Long Island GOP calls for Santos to resign
WESTBURY, N.Y. — Republican officials on Long Island, including Representative Anthony D’Esposito, called Wednesday for Representative George Santos to resign, as he faces multiple inquiries into his finances, campaign spending, and fabrications on the campaign trail.
The Nassau County party chair, Joseph G. Cairo Jr., said Santos, a first-term Republican, had lost the confidence of Republicans in his district, saying that Santos’ campaign was one of “deceit, lies, fabrication.”
“He’s disgraced the House of Representatives, and we do not consider him one of our congresspeople,” Cairo said. “Today, on behalf of the Nassau County Republican committee, I am calling for his immediate resignation.”
Joining via video from Washington, D’Esposito, who represents a district just to the south of Santos, said that his Republican colleague had violated the trust from “not only the voters, but people across America.”
D’Esposito said he “will not associate with him in Congress, and I will encourage other representatives in the House of Representatives to join me in rejecting him.”
Santos, swarmed by reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday, flatly rejected the call to resign, saying, “I will not.”
The calls for Santos’ resignation mark the sharpest denunciation yet of the congressman’s behavior from Republicans after reporting in The New York Times uncovered that Santos had made false claims about his educational and professional background and raised questions about his business, his financial disclosures, and his campaign expenses.
They also add to the mounting pressure facing Santos, who is currently the subject of inquiries by federal and local prosecutors over whether his financial dealings or lies on the campaign trail warrant criminal charges.
This week alone, Santos, 34, has been the subject of two formal ethics complaints. On Tuesday, two Democratic lawmakers filed a formal complaint asking the House’s bipartisan Committee on Ethics to investigate whether Santos ran afoul of the law when he filed his required financial disclosures late and without key details about his bank accounts and business.
A day earlier, a watchdog group, the Campaign Legal Center, called on the Federal Election Commission to investigate the congressman, accusing him of improperly using campaign funds for personal expenses, misrepresenting his spending, and hiding the true sources of his campaign money.
Brazilian law enforcement officials have also said they were reviving fraud charges against Santos tied to a 2008 incident involving a stolen checkbook, after the case was disclosed in the Times’ report.
NEW YORK TIMES
House Republicans begin Biden investigation
WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday opened their long-promised investigation into President Biden and his family, wielding the power of their new majority to demand information from the Treasury Department and former Twitter executives as they laid the groundwork for public hearings.
“Now that Democrats no longer have one-party rule in Washington, oversight and accountability are coming,” Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
The Republican-led committee sent a series of letters requesting financial information from the Treasury Department about financial transactions by members of the Biden family that were flagged as suspicious activity. Those reports are routine, with larger financial transactions automatically flagged to the government, and are not evidence on their own of misconduct.
Lawmakers also requested testimony from multiple former Twitter executives who were involved in the company’s handling of an October 2020 story from the New York Post about Hunter Biden, the president’s younger son. Republicans say that story was suppressed for political reasons.
Moving quickly after taking control of the House, Republicans are setting up a messy, politically explosive showdown with the White House that could delve deeply into the affairs of the president’s family and shape the contours of the 2024 race for the White House.
“In their first week as a governing majority, House Republicans have not taken any meaningful action to address inflation and lower Americans’ costs, yet they’re jumping out of the gate with political stunts driven by the most extreme MAGA members of their caucus in an effort to get attention on Fox News,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, said in a statement, referring to former president Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.
In a statement, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the senior Democrat on Oversight, echoed the White House sentiment, saying Democrats will work with Republicans “when they get serious about tackling problems that affect the American people.”
The Treasury Department declined to comment.
Comer and other Republicans set out their plan for probing the Biden family the day after clinching a slim majority in the November midterm elections. The Kentucky Republican told reporters there are “troubling questions,” specifically about the business dealings of Hunter Biden and one of the president’s brothers, James Biden, that require deeper investigation.
GOP investigations into the Biden family are nothing new. Republican lawmakers and their staff have been analyzing messages and financial transactions found on a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden for the past year. But Republicans now have subpoena power in the House, giving them the authority to compel testimony and conduct a far more aggressive investigation.
Republicans have discussed issuing congressional subpoenas to foreign entities that did business with Hunter Biden, and they recently brought on James Mandolfo, a former federal prosecutor, to assist with the investigation as general counsel for the Oversight panel.
Hunter Biden’s taxes and foreign business work are already under federal investigation, with a grand jury in Delaware hearing testimony in recent months. While he never held a position on the presidential campaign or in the White House, his membership on the board of a Ukrainian energy company and his efforts to strike deals in China have long raised questions about whether he traded on his father’s public service, including reported references in his emails to the “big guy.”
Joe Biden has said he’s never spoken to his son about his foreign business. And there are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president in any way.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jill Biden has cancerous lesion removed
WASHINGTON — Surgeons removed a cancerous lesion above first lady Jill Biden’s right eye Wednesday, as well as another cancerous lesion on her chest, the White House said, while a third lesion on her left eyelid was being examined.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, said examinations showed that the lesion over Biden’s left eye and one newly discovered on her chest were both confirmed to be basal cell carcinoma. The lesion on her right eye was “fully excised, with margins, and was sent for standard microscopic examination.”
Biden and her husband, President Biden, spent the day at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., while she underwent the scheduled outpatient procedure known as Mohs surgery to remove and examine the lesions.
O’Connor said the first lady was “experiencing some facial swelling and bruising, but is in good spirits and is feeling well.” She was expected to return to the White House Wednesday evening.