Did someone forward you this? Subscribe here free!
Good morning, Roca Nation. Here are today’s four need-to-know stories:
French authorities continued to search for the four thieves who carried out a brazen daylight robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris
Sanae Takaichi became Japan's first female prime minister after winning a parliamentary vote (free)
Warner Bros. Discovery announced it would review potential sale options after receiving interest from multiple buyers (free)
The White House announced that there are “no plans” for President Trump to meet with Russian President Putin, postponing a summit between the two in Hungary
By Max Frost
“If President Trump had pardoned Jesus Christ off the cross, he would have had critics. That’s just the reality of our country.”
Except Trump didn’t pardon Jesus Christ – he pardoned the disgraced politician George Santos, who said those words on CNN this Sunday.
Santos became a meme within weeks of his 2022 election to Congress as a Republican from Long Island, NY. He said he was the descendant of Holocaust survivors, the son of a woman who died in 9/11, and a successful businessman and political figure. He said he wasn’t a drag queen, that he was a Broadway producer, and that he was a seasoned Wall Street financier.
All of that was proven false, and by the time he arrived in DC, Santos was a pariah. The resulting investigations led to his being charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, to which he pleaded guilty last August. This April, he was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison.
“Today, George Santos was finally held accountable for the mountain of lies, theft, and fraud he perpetrated,” the US attorney said at the time. “This prosecution speaks to the truth that my Office is committed to aggressively rooting out public corruption and that public officials who criminally abuse our electoral process will end up in a federal prison.”
Yet on Friday, just 84 days later, Santos walked free.
In today’s deep-dive, we look at the crimes to which Santos pleaded guilty; how he lobbied for his release; and why Trump decided to free a politician so widely described as “disgraced.”
This full report is for paid subscribers, who fund our journalism. If you start a two-week free trial today, you’ll be automatically entered to win a free year. Once you sign up, you can access all of our articles here!
Editor’s Note
Thanks for reading. We’re very curious to hear your thoughts on this one. Was Santos’ sentence appropriate, or did he deserve to be set free? Let us know what you think by replying to this email.
And as always, find our past five stories below:
See you tomorrow,
Max and Max
