Good morning. It's Friday. Today we'll look at details of Representative George Santos's spending that were laid out by the House Ethics Committee. We'll also look at what Mayor Eric Adams's budget cuts will mean for municipal services. |
 | | Kenny Holston/The New York Times |
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Just when it seemed there was nothing more to say about Representative George Santos, the House Ethics Committee added several attention-grabbing words: Ferragamo, Hermès, Sephora and Botox. |
They were deep in the committee's damning but dryly written report on Santos's spending, which also mentioned thousands of dollars that Santos spent at spas. A footnote said "one former staffer" had told the committee that Santos "once brought him to a Botox appointment when there was a campaign event nearby." |
As my colleague Nicholas Fandos writes, Santos's spending "would have been nothing" if he had been the wealthy financier he had presented himself as when he campaigned. But Santos had deceived voters as he flipped a district held by Democrats, helping Republicans win a majority in the House. |
The ethics committee refrained from recommending punitive measures against Santos, but the report could shift the dynamic in the Republican-controlled House and give fresh momentum to efforts to expel or censure him. "Most of us have never seen anything like this — this extensive, this brazen, and this bold," said Representative Glenn Ivey, a Democrat of Maryland who is a member of the Ethics Committee. |
Santos, a Republican whose district stretches across parts of Long Island and Queens, is already facing a 23-count federal indictment that accuses him of stealing from campaign contributors and falsifying documents filed with the Federal Election Commission. He has pleaded not guilty. |
Santos did not respond to a request for comment about the Ethics Committee report. But shortly after it was released, he announced on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he would not run for re-election in 2024. He had filed paperwork in March — little more than two months after he was sworn in — indicating that he would seek a second term. |
In his post on X, Santos blasted the committee, which spent months on its investigation. "If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the 'Ethics committee,'" he wrote, "they would have not released this biased report." He added, "I've come to expect vitriol like this from political opposition but not from the hallowed halls of public service." |
The report filled in gaps in what had been known about Santos's spending. Where the indictment mentioned only luxury goods, the committee mentioned brand names. The committee also detailed how Santos had submitted numerous expenditures that did not appear to have a campaign purpose, from travel and hotel stays in Las Vegas that corresponded to the time when he told staff members he was on his honeymoon to thousands of dollars at spas. At least two payments were described as being for Botox. |
Some of the details in the report concerned a company called RedStone Strategies, which Santos used to raise money without being constrained by campaign contribution limits. |
Investigators found that he had transferred at least $200,000 to himself from RedStone in transactions last year. Some of the money went to cover credit card bills and to make purchases at Hermès, Sephora and OnlyFans, a social media platform where some participants charge money for explicit content. |
The findings appeared to undermine Santos's underlying criminal defense strategy. He has repeatedly denied involvement in the finances of his campaign, saying that his treasurer had "gone rogue." But investigators found that Santos was "heavily involved," noting that he had received weekly finance reports and invoices. He also had login credentials to campaign bank accounts. |
The treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty to federal charges last month. A second person with ties to Santos's campaign — Samuel Miele, a campaign aide — pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one count of wire fraud. He acknowledged impersonating a House staff member in connection with a fund-raising scheme that benefited him and Santos. |
Expect a mostly sunny day, as a cold front moves closer to the coast, and high temperatures in the mid-60s. In the evening, rain is possible, and temperatures will dip into the mid-50s. |
In effect until Nov. 23 (Thanksgiving Day). |
 | | Muhammad A. Aziz, who was wrongfully convicted of assassinating Malcolm X, has filed a lawsuit accusing the F.B.I. of hiding evidence that could have proved his innocence earlier.Todd Heisler/The New York Times |
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- Overworked workhorse: A New York City carriage driver was charged with animal cruelty in a case arising from the collapse of a horse on a Manhattan street.
- What we're watching: Ana Ley, a Metro reporter, discusses civility on the subway, and the former Mississippi poet laureate, Beth Ann Fennelly, talks about the real value of a humanities education on "The New York Times Close Up With Sam Roberts." The show airs at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. [CUNY TV].
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Budget cuts, and libraries closed on Sundays |
 | | Stephanie Keith for The New York Times |
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He said in a statement that he had to account for the costs of accommodating migrants from the southern border. He also said that declining tax revenues and the end of federal pandemic aid had figured in his decision. |
Progressive Democrats criticized the reductions, saying they would hurt working-class families. Lincoln Restler, a chair of the City Council's progressive caucus, called them "unnecessary, dangerous and draconian." |
The Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, said in a statement that some programs, like libraries and the City University of New York, should be spared from deep reductions. |
But the city's three library systems — the Brooklyn Public Library, the New York Public Library and the Queens Public Library — immediately announced that libraries would no longer be open seven days a week. Eighteen libraries that have had Sunday hours no longer will. For 10 libraries in Manhattan and Queens, the last Sunday will be Nov. 26. In Brooklyn, Dec. 17 will be the last Sunday for the central library and eight branches. |
For the New York Public Library, the cuts came as it renamed its Center for Research in the Humanities after Vartan Gregorian, who as president of the library from 1981 to 1989 restored its standing among scholars. |
"More and more, it feels like we find ourselves in a moment not dissimilar from the one in which Vartan led the library," said Anthony Marx, the president of the library. "At a time when once again people are counting New York City out, we will take inspiration in what he was able to achieve and navigate these choppy waters together." |
The New York Public Library was weighed down by a sizable deficit when Gregorian arrived and was still showing the effects of cutbacks that had been imposed during the city's financial crisis a few years earlier. Some branches were open only eight hours a week. Gregorian, who called the library "a sacred place," charmed corporate and foundation officials and talked up the library at dinner parties with Brooke Astor, who made the library her primary philanthropic concern. (Astor died in 2007, Gregorian in 2021.) |
Then and now, the city covers the library's operating expenses, including those at its branch libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. The newly named Vartan Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities — with space for up to 400 researchers, including 40 scholars on paid fellowships — is paid for by private donations, as was a recently completed $200 million renovation of the main library building on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. |
My father and I were walking toward the Javits Center for a trade show. We were hungry because we hadn't gotten breakfast, and we decided to get soft pretzels from a street vendor who was set up across from the center. |
We paid $2 apiece for two pretzels, and they were the last things we ate that day. We worked straight through without stopping for lunch. |
After the show closed and we were walking back to our car, we were hungry again, so we decided to stop at the same cart and buy two more pretzels. |
"That will be $3," the vendor said as he served the first one. |
My father pointed out that he had us charged $2 each that morning for pretzels that were warm and fresh. |
"Now they're cold and stale and a dollar more?" my father said. "How? Why?" |
"You hungry?" the vendor replied. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
| Kellina Moore, Nicholas Fandos and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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