aide while soliciting contributions for the Republican’s campaign.

Prosecutors said Miele, 27, impersonated the former chief of staff to GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who at the time was the House minority leader, by setting up dummy email addresses that resembled the staffer’s name.

Miele’s attorney, Kevin Marino, previously predicted his client would be exonerated at trial.

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The Associated Press

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October 11, 2023
Former fundraiser for Rep. George Santos charged with wire fraud and identity theft | Long Island Business News

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A former fundraiser for U.S. Rep. George Santos was indicted Wednesday on federal charges that he impersonated a high-ranking congressional aide while soliciting contributions for the New York Republican’s campaign.

Sam Miele was charged with four counts of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in an alleged scheme to defraud donors and obtain money under false pretenses. Prosecutors said Miele impersonated a high-ranking aide to a House member with leadership responsibilities, using a fake name and email address to trick at least a dozen prospective donors.

Santos was not charged in the case involving Miele.

The indictment did not name the person who was impersonated by name, but the details of the charges match with multiple news reports identifying the aide as Dan Myer, now retired as the longtime chief of staff to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who at the time was minority leader.

Attempts to reach Miele by phone were not immediately successful. A phone number listed in his name rang unanswered. Myer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Santos’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

Federal prosecutors said Miele admitted to “faking my identity to a big donor” in a letter sent to Santos last Sept. 26, a few months before Santos was elected. Miele said he was “high risk, high reward in everything I do,” according to the indictment.

Miele earned a commission of 15% for each contribution he raised, prosecutors said.

The indictment come three months after Santos was arrested on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress. He has pleaded not guilty and insisted he has no plans to resign from Congress.

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The Associated Press

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August 16, 2023
Why Kevin McCarthy Can’t Lose George Santos

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The Republican Party has had no better friend than Nassau County in the past few years.

Of America’s largest counties, few have turned more sharply toward the GOP than New York City’s neighbor to the east. This collection of Long Island suburbs swept Democrats out of local office in 2021, and last fall, Nassau County voted resoundingly Republican in New York’s gubernatorial race. Most important for the national GOP, the county helped elect three Republicans to Congress, including two candidates who flipped Democratic seats in districts that President Joe Biden had carried in 2020.

Representative George Santos was one of those recent winners, and now Nassau County Republicans are worried that his abrupt fall from grace will cost the GOP far more than the seat that his lies helped the party pick up in November. They want Santos to step down, even though that means his seat would be vacant until a special election later this year, which the Democrats would aggressively contest. Local Republicans are flummoxed that national party leaders, starting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, haven’t joined their united call for Santos to resign. And they see McCarthy’s continued tolerance of Santos as an attempt to hold on to a Republican vote in the near term without enough consideration for whether he’d lose it—and cause Republicans to lose many others—in the longer term.

Tom Nichols: Amazingly, George Santos is a member of Congress

“It’s the right thing to do morally, ethically, and politically,” former Representative Peter King, a Long Island Republican who represented the district next to Santos’s in the House for 28 years, told me about trying to oust Santos. “If you want to keep controlling the Congress, you can’t just have the short-sighted view that you need his vote next week or next month. You’re gonna lose all the votes in two years when you’re no longer in the majority.”

With 2024 in mind, and as the list of Santos’s biographical fabrications grows (seemingly by the day), Nassau County’s GOP machine has treated the congressman-for-now as a boil to be lanced.

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s nonexistent. I will not deal with him. I will not deal with his office,” Bruce Blakeman, the Republican who was elected Nassau County executive in 2021, told me. Last week, Blakeman joined a group of local GOP leaders, including county Republican Party Chairman Joseph Cairo and Representative Anthony Garbarino, in demanding that Santos resign.

Yet for the moment, the political imperatives of Long Island Republicans no longer align with those of McCarthy, who plainly cannot afford to lose Santos’s vote with such a narrow margin in the House. Santos backed McCarthy in all 15 ballots for speaker earlier this month, and McCarthy’s allies rewarded him with a pair of committee assignments earlier this week. The new speaker said that Santos has “a long way to go to earn trust” but has made no move to sanction him.

“The voters of his district have elected him. He is seated. He is part of the Republican conference,” McCarthy told reporters last week.

Democrats have already filed a complaint about Santos with the House Ethics Committee, and he is under investigation by federal and local prosecutors in New York who are reportedly looking into whether he committed financial crimes or violated federal campaign-disclosure laws.

Santos has defied calls to resign, and McCarthy might need his vote even more should another House Republican, Representative Greg Steube of Florida, miss an extended period of time after he sustained serious injuries from a 25-foot fall off a ladder earlier this week.

McCarthy’s office did not respond to requests for comment. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which traditionally backs GOP incumbents, echoed McCarthy’s ambivalence toward Santos. “Voters in New York will have the final say on who represents them,” NRCC spokesperson Jack Pandol told me by email. “Rep. Santos will have to earn back their trust as he serves them in Congress.”

Steve Israel: How a perfectly normal New York suburb elected a con man

King and others in Nassau County are trying to impress upon McCarthy that the longer he stands by Santos, the more damage he will do to a Republican brand that has been on the rise. “The only reason Kevin McCarthy has the majority is because of the very close marginal seats that Republicans won in New York,” King said. “We can lose all of them in the next election.”

Even if McCarthy wanted to force Santos out, however, there’s not much he can do. He could try to expel him, but that would take the support of two-thirds of the House, and members of both parties might be leery of setting precedent by kicking out a member who has not been charged, much less convicted, of a crime. King suggested that McCarthy insist on an expedited investigation by the Ethics Committee—the panel’s probes tend to drag on for months—but there’s little history of that either.

Election to the House “is an unshakable contract for two years,” Doug Heye, a former House GOP leadership aide who has advised lawmakers ensnarled in ethics investigations, told me. “Unless two-thirds of the House say, ‘Get out of here,’ or you give it up yourself, nothing happens.”

Santos has almost no incentive to leave of his own accord anytime soon, especially now that Long Island Republicans have all but foreclosed the possibility of his winning renomination to his seat. “He’s not going to have a career. He’s not going to have a public life, and he’s going to be ostracized in his own community,” Blakeman told me. Santos was wealthy enough to lend his campaign $700,000. But his present personal finances are, like so much else about his life, a mystery, so he may need the paychecks that come with a $174,000 annual salary. And his seat could be a crucial bit of leverage in potential negotiations with prosecutors, Heye noted; resigning his seat, in that scenario, could help him avoid other penalties, including prison time.

As his struggle just to get the speakership demonstrated, McCarthy doesn’t exactly have an ironclad grip on his conference. The Republicans from Nassau County seem to realize that the new speaker has limited sway over Santos. But McCarthy’s decision to protect and even validate Santos’s standing inside Congress is at odds with a party clinging both to its House majority and to its precarious stronghold on Long Island. “I’ve dealt with people with all sorts of issues,” Blakeman told me,” and enabling them is not a good thing.”

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Russell Berman

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January 20, 2023
House Democrats file ethics complaint against GOP Rep. George Santos of New York

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US Representative George Santos (R-NY) walks through the House Chamber as the House of Representatives continues voting for new speaker at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 5, 2023.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

Two New York Democratic congressmen on Tuesday filed a House Ethics Committee complaint against Rep. George Santos, the freshman Republican from New York who recently was found to have lied about and embellished details on his resume.

Democratic Reps. Ritchie Torres and Dan Goldman, in a six-page letter, called on the panel to probe Santos for possibly violating the Ethics in Government Act “by failing to file timely, accurate and complete financial disclosure reports as required by law.”

The letter, which the lawmakers hand-delivered to Santos’ office on Capitol Hill, called the financial disclosure reports filed for his 2020 and 2022 campaigns “sparse and perplexing.”

“At a minimum, it is apparent that he did not file timely disclosure reports for his most recent
campaign,” Torres and Goldman wrote.

“Moreover, his own public statements have contradicted some information included in
the 2022 financial disclosure and confirmed that the 2022 financial disclosure failed to disclose
other required information,” the letter said.

The complaint to the Ethics panel was filed a day after the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, filed a complaint against Santos with the Federal Election Commission for allegedly violating numerous campaign finance laws.

The letter Tuesday by the two Democratic lawmakers noted that media reports and Santos’ “own admissions” in recent weeks had shown that he “misled voters in his District about ethnicity, his religion, his education, and his employment and professional history, among other things.”

In a tweet about the complaint, Torres wrote, “Santos must be held accountable for defrauding both Congress and the public.”

A spokeswoman for Santos, who represents a district that covers parts of Queens and Long Island, N.Y., did not return a request for comment.

The Hill reported that in response to the complain, Santos said, “They’re free to do whatever they want to do.”

“I have done nothing unethical,” Santos said, according to The Hill.

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.

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January 10, 2023
Pelé buried at cemetery in Brazilian city he made famous

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SANTOS, Brazil — Brazil said a final farewell to Pelé on Tuesday, burying the legend who unified the bitterly divided country.

Newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid his respects at Vila Belmiro, the stadium where Pelé played for most of his career.

Pelé died last week at age 82 and was laid to rest in Santos, the city where he became famous after moving there at age 15 to play for Santos FC. The funeral Mass was held at the team’s Vila Belmiro stadium before his black casket was driven through the streets of the of Santos in a firetruck.

It was taken into the cemetery as bands played the team’s official song and a Roman Catholic hymn. Before the golden-wrapped casket arrived, attendees sang samba songs that Pelé liked.

Some Brazilian soccer legends weren’t there.

“Where’s Ronaldo Nazario? Where’s Kaká, where’s Neymar?” asked Claudionor Alves, 67, who works at a bakery next to the stadium. “Do they think they will be remembered like Pelé will? These guys didn’t want to stop their vacations, that’s the problem.”

Geovana Sarmento, 17, waited in a three-hour line to view Pelé’s body as it lay in repose. She came with her father, who was wearing a Brazil shirt with Pelé’s name.

“I am not a Santos fan, neither is my father. But this guy invented Brazil’s national team. He made Santos stronger, he made it big, how could you not respect him? He is one of the greatest people ever, we needed to honor him,” she said.

Caio Zalke, 35, an engineer, wore a Brazil shirt as he waited in the line.

“Pelé is the most important Brazilian of all time. He made the sport important for Brazil and he made Brazil important for the world,” Zalke said.

Pelé in the 1960s and 1970s was perhaps the world’s most famous athlete. He met presidents and queens, and a civil war in Nigeria was put on hold so people could watch him play. Many Brazilians credit Pelé with putting the country on the world stage for the first time.

Rows of shirts with Pelé’s No. 10 were placed behind one of the stadium’s goals, waving in the city’s summer winds. A section of the stands filled up with bouquets of flowers placed by mourners and sent by clubs and star players — Neymar and Ronaldo among them — from around the world as loudspeakers played the song “Eu sou Pelé” (“I am Pelé”) recorded by him.

The crowd was mostly local, although some came from far away, and many mourners were too young ever to have seen Pelé play. The mood was light, as people filtered out of the stadium to local bars, wearing Santos FC and Brazil shirts.

Claudio Carrança, 32, a salesman, said: “I never saw him play, but loving Pelé is a tradition that goes from father to son in Santos. I learned his history, saw his goals, and I see how Santos FC is important because he is important. I know some Santos fans have children supporting other teams. But that’s just because they never saw Pelé in action. If they had, they would feel this gratitude I feel now.”

Among those at the stadium was Pelé’s best friend Manoel Maria, also a former Santos player.

“If I had all the wealth in the world I would never be able to repay what this man did for me and my family,” Maria said. “He was as great a man as he was as a player — the best of all time. His legacy will outlive us all. And that can be seen in this long line with people of all ages here.”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino told journalists that every country should name a stadium after Pelé.

“I am here with a lot of emotion, sadness, but also with a smile because he gave us so many smiles,” Infantino said. “As FIFA, we will pay a tribute to the ‘King’ and we ask the whole world to observe a minute of silence.”

Another fan and friend in line was Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes.

“It is a very sad moment, but we are now seeing the real meaning of this legendary player to our country,” Mendes told journalists. “My office has shirts signed by Pelé, a picture of him as a goalkeeper, also signed by him. DVDs, photos, a big collection of him.”

Pelé had undergone treatment for colon cancer since 2021. The medical center where he had been hospitalized said he died of multiple organ failure as a result of the cancer.

Pelé led Brazil to World Cup titles in 1958, 1962 and 1970 and remains one of the team’s all-time leading scorers with 77 goals. Neymar tied Pelé’s record during this year’s World Cup in Qatar.

———

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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January 3, 2023
Brazil prepares to bury Pelé in city he made soccer mecca

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SANTOS, Brazil — Forty-five years after Pelé played his last game, it’s hard to imagine modern soccer, or Brazil, without him.

Geovana Sarmento, 17, waited in the three-hour line to view his body as it lay in repose at the stadium where he played for most of his career. She came with her father, who was wearing a Brazil shirt with Pelé’s name.

“I am not a Santos fan, neither is my father. But this guy invented Brazil’s national team. He made Santos stronger, he made it big, how could you not respect him? He is one of the greatest people ever, we needed to honor him,” she said.

Pelé will be buried Tuesday in the city where he grew up, became famous, and helped make into a global capital of soccer. A Catholic Mass will be celebrated at the Vila Belmiro stadium before his casket is ushered through the streets of Santos to a nearby cemetery.

Brazil’s newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in for a third term Sunday after a comeback victory, paid his respects at Vila Belmiro.

The soccer great died Thursday at age 82 after a battle with cancer. He was the only player ever to win three World Cups.

Thousands of mourners, including high school students and supreme court justices, filed Monday past the body of Pelé on the century-old field where he made his hometown team one of Brazil’s best. Pelé’s coffin, draped in the flags of Brazil and the Santos FC club, was placed on the midfield area of Vila Belmiro.

Lula arrived at 9 a.m. and took part in a Catholic Mass as fans continued to walk past the coffin, and expressed his condolences to Pelé’s widow, Marcia Aoki, holding her head between his hands. He left 30 minutes later.

The storied 16,000-seat stadium was surrounded by mourning fans, and covered with Pelé-themed decorations inside. Fans coming out of the stadium said they’d waited three hours in line, standing under a blazing sun.

Caio Zalke, 35, an engineer, wore a Brazil shirt as he waited in line. “Pelé is the most important Brazilian of all time. He made soccer important for Brazil and he made Brazil important for the world,” he said.

In the 1960s and 70s, Pelé was perhaps the world’s most famous athlete. He met presidents and queens, and in Nigeria a civil war was put on hold to watch him play. Many Brazilians credit him with putting the country on the world stage for the first time.

Rows of shirts with Pelé’s number 10 were placed behind one of the goals, waving in the city’s summer winds. A section of the stands was filling up with bouquets of flowers placed by mourners and sent by clubs and star players — Neymar and Ronaldo among them — from around the world as loudspeakers played a song named “Eu sou Pelé” (“I am Pelé”) that was recorded by the Brazilian himself.

The crowd was mostly local, although some came from far away. Many mourners were too young ever to have seen Pelé play. The mood was light, as people filtered out of the stadium to local bars, wearing Santos FC and Brazil shirts.

Claudio Carrança, 32, a salesman, said: “I never saw him play, but loving Pelé is a tradition that goes from father to son in Santos. I learned his history, saw his goals, and I see how Santos FC is important because he is important. I know some Santos fans have children supporting other teams. But that’s just because they never saw Pelé in action. If they had, they would feel this gratitude I feel now.”

Among those at the stadium was Pelé’s best friend Manoel Maria, also a former Santos player.

“If I had all the wealth in the world I would never be able to repay what this man did for me and my family,” Maria said. “He was as great a man as he was as a player; the best of all time. His legacy will outlive us all. And that can be seen in this long line with people of all ages here.”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino told journalists that every country should name a stadium after Pelé.

“I am here with a lot of emotion, sadness, but also with a smile because he gave us so many smiles,” Infantino said. “As FIFA, we will pay a tribute to the ‘King’ and we ask the whole world to observe a minute of silence.”

Another fan and friend in line was Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes.

“It is a very sad moment, but we are now seeing the real meaning of this legendary player to our country,” Mendes told journalists. “My office has shirts signed by Pelé, a picture of him as a goalkeeper, also signed by him. DVDs, photos, a big collection of him.”

Pelé had undergone treatment for colon cancer since 2021. The medical center where he had been hospitalized said he died of multiple organ failure as a result of the cancer.

Pelé led Brazil to World Cup titles in 1958, 1962 and 1970 and remains one of the team’s all-time leading scorers with 77 goals. Neymar tied Pelé’s record during this year’s World Cup in Qatar.

———

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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January 3, 2023
Brazilians mourn Pelé at the stadium where he got his start

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SANTOS, Brazil — Thousands of mourners, including high school students and supreme court justices, began filing past the body of Pelé on Monday on the century-old field where he made his hometown team one of Brazil’s best.

The soccer great died on Thursday after a battle with cancer. He was the only player ever to win three World Cups, and he was 82.

Pelé’s coffin, draped in the flags of Brazil and the Santos FC club, was placed on the midfield area of Vila Belmiro, the stadium outside Sao Paulo that was his home for most of his career. A Catholic Mass will be celebrated there Tuesday morning before his burial at a nearby cemetery. Brazil’s newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will come to Vila Belmiro shortly before Pelé’s coffin is removed from the stadium.

The storied 16,000-seat stadium was surrounded by mourners, and covered with Pelé-themed decorations. Fans coming out of the stadium said they’d waited three hours in line, standing under a blazing sun.

Forty-five years after Pelé played his last game, he’s still a central part of Brazil’s national story.

Geovana Sarmento, 17, came with her father, who was wearing a Brazil shirt with Pelé’s name.

“I am not a Santos fan, neither is my father. But this guy invented Brazil’s national team. He made Santos stronger, he made it big, how could you not respect him? He is one of the greatest people ever, we needed to honor him,” she said.

In the 1960s and 70s, Pelé was perhaps the world’s most famous athlete. He met presidents and queens, and in Nigeria a civil war was put on hold to watch him play. Many Brazilians credit him with putting the country on the world stage.

Caio Zalke, 35, an engineer, also wore a Brazil shirt as he waited in line. “Pelé is the most important Brazilian of all time. He made soccer important for Brazil and he made Brazil important for the world,” he said.

Rows of shirts with Pelé’s number 10 were placed behind one of the goals, waving in the city’s summer winds. A section of the stands was filling up with bouquets of flowers placed by mourners and sent by clubs and star players — Neymar and Ronaldo among them — from around the world as loudspeakers played a song named “Eu sou Pelé” (“I am Pelé”) that was recorded by the Brazilian himself.

Claudio Carrança, 32, a salesman, said: “I never saw him play, but loving Pelé is a tradition that goes from father to son in Santos. I learned his history, saw his goals, and I see how Santos FC is important because he is important. I know some Santos fans have children supporting other teams. But that’s just because they never saw Pelé in action. If they had, they would feel this gratitude I feel now.”

Santos FC said that more than 1,100 journalists from 23 countries were at the funeral. Dignitaries and friends of Pelé in attendance spoke at the funeral.

Among them was Pelé’s best friend Manoel Maria, who is also a former Santos player. “If I had all the wealth in the world I would never be able to repay what this man did for me and my family. He was as great a man as he was as a player; the best of all time. His legacy will outlive us all. And that can be seen in this long line with people of all ages here.”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino told journalists that every country should name a stadium after Pelé.

“I am here with a lot of emotion, sadness, but also with a smile because he gave us so many smiles,” Infantino said. “As FIFA, we will pay a tribute to the ‘King’ and we ask the whole world to observe a minute of silence.”

Another fan and friend in line was Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes.

“It is a very sad moment, but we are now seeing the real meaning of this legendary player to our country,” Mendes told journalists. “My office has shirts signed by Pelé, a picture of him as a goalkeeper, also signed by him. DVDs, photos, a big collection of him.”

Mendes also said Pelé was a humble man despite his global fame, and that he deserves every tribute.

The casket will be ushered through the streets of Santos before his burial Tuesday.

Pelé had undergone treatment for colon cancer since 2021. The medical center where he had been hospitalized said he died of multiple organ failure as a result of the cancer.

The soccer star led Brazil to World Cup titles in 1958, 1962 and 1970, and remains one of the team’s all-time leading scorers with 77 goals. Neymar tied Pelé’s record during this year’s World Cup in Qatar.

———

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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January 2, 2023