It only took around four months from being sworn in as a Congressmember before George Anthony Devolder Santos was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York on 13 criminal counts.
From my old U.S. Sentencing Guidelines when I was an AUSA, the base offense level for money laundering is 17, which provides for a guideline sentence of 24-30 months without a guilty plea (18-24 months with a plea). And that is on the money laundering alone. The guideline sentencing on the wire fraud counts, are likely much lower given the relatively small amounts of money involved, at least as of now. So it makes total sense for Santos to plead to the wire fraud counts and avoid being convicted on the money laundering charges. But, given how quickly the feds moved here, it seems likely that they wanted to get some charges filed while they continue to investigate other possible crimes, including the alleged Harbor City Ponzi scheme. I suspect the current indictment is not the end of Mr. Santos' troubles.
The mother duckling that keeps giving....so many disparate entities have imprinted upon Donald Trump and felt sufficiently emboldened as to traffic in ostentatious absurdity, some with trappings of venomous acrimony, others with more Wile E buffoonery, but all parading their actions with remarkable audacity, linked by the king of repugnant foolery.
Trumpism has birthed a legion of miscreants boldly and unabashedly intercalating within all of our societal elements.
He is the poster boy for the GOP-corrupt, lying, cheating, lacking any moral compass-just like Trump, Desantis, Jordan, Gosar, Cruz, and all the rest. Sickening to behold and horrifying that these people, lacking in any form of human decency, have been elected to ANY office, let alone serving in Congress or statewide positions.
I have two minds about Intrater. There isn’t any direct evidence that he is in any way dirty because he is part of the Vekselberg family (a cousin). But like Greg on Succession, it’s hard even for cousins not to get their hands dirty. We’ll have to see.
Between Santos's and Trump's multitude of transgressions, the term they keep using to dismiss what they're accused of would apply if we changed the spelling to "which hunt?" What Santos didn't have going for him was a Trump-sized army of lawyers to advise him in setting up his shell games and scams. Every single crime that Santos has been indicted for is one Trump could also be accused of, and hopefully will be.
Jay: A thorough Thursday indeed. Your breakdown of the issues is both succinct and substantive--not an easy task to achieve in an essay. Santos is emerging as kind of an Andrew Cunanan, without murderous intent or actions. We're fortunate he wasn't as talented, smart, shrewd and deranged as either Cunanan or the fictional Mr. Ripley. Having lived in the 3rd CD on Long Island for 20 years, its a district that became reliably Democratic with the election of the great Bob Mrazek in 1982, in a race we worked on to defeat the far-right wing John LeBoutillier, a one-term fascist. You are spot on to raise several issues which will continue to unfold: 1) the role of Nancy Marks--the ubiquitous GOP campaign treasure (who worked for many GOP candidates over a few decades, including the current GOP Candidate for Suffolk County Executive, Ed Romaine). There is some speculation that Marks may have turned State's Evidence against Santos, in order to reduce her own jail time. 2) the role of the NYS GOP (from Lee Zeldin, another Marks' employer), GOP State Chair Ed Cox (Richard Nixon's son-in-law, and no stranger to "dirty tricks," and Elise "slippery as grease" Stefanik, who headed the GOP House Campaign in NYS to retake the House. Stefanik--a key McCarthy ally in his election to Speaker--campaigned with Santos, raised money with him, and used some Santos money on behalf of other GOP House candidates. 3) the role of the Russians (did Intrater's involvement indicate that Santos was a traitor?) in both Santos' campaign and the GOP campaign to retake the House, since the Russians new it was one way they could derail US assistance to Ukraine. How deeply was Russian $$ (and other GOP dark money) involved in Santos campaign? Where did his initial $700,000 gift to his own campaign come from? How many other GOP campaigns was it funneled to? Who distributed the $$? Who took the $$? Who put up yesterday's $500,000 bail for Santos?
Without sounding like a conspiracy theorist, it may have been more than Freudian that Nancy Marks referred to the political consulting firm "Red Strategies." Was the "Red Strategy" directed from friends of the Kremlin? Indeed, Santos was a "designer" candidate, perhaps the brainchild of more sinister people than his own stupid self. A maybe gay, maybe Jewish, maybe rich, maybe successful, maybe "self-made" candidate is tailor-made for the 3RD C.D, which has always viewed itself as somewhat cosmopolitan and tolerant. In all likelihood, Tom Suozzi, the former Congressman of the District who foolishly ran a premature primary campaign for Governor against Hochul, will be the Dem Candidate in a special election, especially since he getting input from Hakeem Jeffreis to do so. Suozzi is a savvy enough Long Island pol to know that THIS election will have inordinate national attention, something he is not adverse to, since he has always himself in larger, national terms. Last fall, prior to the 2022 Election and immediately after, I was equally tough on Dems--and on Long Island's Newsday and the NY Times for their abject failure to uncover easily uncoverable facts about Santos BEFORE the election. Sean Patrick Maloney, who chaired the DCCC, was too consumed with his own self-preservation, to raise any red-flags about Santos. He failed at both jobs. Kathy Hochul and the NYS Dem Committtee were too busy waging a terrible, uncoordinated statewide campaign to do the appropriate oppo research on Santos. Some of us saw it coming, but our warnings weren't heeded. https://open.substack.com/pub/villano/p/arrested-georgie-santos-has-no-pantos?r=cveu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Why can't we have the same rules for the government as we do for any workplace? You lied on the interview? You don't get a job. Or, if you got the job, you get fired the moment the lies are discovered. Sexual harassment? Fired. Racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic remarks? Fired. Abusive behavior? Fired. I am SO DONE with paying the salaries of total scumbags who first go through every possible underhanded thing to get the job as a legislator and then spend their time doing nothing.
Hear hear!! 👏🏻 Plus a whole slate of SCOTUS justices who lied (about their stance on Roe) to Congress in the run up to their noms? Seems to be a pattern here, and mainly on the Right.
Substack is being flaky with the comments (doubling them). But:
As I keep saying, Democrats need to attack the messaging. Santos is clearly not bright enough to stay out of jail, and even if TFG loaned him an attorney (too dumb to claim that as income on his tax return), he's not going to survive this and the rest that will come out of it.
I'm seeing far to much hand-wringing about the CNN "town hall" last night, WTF did you expect? It was a carefully selected audience, a carefully selected moderator, and basically free advertising that TFG can't afford right now due to his rising legal bills. Time for some facts (and not the usual talking points of the economy):
Fact: Biden is being attacked in the press b/c of his age. He is in reportedly excellent health, exercises regularly and has always been open about the results of his physicals.
Fact: Trump is about his same age. He eats a shitty diet, does no exercise, and the only "health results of any credibility that he has released was his "acing" of the cognitive exam, a test I take every year as a part of my medicare-paid-for physical. May I remind people of that interview with Jonathan Swan?
Fact: Biden is being attacked because of his "slow speech."
Fact: Trump can's string words into a coherent sentence, and is a mouthpiece for his handlers, he hasn't uttered an original, coherent sentence since he started going off on Obama's birth certificate. Hamberder, covefe, as a reminder.
Fact: Biden is attacked by the Republicans for his policies. TFG never outlined any policies. EVER. Well, except to incerate under-age children at the border and separate them from their parents. An event apparently supported by his wife, who supposedly runs a "Be Best" campaign. How can a kid "Be Best" at age five in lock up?
Fact: Trump always said infrastructure was a priority. He did nothing
Fact: I live in Ohio, right in the area where Intel is building its plants, and I can tell you it is IMPOSSIBLE to get from point A to point B because of the infusion of BIDEN's infrastructure money. Aging bridges being torn down, highways being widened, highway bridges being reinforced, Folks: shit is getting done here and at lightening speed.
Democrats need to message these things out and take no prisoners.
Santos strikes me as a Rosie Ruiz (woman who took public transportation in route to winning the NYC marathon) figure who ran for congress as a scam but didn’t intend on winning and thus bringing his scam to light.
Thanks Jay—such great info, as always! Also curious to see how the Herschel Walker campaign money/possible fraud situation plays out, any plans to explore that one?
There are some similarities between what Santos did and what Walker did with respect to rich donors. There may be a cottage industry developing for prosecutors to look into suspect donor asks and misuse of campaign funds, especially now that the spigot is so open.
Jay, might the IRS get involved, too, in Devolder's (aka "Santos") legal mess? Would it be too soon to determine if he filed tax returns for 2022 that add to his woes?
I’m not weary of this particular one. It’s very informative and illuminating to see how far the party will go to preserve its power. It can be depressing, but then the sheer audacity of it keeps me from closing my eyes.
But the beauty is all the windows are being opened. This little pea-brain getting busted looks like the opening to dig into all the rest of the R's, and their dirty deeds. I hope it spreads into the states, as well. I'm from Ohio, just like Christina Gray, and we're no strangers to corruption here.
From my old U.S. Sentencing Guidelines when I was an AUSA, the base offense level for money laundering is 17, which provides for a guideline sentence of 24-30 months without a guilty plea (18-24 months with a plea). And that is on the money laundering alone. The guideline sentencing on the wire fraud counts, are likely much lower given the relatively small amounts of money involved, at least as of now. So it makes total sense for Santos to plead to the wire fraud counts and avoid being convicted on the money laundering charges. But, given how quickly the feds moved here, it seems likely that they wanted to get some charges filed while they continue to investigate other possible crimes, including the alleged Harbor City Ponzi scheme. I suspect the current indictment is not the end of Mr. Santos' troubles.
I tend to agree that this might not be the end of the charges.
The mother duckling that keeps giving....so many disparate entities have imprinted upon Donald Trump and felt sufficiently emboldened as to traffic in ostentatious absurdity, some with trappings of venomous acrimony, others with more Wile E buffoonery, but all parading their actions with remarkable audacity, linked by the king of repugnant foolery.
Trumpism has birthed a legion of miscreants boldly and unabashedly intercalating within all of our societal elements.
Do let's de-normalize all of this...
I keep thinking about Al Franken. He resigned just from the accusation of sexual impropriety.
We hold our own to much higher standards. Sometimes too high.
He is the poster boy for the GOP-corrupt, lying, cheating, lacking any moral compass-just like Trump, Desantis, Jordan, Gosar, Cruz, and all the rest. Sickening to behold and horrifying that these people, lacking in any form of human decency, have been elected to ANY office, let alone serving in Congress or statewide positions.
His money smells like Russian rubles. I hope there are even more charges to come.
I have two minds about Intrater. There isn’t any direct evidence that he is in any way dirty because he is part of the Vekselberg family (a cousin). But like Greg on Succession, it’s hard even for cousins not to get their hands dirty. We’ll have to see.
His sentence from Vladimir Putin likely is defenestration .
Thank you again for your research and commentary.
Between Santos's and Trump's multitude of transgressions, the term they keep using to dismiss what they're accused of would apply if we changed the spelling to "which hunt?" What Santos didn't have going for him was a Trump-sized army of lawyers to advise him in setting up his shell games and scams. Every single crime that Santos has been indicted for is one Trump could also be accused of, and hopefully will be.
Love your analyses. Sometimes hilarious too.
We always need a bit of levity in these disastrous times.
Jay: A thorough Thursday indeed. Your breakdown of the issues is both succinct and substantive--not an easy task to achieve in an essay. Santos is emerging as kind of an Andrew Cunanan, without murderous intent or actions. We're fortunate he wasn't as talented, smart, shrewd and deranged as either Cunanan or the fictional Mr. Ripley. Having lived in the 3rd CD on Long Island for 20 years, its a district that became reliably Democratic with the election of the great Bob Mrazek in 1982, in a race we worked on to defeat the far-right wing John LeBoutillier, a one-term fascist. You are spot on to raise several issues which will continue to unfold: 1) the role of Nancy Marks--the ubiquitous GOP campaign treasure (who worked for many GOP candidates over a few decades, including the current GOP Candidate for Suffolk County Executive, Ed Romaine). There is some speculation that Marks may have turned State's Evidence against Santos, in order to reduce her own jail time. 2) the role of the NYS GOP (from Lee Zeldin, another Marks' employer), GOP State Chair Ed Cox (Richard Nixon's son-in-law, and no stranger to "dirty tricks," and Elise "slippery as grease" Stefanik, who headed the GOP House Campaign in NYS to retake the House. Stefanik--a key McCarthy ally in his election to Speaker--campaigned with Santos, raised money with him, and used some Santos money on behalf of other GOP House candidates. 3) the role of the Russians (did Intrater's involvement indicate that Santos was a traitor?) in both Santos' campaign and the GOP campaign to retake the House, since the Russians new it was one way they could derail US assistance to Ukraine. How deeply was Russian $$ (and other GOP dark money) involved in Santos campaign? Where did his initial $700,000 gift to his own campaign come from? How many other GOP campaigns was it funneled to? Who distributed the $$? Who took the $$? Who put up yesterday's $500,000 bail for Santos?
Without sounding like a conspiracy theorist, it may have been more than Freudian that Nancy Marks referred to the political consulting firm "Red Strategies." Was the "Red Strategy" directed from friends of the Kremlin? Indeed, Santos was a "designer" candidate, perhaps the brainchild of more sinister people than his own stupid self. A maybe gay, maybe Jewish, maybe rich, maybe successful, maybe "self-made" candidate is tailor-made for the 3RD C.D, which has always viewed itself as somewhat cosmopolitan and tolerant. In all likelihood, Tom Suozzi, the former Congressman of the District who foolishly ran a premature primary campaign for Governor against Hochul, will be the Dem Candidate in a special election, especially since he getting input from Hakeem Jeffreis to do so. Suozzi is a savvy enough Long Island pol to know that THIS election will have inordinate national attention, something he is not adverse to, since he has always himself in larger, national terms. Last fall, prior to the 2022 Election and immediately after, I was equally tough on Dems--and on Long Island's Newsday and the NY Times for their abject failure to uncover easily uncoverable facts about Santos BEFORE the election. Sean Patrick Maloney, who chaired the DCCC, was too consumed with his own self-preservation, to raise any red-flags about Santos. He failed at both jobs. Kathy Hochul and the NYS Dem Committtee were too busy waging a terrible, uncoordinated statewide campaign to do the appropriate oppo research on Santos. Some of us saw it coming, but our warnings weren't heeded. https://open.substack.com/pub/villano/p/arrested-georgie-santos-has-no-pantos?r=cveu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you for your insights. A real- life Manchurian Candidate?
As well as a number of US Senators, and a good number of MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives...
Why can't we have the same rules for the government as we do for any workplace? You lied on the interview? You don't get a job. Or, if you got the job, you get fired the moment the lies are discovered. Sexual harassment? Fired. Racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic remarks? Fired. Abusive behavior? Fired. I am SO DONE with paying the salaries of total scumbags who first go through every possible underhanded thing to get the job as a legislator and then spend their time doing nothing.
Hear hear!! 👏🏻 Plus a whole slate of SCOTUS justices who lied (about their stance on Roe) to Congress in the run up to their noms? Seems to be a pattern here, and mainly on the Right.
.... not one, but TWO of whom also have allegations of sexual misconduct against them.
Substack is being flaky with the comments (doubling them). But:
As I keep saying, Democrats need to attack the messaging. Santos is clearly not bright enough to stay out of jail, and even if TFG loaned him an attorney (too dumb to claim that as income on his tax return), he's not going to survive this and the rest that will come out of it.
I'm seeing far to much hand-wringing about the CNN "town hall" last night, WTF did you expect? It was a carefully selected audience, a carefully selected moderator, and basically free advertising that TFG can't afford right now due to his rising legal bills. Time for some facts (and not the usual talking points of the economy):
Fact: Biden is being attacked in the press b/c of his age. He is in reportedly excellent health, exercises regularly and has always been open about the results of his physicals.
Fact: Trump is about his same age. He eats a shitty diet, does no exercise, and the only "health results of any credibility that he has released was his "acing" of the cognitive exam, a test I take every year as a part of my medicare-paid-for physical. May I remind people of that interview with Jonathan Swan?
Fact: Biden is being attacked because of his "slow speech."
Fact: Trump can's string words into a coherent sentence, and is a mouthpiece for his handlers, he hasn't uttered an original, coherent sentence since he started going off on Obama's birth certificate. Hamberder, covefe, as a reminder.
Fact: Biden is attacked by the Republicans for his policies. TFG never outlined any policies. EVER. Well, except to incerate under-age children at the border and separate them from their parents. An event apparently supported by his wife, who supposedly runs a "Be Best" campaign. How can a kid "Be Best" at age five in lock up?
Fact: Trump always said infrastructure was a priority. He did nothing
Fact: I live in Ohio, right in the area where Intel is building its plants, and I can tell you it is IMPOSSIBLE to get from point A to point B because of the infusion of BIDEN's infrastructure money. Aging bridges being torn down, highways being widened, highway bridges being reinforced, Folks: shit is getting done here and at lightening speed.
Democrats need to message these things out and take no prisoners.
Santos strikes me as a Rosie Ruiz (woman who took public transportation in route to winning the NYC marathon) figure who ran for congress as a scam but didn’t intend on winning and thus bringing his scam to light.
Thanks Jay—such great info, as always! Also curious to see how the Herschel Walker campaign money/possible fraud situation plays out, any plans to explore that one?
There are some similarities between what Santos did and what Walker did with respect to rich donors. There may be a cottage industry developing for prosecutors to look into suspect donor asks and misuse of campaign funds, especially now that the spigot is so open.
Thank you, Jay. Excellent summation of this loser human being, but devious and clever on some other level. I hope he is ousted asap.
Jay, might the IRS get involved, too, in Devolder's (aka "Santos") legal mess? Would it be too soon to determine if he filed tax returns for 2022 that add to his woes?
It’s really unclear what he even earned or what he reported to the IRS. It’s probably the least of his concerns right now, though.
Thanks, Jay. I was thinking if the IRS also gets involved, it's a nasty layer cake for George!
A trump wanna be. (scary thought!)
I grow weary of the shit show.
I’m not weary of this particular one. It’s very informative and illuminating to see how far the party will go to preserve its power. It can be depressing, but then the sheer audacity of it keeps me from closing my eyes.
But the beauty is all the windows are being opened. This little pea-brain getting busted looks like the opening to dig into all the rest of the R's, and their dirty deeds. I hope it spreads into the states, as well. I'm from Ohio, just like Christina Gray, and we're no strangers to corruption here.
Just loved your “...the indictment portrays Santos as something of a bumbling idiot...”