George Santos will have plenty on his plate when he’s sworn in today. House investigations into possible campaign finance law violations are already being prepared, along with questions about that almost impressively massive mountain of lies he told the voters regarding his personal history. But now he has another shadow looming over him. Authorities in Brazil have announced that they are restarting a criminal case against Santos involving a stolen checkbook and will seek a formal response from him this week. But no matter how or even if he responds, they plan to move forward with the case. If convicted, Santos could face up to five years in a Brazillian prison, assuming they can ever get their hands on him. (NY Times)

When Representative-elect George Santos takes his seat in Congress on Tuesday, he will do so under the shadow of active investigations by federal and local prosecutors into potential criminal activity during his two congressional campaigns.

But an older criminal case may be more pressing: Brazilian law enforcement authorities intend to revive fraud charges against Mr. Santos, and will seek his formal response, prosecutors said on Monday.

The matter, which stemmed from an incident in 2008 regarding a stolen checkbook, had been suspended for the better part of a decade because the police were unable to locate him.

This trial has been on hold for more than a decade, but not because they weren’t sure if they had a case against Santos. They simply couldn’t find him. But now the Brazillian prosecutors will know precisely where he is because he’ll be in Washington, DC. Will they seek to extradite him to Brazil? Would the White House agree to have a sitting congressman extradited? My normal gut reaction would be to say no, but Santos is already turning into an embarrassing headache for the GOP and they might not mind seeing him take an extended holiday out of the country. On the other hand, the Democrats might want to keep him around for exactly the same reason.

In other news, the New York Times has seemingly found one thing that Santos told the truth about. (As shocking as that may seem.) It turns out that he really was/is gay. As the Daily Beast reported yesterday, Santos had a male 18-year-old lover who lived with him while he was still married to his wife. His name is Pedro Vilarva and now he’s talking to the press, saying that Santos lied to him also.

A man who was 18 years old when he began dating and then moved in with George Santos—while the future congressman was married to a woman—says he was lied to, too.

“He used to say he would get money from Citigroup, he was an investor,” Pedro Vilarva told The New York Times of his 2014 romance with Santos, who was then 26. “One day it’s one thing, one day it’s another thing. He never ever actually went to work.”

Well, at least Vilarva was at the legal age of consent when the affair allegedly began, so George has that going for him I suppose. The young man went on to claim that Santos once gave him tickets to Hawaii as a gift, but the tickets turned out to be bogus. His other curious comment about his time living with Santos was that George “never went to work.” That might explain all of his financial problems that magically disappeared earlier this year while he was running for Congress.

2023 is off to an interesting start in Washington to be sure. Sadly, some of the events that are currently unfolding are not the sort of “interesting” news we were hoping for.