Speaker 1: Well, we woke up to some delightful news this morning.
Lying.
Disgraced Republican Congressman George Santos, also known to many as George Anthony Devil
there.
Santos.
George Devil, older Anthony Devil, Older, Anthony Santos and all.
I think that covers most of the permutations.
He has been arrested and is in federal custody as we speak, charged with 13 different criminal
counts.
Isn't this fantastic news?
And we'll talk about the Trump $5 million verdict in a moment.
What will happen to George Santos now that he has been arrested?
Maybe this will get him out of Congress, which would be delightful.
CNN reports George Santos in federal custody as feds.
Feds unseal a 13 count indictment.
We have a mug shot.
It's an incredible thing.
The Justice Department Wednesday unsealed federal charges against Congressman George
Santos and the New York Republican is in custody.
Is in custody.
Santos, whose astonishing pattern of lies and fabrications stunned even hardened politicos,
has been charged on a 13 count indictment, including seven counts of wire fraud, three
counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making
material materially false statements to the House of Representatives.
This is just a delight.
He was taken into custody in Melville on Long Island, where the FBI is housed.
From there, he was taken to a courthouse in central Islip.
He's expected to appear later today in federal court.
May already happen by the time you listen to today's show or watch.
The congressman's attorney declined to comment to CNN spokespeople for the Brooklyn U.S.
Attorney's office.
Justice Department and FBI also declined to comment.
One of my favorite things is that he seemed not to even like know what was going on when
it was first mentioned to him.
He's like, this is news to me.
Santos was en route back to New York Tuesday night, skipping house votes for the evening,
according to a source.
A spokeswoman for Santos, Naza Wilmer, wouldn't respond to questions shouted from reporters
yesterday, abruptly departed the congressman's office with a backpack.
Prior to her departure from the office, CNN witnessed three staffers abruptly depart with
their bags.
They wouldn't talk.
Can you imagine?
You're working for like the biggest liar in Congress and now he's arrested.
It's just a delight.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he's going to look at the charges before determining
whether Santos should be removed from Congress.
Quote, I'll look at the charges, he said to CNN.
Santos was spotted in the Capitol earlier yesterday on his way in and out of McCarthy's
office.
The speaker said he didn't know why Santos was even there and that the congressman had
not told him personally about the charges.
As you know, during his brief time in office, Santos was accused of breaking campaign finance
laws violating violating federal conflict of interest laws, stealing cash meant for
an Iraq war veterans dying, dog masterminding a credit card fraud scheme, and lying about
where he went to school and where he worked.
And I would add to that lying about his athletic achievements and lying about so many different
things.
This is this is really great.
And it's not great as some on the right will say, because I just want my political enemies
to have weaponized justice proceedings against them when there is no evidence they've done
anything wrong.
It's actually quite the opposite.
There is so much material about the wrongdoing of Jorge Santos, including all sorts of different
criminality.
What's good is that he's being held accountable.
He's not being excused from wrongdoing because he is one of 435 members of Congress, members
of the House of Representatives.
Better said one of 535 members of both houses of Congress.
That's good.
When people are held accountable, that's a good thing.
The Associated Press reporting about this as well.
There's one particular moment that I love that this is so good.
Reached on Tuesday, Santos said.
This is news to me.
The AP called him to say, Hey, what do you think about all the charges in your forthcoming
arrest?
He was like news to me.
I don't know anything about it, he said in a brief phone interview.
You're the first to call me about it.
That is just just absolutely the best.
So we're going to follow this very closely.
There are two stories here.
There is the story of the charges and the wrongdoing itself on the one hand.
And then there is the story of what do Republicans do?
Many Republicans have wanted this guy out for a while, but it wasn't really clear they
had the whole party behind them.
And so they kind of said, listen, we have a process.
I don't know if we really have the votes or whatever, and they kind of shut up about it.
And it to a degree, it went away.
You then had other Republicans who very much want to get this guy out.
It wasn't clear they had a path to do it before these charges.
Maybe now they do.
It's important to remember charges are merely allegations.
In the United States, you're innocent until proven guilty in a court of.
Law.
However, there are many jobs where if you are charged with certain crimes, you are at
minimum suspended from your job.
And then if you are in the future acquitted, then there are different processes.
Again, it's different depending on the military would be one thing.
Financial services companies have other policies, so on and so forth.
There is latitude from employers of different kinds as to how charges are handled, given
that charges themselves are not actually guilty verdicts.
And that's the system we have, and that's a good thing.
What do Republicans do now?
I don't know.
But we'll be watching it.
And delightful news to wake up to.