TV News LIES

Former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was sentenced Friday to seven years and three months in prison, putting a bookend on the more than two-year scandal that captivated Washington and brought the New York Republican from a GOP trailblazer to an embarrassing stain on the party.

The sentence marks the latest development in the drama that surrounded the former congressman, who earned praise as the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a nonincumbent in 2022 before becoming the face of controversy after his background was exposed as a series of outlandish lies.

Prosecutors are seeking more than seven years in prison for disgraced former congressman George Santos after he pleaded guilty to federal fraud and identity theft charges.

The US attorney for the eastern district of New York argued in a court filing on Friday that a significant sentence was warranted because the New York Republican’s “unparalleled crimes” had “made a mockery” of the country’s election system.

“He lied to his campaign staff, his supporters, his putative employer and congressional colleagues, and the American public,” the office wrote. “From his creation of a wholly fictitious biography to his callous theft of money from elderly and impaired donors, Santos’s unrestrained greed and voracious appetite for fame enabled him to exploit the very system by which we select our representatives.”

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Fifty-one senators, including four Republicans, voted on Wednesday to end President Donald Trump's tariff on Canadian goods in a bipartisan rebuke of the administration's trade policy.

It comes just hours after Trump implemented 10% across-the-board tariffs on imports and additional reciprocal tariffs on goods from 60 countries, a significant escalation in the global trade war. The vote marks the first substantive bipartisan pushback to Trump's policies since he took office just over two months ago.

The resolution put forward by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., would end an emergency order Trump declared in February over concerns about fentanyl crossing the northern border with Canada. That order has been used as the basis for 25% tariffs on Canadian goods.

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An attempt by Republican leaders to stop new parents from voting by proxy sparked a bipartisan mutiny in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, during which a small group of GOP lawmakers joined with all Democrats to obstruct a key procedural motion and paralyze the chamber.

The revolt was the first legislative setback Republicans have faced since Donald Trump returned to the White House with the GOP holding a slim majority in Congress’s lower chamber. It also delayed consideration of House speaker Mike Johnson’s legislative agenda for the week, which included a bill to stop federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions – as several have done for Trump’s executive orders – and to require proof of citizenship to vote.

Fueling the split was an attempt by the Republican Anna Paulina Luna and the Democrat Brittany Pettersen to force consideration of a measure allowing new parents to temporarily designate someone else to vote in their place. House leaders attempted an unusual parliamentary tactic to prevent the proposal from going forward, but were blocked by the votes of all 213 Democrats and nine Republicans.

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Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wrote in a letter on Monday that she was leaving the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus amid reports that members of the group were looking to squash her efforts to let new parents vote by proxy.

Earlier this month, Luna had successfully garnered 218 signatures on a document called a discharge petition needed to force a vote on a bipartisan resolution that would allow a House member to vote by proxy if they or their spouse has given birth in the last 12 weeks. Proxy voting allows lawmakers to designate another member to vote on their behalf.

However, members of the House Freedom Caucus had reportedly urged leadership to kill the effort, proposing that the threshold of support needed for a discharge petition be raised. The caucus has roughly 35 members and it includes high-profile Republican firebrands such as Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

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Facing pressure from his right flank to take on judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday floated the possibility of Congress eliminating some federal courts.

It’s the latest attack from Republicans on the federal judiciary, as courts have blocked a series of actions taken by the Trump administration. In addition to funding threats, Trump and his conservative allies have called for the impeachment of certain federal judges who have ruled against him, most notably U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to halt Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.