George Santos news latest: McCarthy changes tune to say he will not back Republican’s re-election bid after arrest

In February, the non-profit Reclaim the Records obtained court records appearing he married a Brazilian girl in 2012. His former spouse, who has not been known, filed for divorce in 2019.

He has since mentioned he is married to a Brazilian guy, who he known through the primary title of Matt. He reportedly advised the Brazilian e-newsletter Piaui in November 2020 that his husband’s title is Matheus Gerard.

Sometime in 2016, he moved to Florida the place he labored for HotelsPro, a world hospitality market and adjusted his driving force’s licence to a Florida cope with.

Mr Santos’ murky and ever-changing biography makes it tricky to parse truth from fiction throughout his early forays into politics.

The subsequent 12 months, he reportedly made his first try to get elected to Congress however failed to safe sufficient signatures to get at the Queens County Republican Committee.

He joined United for Trump, a small New York staff of Republican supporters of the then-president, and introduced a primary bid for Congress in November 2019.

That month he introduced his marketing campaign for the United States House of Representatives in New York’s third Congressional District in 2020 in opposition to Democratic incumbent Thomas Suozzi.

No different applicants put their names ahead. When pressed by reporters about why he lived out of the district, he claimed to are living at an cope with that grew to become out to be his treasurer’s.

He misplaced the overall election through about 46,000 votes, however nonetheless exceeded Republican expectancies for the strongly Democratic district. He refused to concede the election, echoing Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud.

Rep George Santos returned to the Capitol on Thursday following his arrest an afternoon previous for unemployment fraud — simply in time to vote on a invoice coping with that specific matter.

It used to be a superbly scripted second to cap off a wild two-day media circus round his indicment in New York on 13 legal counts. He has pleaded not in charge, and vowed to battle the fees in court docket.

On Thursday, moments after coming into the construction, the congressman used to be bombarded through questions on whether or not it used to be proper for him to vote on this sort of invoice whilst he himself used to be below legal indictment for an alleged violation of that statute.

What’s extra, Mr Santos is co-sponsor of the regulation being offered, which might give a boost to America’s fraud rules through extending the statute of barriers for such investigations and offering extra incentives for states to examine and discover fraud.

“Well, allegations are not proof, right Rachel?” barked the Republican lawmaker at a journalist as he jogged up a flight of stairs clear of accumulated journalists.

Mr Santos spoke on the Stop the Steal rally on the ellipse in Washington DC at the day of the Capitol riots on January 6, claiming his election were stolen. A roommate would later claim that Mr Santos had worn his stolen $520 Burberry shawl to the rally.

In 2020, whilst working for Congress, he started operating at Florida funding company Harbor City Capital, which used to be later accused in a civil lawsuit through the Security and Exchange Commission of working a $17m Ponzi scheme.

The SEC banned the company from doing trade in Alabama, and alleged it used to be “out to deceive Alabamians and profit off unsuspecting investors by using dazzling marketing tactics to sell unregistered bonds.”

He has publicly denied any involvement within the alleged fraud.

Mr Santos arrange the Devolder Organization, which he used to be the only real proprietor of and claimed he controlled $80m in property for the “capital introduction consulting” company.

Mr Santos hosted the Talking GOP public-access radio display from January to May 2020.

He would schmooze visitors, who had been most commonly figures from the Queens Republican Party.

On Talking GOP, he mentioned that he used to be Catholic, and that his maternal grandfather had transformed from Judaism to Catholicism sooner than the Holocaust. “I believe we are all Jewish, at the end – because Jesus Christ is Jewish.”

Mr Santos, 34, used to be arrested on Long Island on Wednesday after surrendering to the government and pleaded not in charge to all fees, after which he used to be launched on a $500,000 bond and took questions from the click. He declared in true Trumpian model that he used to be the sufferer of a “witch hunt” and insisted that he nonetheless intends to stand for re-election in 2024.

Mr Santos filed the vital bureaucracy to run once more with the Federal Election Commission back in March, permitting his marketing campaign group to proceed fundraising.

This week’s drama got here after months of controversy swirling round Mr Santos, whose midterm victory over Democrat Robert Zimmerman used to be all of a sudden overshadowed in December through a New York Times investigation that revealed a prolific monitor report of mendacity about his previous, or, as Mr Santos most popular to put it, “résumé embellishment”.

The guy representing the town’s third Congressional District used to be accused of mendacity about the entirety from his instructional background and Wall Street paintings enjoy to the destiny of his grandparents and mom, his previous enjoy as a drag performer in Brazil, his prowess as a volleyball participant or even a atypical plot involving the discovery of a fictional animal charity to channel cash clear of an Iraq War veteran’s loss of life canine.

Documentary maker Blake Zeff tweeted on Thursday that Mr Santos seems unconcerned about his mounting scandals.

Mr Zeff mentioned he “spent months talking with George Santos for a potential documentary on him”.

“My team eventually ditched the project when it was clear he wanted lots of” cash, he added.

“We’ve seen McCarthy weather scandals, so much worse. We saw Matt Gaetz survive a massive scandal. We’ve seen members survive scandal on the Dem side,” Mr Santos advised Mr Zeff throughout their conversations.