Former Representative George Santos will plead guilty today to multiple charges related to campaign finance fraud.
The former lawmaker, who was expelled from Congress in dramatic fashion, faces 23 counts including charges of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission.
He also faces 13 federal counts on charges of wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds.
Santos previously plead not guilty to all charges, but negotiations for a plea deal have since taken place.
Santos’ Rise and Fall
Santos was elected in 2022 after flipping a New York congressional seat from blue to red, which helped Republicans win a narrow majority in the House.
He was then subject to a New York Times hit piece that alleged he lied about and embellished parts of his resume and his personal history.
Santos, who hails from a working-class immigrant family in Queens, New York, often presented himself as a self-made success story.
He claimed that after earning a high school equivalency diploma, he quickly climbed the ladder in the world of finance, even participating in “landmark deals on Wall Street.”
However, the college Santos said he attended and earned a finance degree from stated that they had no record of him ever being a student.
Additionally, several of the financial firms where Santos claimed to have worked said they had no documentation of his employment.
Santos also claimed he later worked for the investment giant Goldman-Sachs, who also said it had no record of his employment there.
Additionally, records in Brazil showed that he was the subject of a criminal investigation in the country in 2008 over purchasing goods with stolen checks.
Just months after the allegations first surfaced, the House voted overwhelmingly to expel Santos from his seat.
He is only the sixth person in history to be removed by his peers.
