We Officially Know Who Bailed Out Serial Liar George Santos

After a weeks-long legal battle, a federal judge on Thursday officially revealed who put up $500,000 to bail out serial liar George Santos from jail.

ABC and MSNBC journalists reported Thursday that Santos’s father and aunt guaranteed the bond to release the New York representative from federal custody.

Santos’s father, Gercino dos Santos Jr., previously worked as a house painter, according to campaign contribution records reviewed by The New York Times. His aunt, Elma Santos Preven, said she worked as a mail handler for the U.S. Postal Service when she also contributed to Santos’s campaign.

They did not have to pay the $500,000, but agreed to be “personally responsible” for ensuring that Santos followed the conditions of his bond.

Santos and his legal team did everything they could to stop the names from being released, at one point even arguing that Santos would rather go to jail. It’s not clear why, if they were just his family members. Santos also argued that if their names were released, they would withdraw their bond.

Santos claimed to have made millions in a short amount of time before being elected, and the fact that others had to pay his bond raises further questions about his actual financial standing.

During his short time in Congress, Santos has made headlines for a series of fabrications, some innocuous and others not so much. He has lied about his educational background and his career history, about having Jewish ancestry, about his mom dying because of 9/11 (she wasn’t even in the country), about losing his employees in the Pulse shooting, and about raising money for a homeless veteran’s dying dog (Santos kept the money).

Last month, Santos was officially charged with 13 counts related to money laundering, wire fraud, lying to Congress, and theft of public funds. Prosecutors allege Santos scammed his supporters and used their donations to pay for designer clothes and credit card bills. He was also charged with fraudulently claiming $24,000 in Covid-19 unemployment benefits, while making a $120,000 salary. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

House Republicans have, for their part, avoided censuring Santos, though he did resign from his committee assignments in late January. Only a handful have called for him to resign or be expelled.

Former Texas Representative Will Hurd announced Thursday that he is running for president, bringing the Republican primary ticket to an insane high.

Hurd is the fourteenth candidate to join the field, which is still overwhelmingly dominated by Donald Trump, despite the former president’s recent federal indictment. For comparison, 17 Republicans ran in 2016, although several dropped out before the primaries.

Some people warn that a crowded field will benefit Trump, as it did in 2016, because no one will be able to unify behind one other candidate. But this time around, Trump has already been indicted twice, with two more potentially on the way, which could finally turn people against him.

Here is the list of every Republican currently running for president:

• Former President Donald Trump
• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
• Former Vice President Mike Pence
• Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson
• Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
• Former Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley
• South Carolina Senator Tim Scott
• Businessman and former pharmaceutical CEO Vivek Ramaswamy
• Former Texas Representative Will Hurd
• Former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum
• Miami Mayor Francis Suarez
• Conservative media commentator Larry Elder
• Michigan businessman Perry Johnson
• Dallas businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley

Almost exactly a year after celebrating abortion law being returned to the states, Republicans are once again embracing the idea of a national ban on abortion.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, Republicans hailed the decision as a step in the right direction. Many GOP lawmakers argued that abortion rights are a state issue, not a federal one.

But on Tuesday, Representative Elise Stefanik indicated that she and her colleagues will introduce a bill banning abortion nationwide after 15 weeks. “The people are the most important voices” on abortion, Stefanik said, apparently not seeing the irony of her words.

Speaking at an event to mark the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, hosted by the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Stefanik argued that the federal government does have a role in abortion legislation, particularly in “building consensus” nationally on the topic.

“We should embrace this debate,” Stefanik said.

Stefanik’s announcement takes Republicans’ war on abortion rights to the next level. Last year, when Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a federal 15-week abortion ban just before the midterms, many of his colleagues slammed the move. The bill never made it to the Senate floor. But Stefanik is signaling that more Republicans are ready to embrace a national ban.

Except there is already a national consensus on abortion rights. An overwhelming majority of Americans—62 percent, to be exact—still think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center. What’s more, people consistently vote in favor of increasing abortion rights protections.

And yet Republicans have the gall not only to consistently override the will of the people but also to pretend that a 15- or 20-week ban is somehow a compromise.

Abortion saves lives, and abortion wins elections. The GOP may be about to find that out the hard way.

House Republicans voted Wednesday to censure Adam Schiff for accusing Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign of colluding with Russia, in a massive waste of time for everyone.

The House had already voted last week to table a similar measure, with 20 Republicans joining Democrats to vote it down. Both resolutions, sponsored by Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna, allege that Schiff “spread false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia” and abused his access to classified information. The measures also accuse Schiff of acting “dishonestly and dishonorably on many other occasions.”

The resolution last week also sought to fine Schiff $16 million. That penalty has been removed from the current measure.

The final vote on Wednesday was 213–209. The measure has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Luna, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, had said that most of the Republicans who previously broke ranks would change their vote this time around. Her accusations stem from Schiff’s criticisms of Trump over the special investigation by Robert Mueller. Mueller found that Russians had contacted officials for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and that the officials were willing to accept Moscow’s help to win.

Schiff, who is running to replace Dianne Feinstein in the Senate, sarcastically thanked Republicans just before the vote. “You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood,” Schiff said. “You who are the authors of a big lie about the last election must condemn the truth tellers, and I stand proudly before you.”

Last week, he slammed Republicans for using the vote as a way to distract people from Trump’s federal indictment. “The fact that Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy would take up this MAGA resolution when we have so many pressing challenges before the country is really a terrible abuse of House resources,” Schiff told CNN.

Voting to censure Schiff is also a bold, and potentially disastrous, move for certain Republicans, 18 of whom go up for reelection next year in districts that went for President Joe Biden. The resolution against Schiff is pointless and could cost them their seats. The fact that Republicans forged ahead with the censure vote is a sign of how willing they are to eat their own in order to accomplish petty goals.

Republicans are not happy with Representative Lauren Boebert, who moved to force a vote this week to impeach President Joe Biden. But her former work bestie Marjorie Taylor Greene is absolutely livid.

Boebert introduced articles of impeachment Tuesday under a privileged resolution, meaning there has to be a vote on the measure within two days. The move surprised and frustrated many of her colleagues. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the measure was premature and urged Republicans to oppose it. He also warned it could hurt their bogus investigation into Biden. Representative Don Bacon called Boebert’s resolution “frivolous” and said she had made the impeachment into “playground games.”

Greene, on the other hand, was upset for a very different playground explanation. She tore into Boebert on the House floor Wednesday afternoon for copying her articles of impeachment.

Greene introduced articles of impeachment against Biden in May, over his handling of immigration at the southern border. Those articles have yet to go anywhere.

“I’ve donated to you, I’ve defended you. But you’ve been nothing but a little bitch to me,” Greene told Boebert in the middle of the House floor, according to The Daily Beast, citing an anonymous source who witnessed the exchange. “And you copied my articles of impeachment after I asked you to cosponsor them.”

Boebert, who claimed she had never read her colleague’s articles, replied, “OK, Marjorie, we’re through.”

“We were never together,” Greene shot back.

Earlier Wednesday, Greene had publicly shaded Boebert for copying her work and then skipping steps to get all the attention. “I had already introduced articles of impeachment on Joe Biden for the border, asked her to co-sponsor mine, she didn’t,” Greene said. “She basically copied my articles and then introduced them and then changed them to a privileged resolution.”

The Georgia Republican told The Hill Wednesday that she would convert her articles, and others she has drawn up against other members of the Biden administration, to privileged resolutions she can introduce whenever she feels like.

When asked if she would support Boebert’s resolution, Greene replied, “Of course I support ’em because they’re identical to mine.

“They’re basically a copycat,” she added.

Greene and Boebert seemed to be good friends when they both first arrived on Capitol Hill, but they have since ruptured pretty spectacularly. They first began to diverge over continuing aid for Ukraine: Boebert supported it, while Greene was opposed.

Greene has also ingratiated herself with establishment Republicans, although both women still embrace far-right beliefs. Things came to a head during the interminable vote for speaker of the House in January. The pair reportedly got into a massive argument in a Capitol bathroom, when Greene accused Boebert of taking money from McCarthy for her reelection campaign but then refusing to vote for him for speaker.

The Daily Beast, citing an anonymous source, said Boebert replied, “Don’t be ugly” and then “ran out like a little schoolgirl.”

So safe to say, the fact that Boebert swooped in and got to impeach Biden first is not going down well.

This article has been updated.