POLITICS

Rep.-Elect George Santos Silent Amid Questions About Resume

Republican who won a U.S. House seat in November is under pressure to explain himself amid evidence he fabricated parts of his life story.

During his campaign, George Santos, 34, boasted impressive academic and professional credentials and portrayed himself as an embodiment of the American dream. After growing up in a working-class, immigrant family in Queens and getting a high school equivalency diploma, he said he had a lightning-fast rise in the world of finance, culminating in his participation in “landmark deals on Wall Street.”

Yet a college where Santos said he earned a finance degree was unable to find records showing he attended. Several companies where Santos said he worked had no record of him having been an employee.

The potential problems with Santos’ resume were The newspaper also raised questions about the truthfulness of other aspects of Santos’ life story and disclosed he faced an unresolved criminal fraud investigation in Brazil, where his family once lived.

An attorney for Santos didn’t answer questions about his personal history but suggested he was being targeted by people “threatened” by his politics.

The biography said Santos then worked at Citigroup, where he became “an associate asset manager in the real asset division.” But a Citigroup spokesperson, Danielle Romero Apsilos, said the company had no records indicating Santos had ever been an employee.

Santos’ biography said he later worked for the investment banking giant Goldman Sachs. That firm also said it had no record of his employment.

A different biography posted on the website of the National Republican Congressional Committee said Santos had earned a second degree at New York University. A spokesman for NYU said it could also find no records indicating Santos had been a student. An email was sent to the NRCC asking how the information had been obtained.

Santos also said he worked at two other companies, LinkBridge Investors and Metglobal. Two emails and a message seeking comment from LifeBridge were unanswered, as were two emails sent to Metglobal.

Records in Brazil, uncovered by the Times, show Santos was the subject of a criminal investigation there in 2008 over allegations that he used stolen checks to buy items at an apparel shop in the city of Niteroi. At the time, Santos would have been 19. The records include photos of Santos with members of his family. The Times quoted local prosecutors saying the case was dormant because Santos had never appeared in court.

Santos first ran for Congress in 2020, losing to Tom Suozzi, a Democrat. He ran again in 2022, facing Democrat Robert Zimmerman in a district that includes some Long Island suburbs and a small slice of Queens.

In a statement posted to social media, Zimmerman called for investigations by the House Ethics Committee, the Federal Elections Commission and federal prosecutors.

“Santos’ failure to answer any of the questions about these allegations demonstrates why he is unfit for public office and should resign,” Zimmerman said.

Joseph Cairo Jr., chairman of the Nassau County Republican Committee called the issues “serious” but said Santos deserved a chance to address them.

“Every person deserves an opportunity to ‘clear’ his/her name in the face of accusations,” Cairo said in a statement. “I am committed to this principle, and I look forward to the Congressman-Elect’s responses to the news reports.”

On social media, Santos portrayed himself as a successful real estate investor whose family owned multiple properties. Yet records indicate he had financial problems. Court records indicate Santos was the subject of three eviction proceedings in Queens between 2014 and 2017 because of unpaid rent.

In the summer of 2020, Santos was hired by Harbor City Capitol Corp. an investment firm based in . That company, however, ceased operating in 2021.

iled with the House of Representatives in September, Santos reported that the company paid him an annual salary of $750,000 and at least $1 million in dividends. He described the company’s business as “capital intro consulting.” His only other listed asset was an apartment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which he said was worth between $500,000 and $1 million.

In filings with the Federal Elections Commission, Santos reported having loaned his campaign at least $630,000 from his personal fortune.

POLITICS

Former Trump AG Bill Barr joins new business lobbying group that aims to target Biden regulations

Former Attorney General Bill Barr will help to lead a new group formed by a business lobbying organization that aims to be an alternative to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the massive advocacy group that has fallen out of favor with some Republicans.

Barr will be chair of an advisory board for a project called the Center for Legal Action, he told CNBC in an interview. The group is part of the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce, the business lobbying group that launched last year as a possible rival to the chamber.

The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce boasts of being a business lobbying group that fights “against outdated regulations, future-killing tax policies, and the corporate cronyism and backroom DC deal making that close down our economic future,” according to a memo pitch to potential members.

Barr’s decision to join with the new group comes as some Republicans on Capitol Hill have turned their backs on the Chamber of Commerce after it started to favor endorsing Democrats running for House seats. The business lobbying behemoth moved away from predominantly supporting Republicans in recent years after former president Donald Trump embraced trade protectionism, bashed certain companies for their social stances and tried to overturn the 2020 election.

Barr, for his part, drew the ire of the former president and many of his GOP allies when he said evidence did not back Trump’s claims that fraud cost him the presidential election.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., are among the powerful GOP members who have distanced themselves from the original chamber.

In a statement to CNBC provided by the new group, McCarthy said it “is an important tool to ensure regulators operate fairly, efficiently, and without burdening America’s entrepreneurs and small businesses.”

Scalise in a separate statement to CNBC provided by the business lobbying organization said, “The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce creating the Center for Legal Action is welcome news to House Republicans.”

The new group aims aims to challenge — at times in court — regulations put in place by the Biden administration. Barr will chair the project’s advisory board, in support of the chairman Terry Branstad and CEO Gentry Collins.

Branstad was a longtime Iowa governor and Trump’s U.S. ambassador to China. Collins was once a political director for the Republican National Committee.

In his role, Barr will advise the Center for Legal Action on the best litigators to hire, he explained to CNBC. He will also help to develop the organization’s overall legal strategy.

The “CLA will provide congressional testimony, initiate litigation, file amicus briefs, and support lawsuits brought by other parties in important regulatory and constitutional cases,” the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.

Barr would not say who he aims to recruit from the legal community.

He noted that the newly formed project would engage on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate-risk disclosure rule. If the rule is enacted, public companies would have to disclose the carbon emissions that are part of their operations, as well as the climate risks their businesses face.

Collins would not say how much the organization is investing into the new project. But he told CNBC that the group has been recruiting business members “at a rate of more than 1,000 a month for almost a year now.”

“As we’ve done that, one of the principal challenges that we hear from businesses of all sizes around the country is regulatory overreach threatening our business, threatening our industries and threatening our overall economy,” Collins said.

POLITICS

Trump faces deposition in New York AG Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit

Donald Trump said he is being deposed Thursday in New York City as part of the state attorney general’s $250 million civil lawsuit alleging widespread fraud by the former president and his company.

Trump announced on social media overnight that he had “just arrived in Manhattan for a deposition in front of” New York Attorney General Letitia James as part of the sweeping lawsuit.

In another post Thursday morning, Trump said he was “heading downtown” to be deposed. He accused James of leaking that the appointment was scheduled at 9:30 a.m. ET.

His trip marks the second time in less than two weeks that he has traveled to the Empire State to respond to court actions against him. The ex-president faces multiple criminal and civil proceedings as he makes a third bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Trump previously flew from his home state of Florida to New York to surrender to authorities following his indictment in a separate criminal case centered on hush money payments made before the 2016 presidential election. The former president pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in that case, which is being prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump is “not only willing but also eager to testify before the Attorney General today,” his attorney, Alina Habba, told CNBC in a statement. “He remains resolute in his stance that he has nothing to conceal, and he looks forward to educating the Attorney General about the immense success of his multi-billion dollar company.”

James’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

James filed the civil fraud lawsuit last September against Trump, three of his adult children, the Trump Organization and others. The suit accuses Trump of repeatedly overstating the values of his assets in statements to banks, insurance companies and the IRS in order to obtain better loan and tax terms.

POLITICS

No shield for Trump in rape accuser’s case as court declines to rule

A Washington, D.C., appeals court on Thursday declined to shield Donald Trump from the first of two civil defamation lawsuits by E. Jean Carroll, a writer who said the former U.S. president raped her nearly three decades ago.

The district’s highest local court, the Court of Appeals, said it did not have enough facts to decide whether Trump deserved immunity, after he accused the former Elle magazine columnist in June 2019 of lying about the alleged encounter.

A ruling that Trump was acting as president, and not in his personal capacity, would have immunized him and doomed Carroll’s first lawsuit because the government could substitute itself as the defendant, and the government cannot be sued for defamation.

The court sent the case back to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, which had last September asked the Washington court for guidance on local law.