Congress
Attorney with group that filed Santos FEC complaint expects commissioners will block investigation
Embattled N.Y. congressman facing multiple investigations
An attorney with the group that filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Monday against U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) said the agency is unlikely to pursue an investigation or bring any enforcement action against the congressman or his campaign.
“There are at least three commissioners who are ideologically opposed to enforcing campaign finance law,” Campaign Legal Center Senior Vice President and Legal Director Adav Noti told the Washington Blade by phone on Tuesday.
With a 4-vote majority of the FEC’s six sitting commissioners required to open an investigation, “the working assumption has to be — for every FEC complaint, no matter how egregious — that at least three commissioners will block an investigation,” Noti said.
Noti previously served in the FEC’s Office of General Counsel as associate general counsel for policy and in the Litigation Division, where he argued cases before federal district and appellate courts as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, including the landmark 2010 Citizens United v. FEC. case
Notwithstanding what may happen at the FEC, Noti told the Blade the Santos case is unlike anything he had ever seen, in multiple respects.
Per the Campaign Legal Center’s complaint, Santos and his 2022 campaign committee, Devolder-Santos for Congress, stand accused of engaging “in a straw donor scheme to knowingly and willfully conceal the true sources of $705,000 that Santos purported to loan to his campaign; deliberately reporting false disbursement figures on FEC disclosure reports, among many other reporting violations and illegally using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses, including rent on a house that Santos lived in during the campaign.”
Some of these allegations, which sometimes result in prosecutions, happen, unfortunately, “with some regularity,” Noti said. “But I cannot think of another situation where a successful candidate turns out to have fabricated his entire campaign apparatus.”
Noti said candidates will sometimes falsify the source of the money they received to fund their campaigns, and other times they will conceal how they spent those funds, but “I can’t think of another instance where every dollar that went into a campaign and a significant portion of the dollars that were spent by that campaign appear to be fictitious, or just made up.”
Looking at the money that was funneled through the campaign, even if assuming that the dollar amounts that were reported were accurate, “we don’t know where it came from, and we know where almost none of it went,” Noti said.
Unfortunately, however, “Even in the highly unlikely event that the FEC does conduct an investigation or [pursue an enforcement action,] it would take years,” Noti said, adding that slow-rolling the process is another means by which the commissioners can prevent the agency from enforcing the law.
Nevertheless, Santos is in potential legal jeopardy.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office and New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office have opened investigations into the congressman.
On Tuesday, Congressmen Ritchie Torres and Daniel Goldman — both Democrats — filed a complaint against Santos to the House Ethics Committee.
Noti said the Justice Department’s case would be a criminal probe into Santos’ possible violations of campaign finance laws, but otherwise the FEC has sole jurisdiction over these matters, so other legal actors are likely looking into other types of financial malfeasance by the congressman.
The FEC will typically wait for the resolution of a criminal probe initiated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office before proceeding with a complaint, Noti said. “If the DOJ starts investigating, they’ll tell the FEC, and then the FEC will wait for the criminal investigation to conclude.”
Either way, “I would be shocked if [Santos] were not seeking legal counsel,” Noti said, adding that he might have a difficult time finding an attorney to represent him.
Santos has been under fire for weeks after media reports revealed the congressman had lied about virtually every aspect of his life, career and identity.
With respect to his treatment of campaign finance laws, “What he did was intentionally deprive the public of the information that voters are entitled to before they decide who to vote for,” Noti said.
Congress
Five HIV/AIDS activists arrested outside Susan Collins’s D.C. office
Protesters demanded full PEPFAR funding
U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday arrested five HIV/AIDS activists who protested outside U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)’s office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
A press release that Housing Works, Health GAP, and Disability Voters of Maine issued notes 30 HIV/AIDS activists “carried out an act of civil disobedience” at Collins’s D.C. office and “delivered mock ‘bodybags'” to her office in Portland, Maine.
“Activists were reacting to deadly harms caused by Collins’s unwillingness to hold Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought accountable for illegally obstructing the release of already appropriated funding for lifesaving HIV treatment and prevention,” reads the press release.
Elizabeth Koke, senior director of brand strategy for Housing Works, told the Washington Blade that Housing Works CEO Charles King is among those who were arrested in D.C. The press release notes 30 HIV/AIDS activists participated in the protest.
Activists since the Trump-Vance administration took office in January have demanded full PEPFAR funding.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio Jan. 28 issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, has severely impacted their work. (The State Department last month announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir, a breakthrough HIV prevention drug, in countries with high prevalence rates.)
The New York Times in August reported Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration in July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought on Aug. 29 said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid that Congress had already approved.
The federal government has been shut down since Oct. 1.
“In July, we applauded Collins’s willingness to fight for people with HIV which resulted in a temporary reprieve from further unlawful cuts,” said Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell. “In response, Vought has gone behind Collins’s back. Why isn’t she fighting back? We cannot allow Collins to refuse to take action now — just because Vought is violating the law doesn’t mean she can break her promise to people with HIV.”
Collins chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“Collins has said that PEPFAR funds are not reaching people in need, yet she refuses to use the full power of her position to end the political obstruction and lawlessness while people continue to die,” said Marie Follayttar of Disability Voters of Maine. “The consequences of her inaction, and of her votes, will be measured in body bags around the world.”
The protesters’ press release notes two specific demands for Collins:
• Fully restore PEPFAR programming by directing Vought to release withheld PEPFAR funding consistent with Congressional appropriations
• Include the release of withheld PEPFAR funding as part of her 6-point plan to re-open government
“Senator Collins has been the Senate champion for PEPFAR and was responsible for saving the program from $400 million in cuts just three months ago,” Blake Kernen, Collins’s press secretary, told the Blade on Wednesday. “It was difficult to understand what the protesters wanted or their message.”
“Many entered the office, sat on the ground, and used a loud noisemaker, which made it impossible to hear,” said Kernen. “A member of Sen. Collins’s staff offered to speak with the group, but they continued to shout over her and refused the offer.”
Congress
Mike Waltz confirmed as next UN ambassador
Trump nominated former national security advisor in May
The U.S. Senate on Sept. 19 confirmed former U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) as the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
The Florida Republican had been the national security advisor until President Donald Trump in May tapped him after U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Senators approved Waltz’s nomination by a 47-43 vote margin.
“Thank you President Trump and the U.S. Senate for your trust and confidence to Make the UN Great Again,” said Waltz on X.
The U.N. General Assembly is taking place this week in New York. Trump is scheduled to speak on Tuesday.
Congress
State Department urged to restore LGBTQ-specific information in human rights reports
Congressional Equality Caucus sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio a letter on Sept. 9
The Congressional Equality Caucus has called upon the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights report.
U.S. Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who co-chair the caucus’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sept. 9.
The 2024 human rights report the State Department released last month did not include LGBTQ-specific references. Jessica Stern, the former special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights under the Biden-Harris administration who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, described the removal of LGBTQ and intersex people and other groups from the report as “deliberate erasure.”
“We strongly oppose your decision to remove the subsection on Acts of Violence Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC Subsection) from the State Department’s Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (Human Rights Reports),” reads the letter. “We urge you to restore this information, or else ensure it is integrated throughout each human rights report.”
Congress requires the State Department to release a human rights report each year.
The Congressional Equality Caucus’s letter points out the human rights reports “have been a critical source of information on human rights violations and abuses against LGBTQI+ persons around the world.” It specifically notes consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in more than 60 countries, and the 2017 human rights report included “details on the state-sponsored and societal violence against LGBTQI+ persons in Chechnya, including extrajudicial killings.”
Immigration Equality in response to the 2024 human rights report said the reports “serve as key evidence for asylum seekers, attorneys, judges, and advocates who rely on them to assess human rights conditions and protection claims worldwide.”
“The information in these reports is critical — not just for human rights advocates — but also for Americans traveling abroad,” reads the Congressional Equality Caucus’s letter. “LGBTQI+ Americans and their families must continue to have access to comprehensive, reliable information about a country’s human rights record so they can plan travel and take appropriate precautions.”
The caucus’s full letter can be read here.
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