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robert garcia
Dems Want to Know If Trump DOJ Covered Up Alleged $10 Million Egyptian Bribe
"Surely you would agree that the American people deserve to know whether a former president—and a current candidate for president—took an illegal campaign contribution from a brutal foreign dictator."
Sep 03, 2024
Congressional Democrats on Tuesday launched an investigation in response to recent Washington Postreporting on a closed federal probe into whether Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi gave former U.S. President Donald Trump $10 million to illegally help his 2016 campaign.
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Congressman Robert Garcia (Calif.), a leader on the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, revealed their investigation in a letter to Trump, the Republican nominee for the November presidential election.
In addition to generating suspicion about a cash bribe from el-Sisi, Raskin and Garcia wrote to Trump, "this detailed news report has also triggered serious speculation that your handpicked political appointees at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including Attorney General William Barr, subsequently blocked efforts by career prosecutors and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate the political and financial corruption that has been described."
"Surely you would agree that the American people deserve to know whether a former president—and a current candidate for president—took an illegal campaign contribution from a brutal foreign dictator," the pair continued, requesting that Trump turn over information necessary to assure the panel and the public that he never took money from the Egyptian leader or government.
"We are certain you can see how significant troubling questions still haunt our country about the origins of your $10 million campaign contribution."
The letter summarizes the Post's early August reporting, which was based on thousands of pages of government records and interviews with over two dozen people who spoke on the condition of anonymity and shared emails, texts, and other documents.
As the newspaper detailed: "Investigators identified a cash withdrawal in Cairo of $9,998,000—nearly identical to the amount described in the intelligence, as well as to the amount Trump had given his campaign weeks earlier. A key theory investigators pursued, based on intelligence and on international money transfers, was that Trump was willing to provide the fundsto his campaign in October 2016 because he expected to be repaid by Sisi, according to people familiar with the probe."
Michael Sherwin, the then-acting U.S. attorney who closed the case, told the Post that he stands by the decision. The Egyptian government, Trump campaign, Central Intelligence Agency, DOJ, FBI, U.S. attorney's office in Washington, D.C., and key individuals including Barr declined to answer the newspaper's questions, though some sent statements.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called the story "textbook Fake News," while Ayman Walash of Egypt's Foreign Press Center stressed that the DOJ probe ended without charges and said that "it is inappropriate to comment or refer to rulings issued by the judiciary system or procedures and reports taken by Justice Departments" in other nations.
Both the Post and the congressmen highlighted Trump's remarks and policies regarding Egypt and its leader, who seized power in 2013. Noting the Republican's meeting with el-Sisi shortly before the 2016 U.S. election, Raskin and Garcia wrote:
While others at the time "emphasized the importance of respect for rule of law and human rights to Egypt's future progress," you called President el-Sisi a "fantastic guy" and praised his tactics for taking "control" of Egypt. As president, you continued to praise President el-Sisi and drastically shifted U.S. policy in ways to benefit the reviled Egyptian leader. While calling President el-Sisi your "favorite dictator," you released $195 million in military aid in 2018 that the United States had previously withheld because of human rights abuses committed by the Egyptian government, and later released an additional $1.2 billion in military assistance.
"We are certain you can see how significant troubling questions still haunt our country about the origins of your $10 million campaign contribution, the source of any repayment, and the credible allegations that it was all funded with cash provided by President el-Sisi through his grim intelligence services," they added. "These questions are especially alarming given that the allegations appearing in The Washington Post are silhouetted against several proven patterns of corrupt practices exhibited by both the Egyptian government and by you, of course, as a convicted felon, fraudster, and corrupt politician."
As an example, the congressmen cited the corruption case of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). The Post reporting was published just weeks after a federal jury found the senator guilty of accepting bribes from three businessmen and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government. He finally resigned in mid-August.
Trump, in May, was convicted of 34 felony charges in New York over the falsification of business records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election. He also faces cases at the federal level and in Georgia for his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss. Although a Trump-appointed judge recently dismissed another federal case related to his handling of classified materials, it could soon be revived by an appellate court.
Raskin is a longtime critic of Trump. He led the historic second impeachment of the ex-president and earlier this year launched a probe into the Republican's quid pro quo offer to Big Oil executives: $1 billion in campaign cash for killing climate policies. Some have even floated Raskin for U.S. attorney general if Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris beats Trump in November.
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'All a Political Game to Them': Trump and GOP Under Fire for Cynical Border Ploy
"Speculating that the GOP is blocking border security legislation to help Trump win the election would sound like a crazy conspiracy theory but it's literally what the Republicans are saying is happening."
Jan 25, 2024
Critics have long argued that Republicans are interested only in using immigration—and increasingly hysterical claims of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border—as a political cudgel, and not in genuine policy reform.
That view appeared to receive some confirmation Thursday when Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) addressed reports that former President Donald Trump—the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination—has instructed Republican senators not to strike an immigration deal with Democrats so that he can make the border a central focus of his bid for a second White House term.
"I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump," said Romney, who has opted not to run for reelection this year. "And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame [President Joe] Biden for it is really appalling."
Romney was responding to a journalist's question about comments that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reportedly made during a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans on Wednesday. According toPunchbowl News, McConnell told his colleagues that the "politics on this have changed," referring to the GOP's demand that any military aid for Ukraine be paired with draconian changes to U.S. immigration policy.
"We don't want to do anything to undermine him," McConnell said of the former president, who won the Republican primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday after his landslide victory in Iowa last week, further establishing his stranglehold on the party.
Trump, who has pledged to launch the "largest domestic deportation operation in American history" if reelected, has repeatedly tried to insert himself into the ongoing negotiations, writing on social media last week that he'll accept nothing less than a "PERFECT" immigration deal. Proposals on the table reportedly include new asylum restrictions and cuts to the number of people allowed to live and work in the U.S. temporarily.
While some GOP senators pushed back on the notion that Republicans are preparing to drop their border demands to appease Trump's desire to campaign on the issue, The Washington Post's Aaron Blake wrote Thursday that "it's becoming increasingly difficult to dispute that Trump and some Republicans see political value" in preventing an immigration deal that could be seen as beneficial to Biden, who has expressed openness to cutting such a deal—to the dismay of rights groups.
"A comment I keep coming back to on this," wrote Blake, "is one from Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Texas), who just came out and said it early this month: 'I'm not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden's approval rating.'"
Other House Republicans—including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—have also indicated that they're not interested in serious immigration talks.
"I don't think now is the time for comprehensive immigration reform," Johnson said last week.
In response to Romney's comments on Thursday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) asked, "Can we all finally agree that House Republicans and Donald Trump do not want to solve the border challenges?"
"It's all a political game to them," Garcia added. "We've proposed real solutions but the MAGA right isn't interested. Shameful."
Vox's Andrew Prokop wrote Thursday that "if Republicans do kill the deal, it would make all their protestations about how much they supposedly care about this issue look hollow, and the GOP would come off looking tremendously cynical."
"They claim to believe the migrant surge of the past few years is destroying the country," Prokop added, "but they'd be happy to let it continue unaddressed for another year if it means they win an election."
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Fresh Calls for George Santos Expulsion After Ethics Report Drops
"This report has one clear conclusion: Santos is wholly unfit to hold office," said one campaigner.
Nov 16, 2023
U.S. Rep. George Santos said Thursday that he will not seek reelection following the release of a sprawling House Ethics Committee report detailing an array of alleged misconduct and criminal violations, but government watchdogs said the congressman's plans to leave office after another whole year were far from sufficient.
"If George Santos had any shame or remorse over deceiving hard-working New Yorkers and his colleagues in Congress, he would resign immediately," said Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs for Stand Up America. "Since he refuses to step down, House Republicans should grow a backbone and expel him from the House of Representatives."
The latest demands for Santos' (R-N.Y.) immediate resignation or expulsion—which have followed him since before he even took office this year—came as the committee's report revealed new details about mounting allegations against him that he stole from his campaign coffers, fabricated loans, and engaged in fraud.
More than 170,000 pages of testimony and supporting documents showed House investigators that Santos "sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit," according to the report. "He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit."
The committee conducted an in-depth investigation of a consulting firm called RedStone, which Santos allegedly established to help with his electoral campaign. But no Federal Election Commission registration for RedStone exists, and the probe found that thousands of dollars from the company were used by Santos to pay personal credit card bills and make a purchase of more than $4,100 at the luxury designer brand Hermes, as well as "smaller purchases" at the adult website OnlyFans.
"George Santos' pattern of dishonest and illegal conduct is outrageous and continues to get more," said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). "He should have resigned a long time ago. It is to the House Ethics Committee's credit that it conducted a serious investigation and uncovered even more wrongdoing by Santos. Enough is enough, Santos needs to resign today."
Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest (R-Miss.) is reportedly planning to file a motion to expel Santos Friday morning.
It would be the second expulsion vote centering on Santos this month. On November 1, newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) joined 181 Republicans as well as 31 Democrats who opposed a resolution to expel Santos over his numerous lies.
Last month, federal prosecutors filed 10 charges against Santos, including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States. Santos pleaded not guilty earlier this year to 13 other charges, including money laundering and stealing public funds.
"George Santos built his political career on lies and deceit, so it comes as no surprise that the bipartisan ethics committee found he likely committed multiple crimes to obtain his seat in Congress," said Edkins on Thursday. "Even his Republican colleagues concluded his actions damage the reputation of the House of Representatives and warrant punishment. This report has one clear conclusion: Santos is wholly unfit to hold office."
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) also said he would soon be "submitting a privileged resolution" to expel Santos.
"The committee's condemning report has made it crystal clear that the GOP's decision to wait nine months was not only irresponsible but dangerous," said Garcia. "George Santos has no place in Congress."
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