Yesterday, prosecutors dropped the indictment against George Santos charging him with embezzlement and lying to Congress. That’s the good news. The bad news is they replaced it with a new indictment with 23 charges. In addition to the charges from the previous indictment, the new indictment adds allegations of identity theft from his contributors, stealing more than $44,000 from them, and transferring the cash to his own bank account.
Further, Santos is accused of falsely reporting to the FEC that he had loaned $500,000 to his campaign in an attempt to convince Republican party officials that he was a serious candidate, when he actually had less than $8,000 in his personal accounts.
“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
It’s not clear at this time if these new charges will interfere with Santos’ pending induction into the National Football League Hall of Fame, where he was anticipating being accompanied to the podium by his uncle, King Charles, and his grandmother, Anne Frank. However, it has been rumored that his name may be put forward for Speaker of the House as the consensus least ridiculous GOP member of that body.
