August 21, 2024 • 16 mins
George Santos pleaded guilty in federal court this week. Amy Gaines McQuade was in the courtroom. Amy and Jake discuss the proceeding and where things go from here.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
New legal developments involving austed Republican Congressman George Santos.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Sources say there's a possible plea deal in the corruption
case that drove him from office.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
His trial was said to begin September ninth. Why plead
guilty now?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So the rumors are true. On Monday, August nineteenth, George
Santos pled guilty in federal court. When I heard the news,
I made my way to New York and I was
there in the courtroom just a few rows behind George
Santos for all of it. I called Jake right after
the hearing as I was driving away from the courthouse.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Amy, Hello, heyne I can hear you.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
I'm walking the dog in the park, but I have
so many questions for you as soon as my dog Milo.
Are you home now?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
No, I'm dropping that.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Oh my gosh. Wow. Okay, what a day. Yeah, So
walk me through.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
So as expected, Santa Flood guilty specifically to two counts,
Count two and count six. I think one of those
is wirefraud and one of those is aggravated identity theft.
But if I'm just said correctly, he basically admitted that
he did everything in the indictment, So like he pled
(01:51):
to these two charges, but he did own up to
all of the allegations against him by the federal government
as part of this plea agreement.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Huh. How many counts were their total?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Twenty three?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Wow? Does that mean that he and he like fared
well on this?
Speaker 6 (02:10):
I mean, well, no, what didn't happen today was sentencings,
so that was tentatively scheduled for February, so we won't know,
but the range that he's looking at is minimum of two.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Years in prison and a maximum of twenty two years.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Talk me through like showing up at the courthouse and
what the scene was like.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, so I got to the courthouse in Central icelip
on the lawn and it was a zoo tent after
tent after tent of media set up. People had been
camped out there probably all day, just trying to get
shots to stand just walking in and out of the court.
It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
But there's an image that I'm looking at now. I'm like,
if you just scream of George Santas, I was trying
to like see what you might have seen. He's dressed
in this like men in black black suit with these
like gold frame sunglasses. But he's got like a Star
of David on his lapel. It's a little hard to see,
(03:14):
but it's clearly a Star David. And I'm like, this
is unbelievable. Like, dude is walking into the courthouse in
his moment of reckoning and he's still got he's still
rocking the Star of David, like he is holding on
to that claim of Jewish heritage. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Wow, I couldn't see that from where I was. So
I was sitting in the courthouse three rows behind him.
It's a huge building, like it's a it's a massive
federal facility, but the courtroom itself was actually quite small.
It was just four rows of pews on each side,
(03:51):
and two of those roads were basically filled up by
lawyers for the prosecution. Of course, there's no jury, right
because this is you know, and now this ultimately needs
is this isn't going to go to trial.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Okay, But so when you're so when you're in the courtroom,
are you there before he shows up or was he
already there when you walked in?
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yeah, so when I'm in the courtroom, he is not
there yet, and then he's just kind of sitting there
and it's very much like a library church, kind of
like atmosphere, Like everyone's like whispering and looking around. And
then the prosecutors entered, and actually there's some family members
(04:34):
of the lead prosecutor were seated behind me, so I
talk to them a little bit. I mean, just like
you don't no one has cell phones, no one has computers.
I don't think that you would even even let you
bring an Apple Watch in, And so everybody is kind
of forced to talk to each other. And so for
a while, people just kind of sat there milling about.
Speaker 5 (04:52):
I want you to tell them at the moment that
he walks into the courtroom, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
So everyone is, like I said, kind of so everyone
is kind of feeded quietly, anxiously wondering what's gonna happen,
when things are going to actually get going, if this
is actually going to happen today, we're expected thing. And
then I heard from one of the reporters sitting next
to me. He had actually gone out to try and
go to the bathroom before things would start, and he
(05:18):
came back and told me he's here, Like he came
face to face with Santos on his way to the bathroom.
And I was just like, WHOA, Okay, this is really happening.
You know, half of the morning I thought maybe he
wouldn't show up, but then it was, it was real.
He was there, and so, you know, unceremoniously the doors
open and Santos comes through with his legal teams in
(05:41):
his black and gray suit. He didn't looked like overly
distressed or anything, but there was like a tenseness to
his body. But the moment that he walked in, I
was sort of just reachless because there's so much anticipation,
in so much build up to this moment, and then
there he was.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
When he and when he walked down the aisle, did
you get a glimpse of his face? Did he look
like solemn or did he look like.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
Easy?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
You could feel, at least what I've said, so you
could feel kind of all the anxiety and feeling and
anticipation that was like locked into his body as he
waited for this to start.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
Is it one of these things where the judge was
reading out the charges and asking him how do you plead?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
It started very matter of factly with the judge saying,
you understand that you are going to be waiving your
right to a trial. If you do enter into this
guilty police today and then she started kind of recapping
what that guilty pleae would before. But then it was
kind of astounding just to hear the judge. He kind
of gave like this long list of like, Okay, you
(06:50):
can't have a trial. You're giving up that right, you're
giving up the rightticipenated witnesses, you're giving up your right
to testify in your own defense. That he had to
you know, she was like, do you understand that, and
Santas said yes. There was a somber of quality to
his voice in those interactions back and forth with the judge,
but he was keeping it together in the courtroom. Yeah,
(07:13):
there was a moment where in the beginning of the
proceedings where the judge swore him in and asked him
to raise his right hand and you know, trow to
tell the truth. And that just felt like a moment
to have toward Stantos worn to tell the truth.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
Yeah, that is that's crazy. Yeah, I mean it's almost
like can the judge keep a straight face? I mean,
did he make a statement?
Speaker 4 (07:42):
He did make a statement. He made a statement in court,
and then he made a statement outside the courthouse. I mean,
I just was writing so ferociously. But basically he says
he started off by saying, I participated in the scheme
with Nancy Mark. Everything that we talked about, everything that
(08:03):
you know we talked through with Sturrob is basically what
he talked to And then he said, you know, I
deeply regret this. I accept full responsibility. I'm committed to
making amends. And then he pleaded guilty on both counts.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
When he says that, like, is he's saying that just
very kind of like wooden and composed, or is there
emotion there when he's kind of making this apology.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
It's interesting. So when he started to make a statement,
he asked the judge if he should stand up, and
I had to think in that moment he was extending
more dramatics, like more theater out of it as the
judge told him he could stay seated, like you're not
getting some big you know swans.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
No, I totally buy that. And that's like, as such
an astute observation.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
You know, it did feel real, as real as anyone
can be reading a prepared statement in the sudden courtroom.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
You know, yeah, I'd love to know, you know, we
talked to a prosecutor on the line. What it means
that he only pled guilty to two.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Of them account Yeah, I get the sense that that
was the proper that the government offered to avoid what
I have to assume would have been a lengthy and
expensive trial. If you're thinking about the dozens of layers
that filled the courtroom today. An assistant US Attorney Ryan Harris,
(09:30):
who was the main spokesperson for the prosecution today, he
listed out we were prepared to bring forty witnesses, which
includes victims, folks, owners, campaign staffers, family co conspirators. I'm
imagining that would have been Nancy Mark and five hundred
(09:51):
exhibits including text, photos, emails, audio, video, financial records. You know,
this would have been an exhaustive and thorough trial. This
is something I'd been thinking about a lot because as
the prosecution, how do you tell the story of all
of these different schemes, Because they're there, each their own story, right,
(10:14):
It was going to be a real challenge for them,
and I think also a challenge for a jury to
keep track of all of these things, and so I
think people were subjecting it was going to take probably
over a month to get through all of that, and
we're losing that detail. So I think that the case
that the prosecution has built we will never hear. And
(10:37):
there's something really satisfying about that.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
If you've been following something I have.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
You know, I had been gearing up for this trial,
and the reporter in me wanted to see this through,
wanted this through at a trial, wanted every one of
my questions about what happened with this thou hundred thousand
dollars loan, right like I had those questions that I
wanted to see that aired out in court.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
It really did.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
But then hearing today the amount of evidence that the
prosecution had and the lack of defense that Santa seemed
to have, you know, it just kind of made this
feel like the foregone conclusion that whether we sat through
a lengthy trial or not, the result was basically going
to still be the same, is that Santras is going
to be found guilty on at least some of this always.
But I would say the most dramatic part of the
(11:23):
entire thing was around the issue of restitutions. Basically, everything
was coming to an end. It had run about an hour.
It was very calm. In fact, the judge was thanking
everyone for being so calm, and then there was this
back and forth between Santas's lawyers and the judge and
the prosecutors over this issue of restitution and forfeiture. I
(11:48):
guess like if Santas going to be able to pay
this money, And so Joe Murray, who's the attorney that
we've been reaching out to, at one point like stood
up even as the proceedings were ending and was just saying,
you know, Santis is going to make best efforts. He
kept saying, guest efforts. He's going to do his best
to try and pay this to pay thirty days before sentencing,
(12:10):
so what sentencing is actually going to be in February.
That means he has to come up with hundreds of
thousands of dollars between now and February. And Joseph Murray,
his attorney, was taking this point of like, well, we
don't know how these proceedings will impact his employabilities.
Speaker 8 (12:28):
Which I thought was so interesting and comical. Most previous
job that I'm aware of was elected official, and I
don't think he has great credibility on that front.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
I mean, he did earlier this year amount a campaign
to run for a different Congressional district in New York,
also on Long Island, but further east, and then he
suspended that in light of this criminal trial. I assume, so, yeah,
it is a question of a where he's going to
get the money to pay back the government and the
victims and be what his next job is going to be.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
My friend is like a reality TV producer who got
He got Michael Cohane on his show. I could see
Santa's doing something like that, or a lot.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Of cameos, a lot of cameos, like like two hundred
thousand dollars worth of cameos. Yes, After the hearings included
Santos gave a very tearful statement outside with his gold
framed sunglasses, just kind of like choking back tears and
(13:37):
admitting that he's lied, and there was a huge media
scrum around him.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Leading guilty as a step I never imagine I take,
but it is a necessary one because it is the
right thing to do. It's not only a recognition of
my mister red person has to other uys, but more profoundly,
it is my own recognition of the lies I told
myself over these past years.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
And then the Brieance piece who's the United States Attorney
for the Eastern District spoke. You know, they had someone
from the Justice Department's Criminal Division right to get like
all the suits, all the big wigs up to give
their statement about how this can't happen here, and we
(14:29):
proved that today. You know, it's all political speak and
it's all about rooting out corruption and accountability. And I
guess that's what happened today because you know, Santo seemingly
was afraid of the prosecution and decided to take this plea.
But it does see a little hollow that we won't
see all the fiften pieces aired out at a trial
(14:50):
that maybe would have felt like more honest accountability for this.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
There's something about seeing that image of him walking and
like the men in black soup that go from glasses
and again like the star of data on his lapel,
just like the whole bit. We're just like, we are.
Speaker 9 (15:09):
Not seen the last of this guy.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
He is someone who knows how to command the spotlight
and he will be back.
Speaker 9 (15:22):
It seems clear to me in some capacity.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
In light of this plea deal, there's so much that
will never know. We won't hear from the witnesses. People
who saw Santos operate and were drawn into his web.
But here's a thing you actually can hear from one
of them, someone who George Santos befriended and then betrayed.
(15:56):
She was a gatekeeper to Gatsby Country, an ambassador of
the very rich, someone who believed in Santos and empowered him,
and she has a lot to say next time on
Deep Cover.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
So I expended a lot of my own personal political capital,
meaning my friends and connections who participate in conservative politics,
and they supported George for the same reason that I did.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
This episode was reported and produced by Amy Gains McQuaid.
It was edited by Karen Chakerjee. It was mastered by
Sarah Bruguerer. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Additional audio
in this episode is from CBS ABC and Newsday Special
Thanks to Jake Flanagan, Sarah Nix, and Greta Cone. I'm
(16:50):
Jake Calburn.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
New legal developments involving austed Republican Congressman George Santos.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Sources say there's a possible plea deal in the corruption
case that drove him from office.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
His trial was said to begin September ninth. Why plead
guilty now?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So the rumors are true. On Monday, August nineteenth, George
Santos pled guilty in federal court. When I heard the news,
I made my way to New York and I was
there in the courtroom just a few rows behind George
Santos for all of it. I called Jake right after
the hearing as I was driving away from the courthouse.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Amy, Hello, heyne I can hear you.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
I'm walking the dog in the park, but I have
so many questions for you as soon as my dog Milo.
Are you home now?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
No, I'm dropping that.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Oh my gosh. Wow. Okay, what a day. Yeah, So
walk me through.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
So as expected, Santa Flood guilty specifically to two counts,
Count two and count six. I think one of those
is wirefraud and one of those is aggravated identity theft.
But if I'm just said correctly, he basically admitted that
he did everything in the indictment, So like he pled
(01:51):
to these two charges, but he did own up to
all of the allegations against him by the federal government
as part of this plea agreement.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Huh. How many counts were their total?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Twenty three?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Wow? Does that mean that he and he like fared
well on this?
Speaker 6 (02:10):
I mean, well, no, what didn't happen today was sentencings,
so that was tentatively scheduled for February, so we won't know,
but the range that he's looking at is minimum of two.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Years in prison and a maximum of twenty two years.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Talk me through like showing up at the courthouse and
what the scene was like.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, so I got to the courthouse in Central icelip
on the lawn and it was a zoo tent after
tent after tent of media set up. People had been
camped out there probably all day, just trying to get
shots to stand just walking in and out of the court.
It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
But there's an image that I'm looking at now. I'm like,
if you just scream of George Santas, I was trying
to like see what you might have seen. He's dressed
in this like men in black black suit with these
like gold frame sunglasses. But he's got like a Star
of David on his lapel. It's a little hard to see,
(03:14):
but it's clearly a Star David. And I'm like, this
is unbelievable. Like, dude is walking into the courthouse in
his moment of reckoning and he's still got he's still
rocking the Star of David, like he is holding on
to that claim of Jewish heritage. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Wow, I couldn't see that from where I was. So
I was sitting in the courthouse three rows behind him.
It's a huge building, like it's a it's a massive
federal facility, but the courtroom itself was actually quite small.
It was just four rows of pews on each side,
(03:51):
and two of those roads were basically filled up by
lawyers for the prosecution. Of course, there's no jury, right
because this is you know, and now this ultimately needs
is this isn't going to go to trial.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Okay, But so when you're so when you're in the courtroom,
are you there before he shows up or was he
already there when you walked in?
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yeah, so when I'm in the courtroom, he is not
there yet, and then he's just kind of sitting there
and it's very much like a library church, kind of
like atmosphere, Like everyone's like whispering and looking around. And
then the prosecutors entered, and actually there's some family members
(04:34):
of the lead prosecutor were seated behind me, so I
talk to them a little bit. I mean, just like
you don't no one has cell phones, no one has computers.
I don't think that you would even even let you
bring an Apple Watch in, And so everybody is kind
of forced to talk to each other. And so for
a while, people just kind of sat there milling about.
Speaker 5 (04:52):
I want you to tell them at the moment that
he walks into the courtroom, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
So everyone is, like I said, kind of so everyone
is kind of feeded quietly, anxiously wondering what's gonna happen,
when things are going to actually get going, if this
is actually going to happen today, we're expected thing. And
then I heard from one of the reporters sitting next
to me. He had actually gone out to try and
go to the bathroom before things would start, and he
(05:18):
came back and told me he's here, Like he came
face to face with Santos on his way to the bathroom.
And I was just like, WHOA, Okay, this is really happening.
You know, half of the morning I thought maybe he
wouldn't show up, but then it was, it was real.
He was there, and so, you know, unceremoniously the doors
open and Santos comes through with his legal teams in
(05:41):
his black and gray suit. He didn't looked like overly
distressed or anything, but there was like a tenseness to
his body. But the moment that he walked in, I
was sort of just reachless because there's so much anticipation,
in so much build up to this moment, and then
there he was.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
When he and when he walked down the aisle, did
you get a glimpse of his face? Did he look
like solemn or did he look like.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
Easy?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
You could feel, at least what I've said, so you
could feel kind of all the anxiety and feeling and
anticipation that was like locked into his body as he
waited for this to start.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
Is it one of these things where the judge was
reading out the charges and asking him how do you plead?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
It started very matter of factly with the judge saying,
you understand that you are going to be waiving your
right to a trial. If you do enter into this
guilty police today and then she started kind of recapping
what that guilty pleae would before. But then it was
kind of astounding just to hear the judge. He kind
of gave like this long list of like, Okay, you
(06:50):
can't have a trial. You're giving up that right, you're
giving up the rightticipenated witnesses, you're giving up your right
to testify in your own defense. That he had to
you know, she was like, do you understand that, and
Santas said yes. There was a somber of quality to
his voice in those interactions back and forth with the judge,
but he was keeping it together in the courtroom. Yeah,
(07:13):
there was a moment where in the beginning of the
proceedings where the judge swore him in and asked him
to raise his right hand and you know, trow to
tell the truth. And that just felt like a moment
to have toward Stantos worn to tell the truth.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
Yeah, that is that's crazy. Yeah, I mean it's almost
like can the judge keep a straight face? I mean,
did he make a statement?
Speaker 4 (07:42):
He did make a statement. He made a statement in court,
and then he made a statement outside the courthouse. I mean,
I just was writing so ferociously. But basically he says
he started off by saying, I participated in the scheme
with Nancy Mark. Everything that we talked about, everything that
(08:03):
you know we talked through with Sturrob is basically what
he talked to And then he said, you know, I
deeply regret this. I accept full responsibility. I'm committed to
making amends. And then he pleaded guilty on both counts.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
When he says that, like, is he's saying that just
very kind of like wooden and composed, or is there
emotion there when he's kind of making this apology.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
It's interesting. So when he started to make a statement,
he asked the judge if he should stand up, and
I had to think in that moment he was extending
more dramatics, like more theater out of it as the
judge told him he could stay seated, like you're not
getting some big you know swans.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
No, I totally buy that. And that's like, as such
an astute observation.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
You know, it did feel real, as real as anyone
can be reading a prepared statement in the sudden courtroom.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
You know, yeah, I'd love to know, you know, we
talked to a prosecutor on the line. What it means
that he only pled guilty to two.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Of them account Yeah, I get the sense that that
was the proper that the government offered to avoid what
I have to assume would have been a lengthy and
expensive trial. If you're thinking about the dozens of layers
that filled the courtroom today. An assistant US Attorney Ryan Harris,
(09:30):
who was the main spokesperson for the prosecution today, he
listed out we were prepared to bring forty witnesses, which
includes victims, folks, owners, campaign staffers, family co conspirators. I'm
imagining that would have been Nancy Mark and five hundred
(09:51):
exhibits including text, photos, emails, audio, video, financial records. You know,
this would have been an exhaustive and thorough trial. This
is something I'd been thinking about a lot because as
the prosecution, how do you tell the story of all
of these different schemes, Because they're there, each their own story, right,
(10:14):
It was going to be a real challenge for them,
and I think also a challenge for a jury to
keep track of all of these things, and so I
think people were subjecting it was going to take probably
over a month to get through all of that, and
we're losing that detail. So I think that the case
that the prosecution has built we will never hear. And
(10:37):
there's something really satisfying about that.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
If you've been following something I have.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
You know, I had been gearing up for this trial,
and the reporter in me wanted to see this through,
wanted this through at a trial, wanted every one of
my questions about what happened with this thou hundred thousand
dollars loan, right like I had those questions that I
wanted to see that aired out in court.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
It really did.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
But then hearing today the amount of evidence that the
prosecution had and the lack of defense that Santa seemed
to have, you know, it just kind of made this
feel like the foregone conclusion that whether we sat through
a lengthy trial or not, the result was basically going
to still be the same, is that Santras is going
to be found guilty on at least some of this always.
But I would say the most dramatic part of the
(11:23):
entire thing was around the issue of restitutions. Basically, everything
was coming to an end. It had run about an hour.
It was very calm. In fact, the judge was thanking
everyone for being so calm, and then there was this
back and forth between Santas's lawyers and the judge and
the prosecutors over this issue of restitution and forfeiture. I
(11:48):
guess like if Santas going to be able to pay
this money, And so Joe Murray, who's the attorney that
we've been reaching out to, at one point like stood
up even as the proceedings were ending and was just saying,
you know, Santis is going to make best efforts. He
kept saying, guest efforts. He's going to do his best
to try and pay this to pay thirty days before sentencing,
(12:10):
so what sentencing is actually going to be in February.
That means he has to come up with hundreds of
thousands of dollars between now and February. And Joseph Murray,
his attorney, was taking this point of like, well, we
don't know how these proceedings will impact his employabilities.
Speaker 8 (12:28):
Which I thought was so interesting and comical. Most previous
job that I'm aware of was elected official, and I
don't think he has great credibility on that front.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
I mean, he did earlier this year amount a campaign
to run for a different Congressional district in New York,
also on Long Island, but further east, and then he
suspended that in light of this criminal trial. I assume, so, yeah,
it is a question of a where he's going to
get the money to pay back the government and the
victims and be what his next job is going to be.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
My friend is like a reality TV producer who got
He got Michael Cohane on his show. I could see
Santa's doing something like that, or a lot.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Of cameos, a lot of cameos, like like two hundred
thousand dollars worth of cameos. Yes, After the hearings included
Santos gave a very tearful statement outside with his gold
framed sunglasses, just kind of like choking back tears and
(13:37):
admitting that he's lied, and there was a huge media
scrum around him.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Leading guilty as a step I never imagine I take,
but it is a necessary one because it is the
right thing to do. It's not only a recognition of
my mister red person has to other uys, but more profoundly,
it is my own recognition of the lies I told
myself over these past years.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
And then the Brieance piece who's the United States Attorney
for the Eastern District spoke. You know, they had someone
from the Justice Department's Criminal Division right to get like
all the suits, all the big wigs up to give
their statement about how this can't happen here, and we
(14:29):
proved that today. You know, it's all political speak and
it's all about rooting out corruption and accountability. And I
guess that's what happened today because you know, Santo seemingly
was afraid of the prosecution and decided to take this plea.
But it does see a little hollow that we won't
see all the fiften pieces aired out at a trial
(14:50):
that maybe would have felt like more honest accountability for this.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
There's something about seeing that image of him walking and
like the men in black soup that go from glasses
and again like the star of data on his lapel,
just like the whole bit. We're just like, we are.
Speaker 9 (15:09):
Not seen the last of this guy.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
He is someone who knows how to command the spotlight
and he will be back.
Speaker 9 (15:22):
It seems clear to me in some capacity.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
In light of this plea deal, there's so much that
will never know. We won't hear from the witnesses. People
who saw Santos operate and were drawn into his web.
But here's a thing you actually can hear from one
of them, someone who George Santos befriended and then betrayed.
(15:56):
She was a gatekeeper to Gatsby Country, an ambassador of
the very rich, someone who believed in Santos and empowered him,
and she has a lot to say next time on
Deep Cover.
Speaker 7 (16:11):
So I expended a lot of my own personal political capital,
meaning my friends and connections who participate in conservative politics,
and they supported George for the same reason that I did.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
This episode was reported and produced by Amy Gains McQuaid.
It was edited by Karen Chakerjee. It was mastered by
Sarah Bruguerer. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Additional audio
in this episode is from CBS ABC and Newsday Special
Thanks to Jake Flanagan, Sarah Nix, and Greta Cone. I'm
(16:50):
Jake Calburn.
Host
Jake Halpern
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