U.S. Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., leaves a House GOP conference meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 25, 2023. Santos filed paperwork Tuesday, March 14, 2023, indicating his intent to run for reelection, even as he faces calls to resign amid ongoing criminal and ethics investigations into lies he told while running for office. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
By Michael Balsamo, Farnoush Amiri and Jake Offenhartz
U.S. Rep. George Santos, who faced outrage and mockery over a litany of fabrications about his heritage, education and professional pedigree, has been charged with federal criminal offenses, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The charges against Santos, filed in the Eastern District of New York, remain under seal.
The people could not discuss specific details of the case and spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity.
Reached on Tuesday, Santos said, “This is news to me.”
“You’re the first to call me about this,” he said in a brief phone interview.
The New York Republican has admitted to lying about having Jewish ancestry, a Wall Street background, college degrees and a history as a star volleyball player. Serious questions about his finances also surfaced — including the source of what he claimed was a quickly amassed fortune despite recent financial problems, including evictions and owing thousands of dollars in back rent.
Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak in New York and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.
No fingerprints or DNA turned up on the baggie of cocaine found in a lobby at the White House last week despite a sophisticated FBI crime lab analysis, and surveillance footage of the area didn’t identify a suspect, according to a summary of the Secret Service investigation obtained by The Associated Press. There are no leads on who brought the drugs into the building.
Kamala Harris, who made history as the first woman or person of color to serve as vice president, has made history again by matching the record for most tiebreaking votes in the Senate.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee accused the agency of targeting conservatives, suppressing evidence that Covid-19 came from a lab leak and abusing its surveillance powers.
The Biden administration calls it a “student loan safety net.” Opponents call it a backdoor attempt to make college free. And it could be the next battleground in the legal fight over student loan relief.
Nearly 30,000 people in Mississippi were dropped from the state's Medicaid program after an eligibility review that the government ended during the pandemic.
Members of a deeply conservative Amish community in Minnesota don't need to install septic systems to dispose of their “gray water,” the state Court of Appeals ruled Monday in a long-running religious freedom case that went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
