Two House Democrats have demanded Republican congressional leadership disclose how much they knew of embattled first-year Rep. George Santos’ ‘web of lies’ ahead of Election Day.  

Dueling controversies have plagued the House of Representatives narrowly returned to GOP control just two weeks ago. 

As Republicans question President Biden’s competency amid revelations several classified documents were found at the commander-in-chief’s home in Delaware, Democrats have focused on Santos’ resume fabrications regarding a college degree, his religious heritage and made-up career on Wall Street.   

Reps. Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres, both Democrats from New York, penned a letter on Sunday addressed to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Congressional Leadership Fund President Dan Conston. 

‘It is one thing for a candidate such as Mr. Santos to induce voters to support him based on a web of lies. But it is altogether something else if top levels of Republican leadership knew about Mr. Santos’s lies during the campaign and chose to be complicit,’ the letter says. ‘Investigators examining Mr. Santos’s conduct must understand the entire web of deceit, and it is therefore essential that you cooperate fully and forthrightly with those investigations.’ 

‘The American people also have a right to know whether Republican leadership, including each of you, was complicit in perpetrating this fraud on voters,’ Goldman, a former federal prosecutor, and Torres wrote. ‘We therefore call upon you to explain to the public what you knew about Mr. Santos’s lies and when you knew it.’ 

On Sunday, Stefanik tweeted, ‘The American people deserve ANSWERS, not the corrupt DOJ’s whitewashing of the Biden Crime Family.’

In response, Goldman replied, ‘The American people need ANSWERS about your involvement in George Santos’s scheme to defraud the voters long before the election.’ 

The letter – obtained by CBS News — argues that recent public reporting indicates that each of the recipients ‘had at least some knowledge of the web of lies used by Congressman George Santos to deceive his voters long before they became public.’ It requests that McCarthy, Stefanik and Conston ‘proactively and forthright’ cooperate with all current and future investigations into Santos, including the prob conducted by the House Committee on Ethics that McCarthy confirmed this week. 

‘In December, public reporting indicated that multiple Republican insiders were aware of Mr. Santos’s alleged inaccuracies and embellishments and that they were considered a ‘running joke’,’ the letter says. ‘A senior Republican leadership aide reportedly told the New York Post, ‘As far as questions about George in general, that was always something that was brought up whenever we talked about this race. It was a running joke at a certain point.’’ 

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that in November 2021, then-candidate Santos commissioned a ‘vulnerability study’ to identify weaknesses in his candidacy that might have been leveraged by an opposing candidate during the course of a campaign. The analysis reportedly revealed Santos had fabricated his educational background, worked at a firm accused of a Ponzi scheme and had multiple evictions and a suspended Florida driver’s license, calling into question his New York residency. 

After Santos refused to withdraw from the race, much of his campaign staff reportedly resigned. 

‘Sadly, even now, after eight other Republican members of Congress have called for Mr. Santos to resign, you have refused to male any public comment on Mr. Santos’s fraudulent candidacy, nor have you shared with the public your understanding of Mr. Santos’s blatant deception and lies prior to the election,’ the letter tells McCarthy, Stefanik and Conston. 

The letter contends that ‘it is now almost certain’ that Stefanik, one of Santos’ strongest endorsers and supporters, ‘was aware of Mr. Santos’s web of lies long before the election.’ One of Stefanik’s top political aides assisted Santos’ campaign, including by helping him find new staff and vendors after many quit in light of the ‘vulnerability study,’ Goldman and Torres allege. 

The Times also reported about early concerns over Santos within McCarthy’s circle, saying Conston, leader of the main House Republican super PAC, ‘also confided in lawmakers, donors and others associated that he was worried information would come out exposing Mr. Santos as a fraud.’ 

Despite the Nassau County GOP demanding Santos’ immediate resignation last week, the first-year congressman refused to step down. McCarthy said he will allow Santos to serve as House Ethics investigations play out but will have Santos serve on at most, one committee, amid concerns he could pose a risk to national security. 

There are no visitor logs for President Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, the White House Counsel’s Office said in a Monday statement.

Republicans on Capitol Hill demanded the visitor logs this weekend following revelations that Biden’s lawyers had discovered a stash of classified documents inside the home’s garage. While it is common practice to keep comprehensive visitor logs at the White House, Biden’s lawyers say no such record exists for his home in Delaware.

‘Like every President in decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,’ the White House Counsel’s Office told Fox News Digital on Monday. ‘But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.’

Biden is currently facing a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents after at least two stashes were found at his Wilmington home and a pro-Biden think tank in Washington, D.C.

The Secret Service also stated Sunday that while a detail is assigned to the home, they do not record visitors.

‘We don’t independently maintain our own visitor logs because it’s a private residence,’ spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told reporters.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, had demanded to see logs for the residence on Sunday.

‘Given the serious national security implications, the White House must provide the Wilmington residence’s visitor log,’ Comer wrote to White House chief of staff Ron Klain. ‘As Chief of Staff, you are head of the Executive Office of the President and bear responsibility to be transparent with the American people on these important issues related to the White House’s handling of this matter.’

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter on Thursday. He tapped Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney, to discover ‘whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter.’

The White House Counsel’s Office searched Biden’s two Delaware residences in Rehoboth Beach and Wilmington last week after news of the first documents broke. White House lawyers say they immediately contacted the DOJ when they discovered the documents inside Biden’s Wilmington garage. There has been no indication of what the documents contain or whether Biden or anyone else read them after he left office as vice president.

‘Lawyers discovered among personal and political papers a small number of additional Obama-Biden administration records with classified markings. All but one of these documents were found in storage space in the President’s Wilmington residence garage,’ White House lawyers wrote in a Thursday statement. ‘One document consisting of one page was discovered among stored materials in an adjacent room.’

The White House says no documents were found at Biden’s residence in Rehoboth Beach. Biden’s administration has also arranged to deliver the documents to the DOJ.

This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., acknowledged that it was a bad look for President Biden to be caught having classified information from his time as vice president after condemning former President Donald Trump for a similar situation, but she quickly shifted to point a finger at Republicans who want to look into it further.

After a trove of classified material was found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, Biden had said it was ‘just totally irresponsible.’ During an interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Stabenow if Biden now ‘has to eat’ those words.

‘Well, it’s certainly embarrassing. Right?’ Stabenow replied. ‘I mean it’s embarrassing that you would find a small number of documents, certainly not on purpose. They don’t think it’s the right thing and they’ve been moving to correct it, working with the Department of Justice, working with everyone involved, with the Archives, and so from my perspective, you know, it’s one of those moments that obviously they wish hadn’t happened.’

The Michigan Democrat then turned to Republicans like Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who was also on the program that day.

‘But what I’m most concerned about: this is the kind of thing that the Republicans love,’ she said. ‘We just heard it from my colleague Senator Johnson. Let’s talk about investigations, let’s talk about chaos.’ 

Stabenow claimed that by investigating Biden, Republicans would be interfering with the economy. She asserted that the United States is experiencing a ‘manufacturing renaissance’ under Biden, as well as rising wages and lower unemployment.

The Michigan senator also claimed that people in her state ‘aren’t interested in all of this, just chaos, and investigations, which is where the Republicans feel comfortable, unfortunately.’

The same day that Stabenow made these remarks, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., sent a letter to White House chief of staff Ron Klain seeking visitor logs from Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, citing national security issues after classified materials were found there.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will be out of the country this week as the U.S. is expected to hit its debt limit on Thursday.

The secretary is set to meet with China’s Vice Premier Liu He Wednesday in Switzerland to discuss macroeconomic developments and other economic issues. It will mark the first in-person meeting between the leaders and follows three virtual meetings, according to the Treasury Department.

On Friday, Yellen warned that unless Congress takes swift action, the government could be unable to pay its bills as early as June.

The debt ceiling is the legal limit on the total amount of debt that the federal government can borrow on behalf of the public, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries and tax refunds.

In a letter addressed to the big four congressional leaders, Yellen said the Treasury Department will begin deploying so-called ‘extraordinary measures’ to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its obligation.

The emergency moves should give Congress until at least early June to raise or suspend the country’s current $31.4 trillion borrowing limit, she added.

‘Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability,’ Yellen said. ‘I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.’

A spokesperson for the Department of the Treasury did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Megan Henney contributed to this report.

Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin slammed education officials in his state after seven schools declined to inform students that they had won national merit awards, with the governor arguing the move came in the name of ‘equity.’

National merit awards are among the most prestigious honors a high school student can receive, with just 50,000 students from the top 1.5 million PSAT scores receiving it. Youngkin’s administration opened an investigation into the public schools last week, and he has also called for an inquiry into how the schools are using public funds.

‘[The schools] have a maniacal focus on equal outcomes for all students at all costs. And at the heart of the American dream, is excelling, is advancing, is stretching and recognizing that we have students that have different capabilities,’ Youngkin told ABC 7.

‘Some students have the ability to perform at one level, others need more help, and we have to allow students to run as fast as they can to dream the biggest dreams they can possibly dream and then go get them,’ he added.

The schools that withheld awards from top-performing students included Annandale, West Potomac, John R. Lewis, Edison, Thomas Jefferson for Science and Technology, Westfield, and Langley High, according to the Daily Mail. Some of the schools, like Thomas Jefferson, eventually notified students but waited until after important deadlines for college scholarships had passed.

‘We need to get to the bottom of what appears to be an egregious, deliberate attempt to disadvantage high-performing students at one of the best schools in the country,’ Youngkin said in a statement last week. ‘Parents and students deserve answers and Attorney General Miyares will initiate a full investigation. I believe this failure may have caused material harm to those students and their parents, and that this failure may have violated the Virginia Human Rights Act.’

The misconduct comes after Fairfax County Public Schools recently adopted a new strategy that aims to provide ‘Equal outcomes for every student, without exceptions.’

The FCPS says its own preliminary investigation found that the delay in merit award notifications was a result of human error.

‘As a reminder, once this error was brought to light, school staff reached out to colleges to update records where commended scholars had applied,’ FCPS said in a statement.

Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.

House Republicans are requesting two years of visitor logs from President Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, after classified documents from his time as vice president were discovered there.

‘Given the serious national security implications, the White House must provide the Wilmington residence’s visitor log,’ House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., in a Sunday letter to White House chief of staff Ron Klain. ‘As Chief of Staff, you are head of the Executive Office of the President and bear responsibility to be transparent with the American people on these important issues related to the White House’s handling of this matter.’

As President Joe Biden is rumored to soon announce a 2024 bid for re-election, the developing investigation into several batches of classified documents found in his possession could cause turmoil for a potential campaign.

This week, news broke of three sets of classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center and in two separate locations at the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. On Saturday, White House Special Counsel Richard Sauber revealed that five additional pages of classified materials were found at Biden’s home on Thursday when attorneys with security clearances went to the location.

Though many Democratic and Republican strategists believe the classified documents scandal won’t play a major role in Biden’s 2024 aspirations, some political insiders told Fox News Digital that it’s still not an ideal situation for a president seeking re-election — particularly as it opens Biden up to GOP attacks.

‘It’s never good when there’s a special prosecutor appointed. It’s definitely not a place I’d want to be in as we try to put the pieces together of a re-election campaign,’ said a Democratic strategist and veteran of presidential campaigns, who who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.

Kevin Walling, a Democratic strategist, said he does not think the documents will affect Biden’s decision to run for re-election.

‘I think the President from what I’ve seen and heard has made up his mind to run, and clearly he knew that this was likely to be an issue when the documents were turned over last fall, he was down with his family in the Caribbean. And all indications are that he’s running for office, and that he plans to run hard and win,’ Walling said. ‘So I don’t think this is going to actually affect his thinking on 2024 whatsoever.’

On ‘Outnumbered’ Friday, Fox News’ Tomi Lahren speculated that the Democratic Party might use the situation to separate themselves from Biden and use the opportunity to recruit a new Democrat nominee for the 2024 election.

Brad Woodhouse, Democratic strategist, told Fox News Digital the ‘misplaced’ classified documents would be an issue in 2024.

‘I don’t think President Biden’s textbook approach to correctly handling the discovery of misplaced documents will have any impact on his re-election if he decides to run,’ Woodhouse said, saying that the controversy does not compare to that of the documents found at Trump’s home. ‘The difference between the two is apples and rotten oranges.’

Biden said it is his ‘intention’ to run for re-election next cycle, but has not yet made an official announcement.

‘At this stage, I don’t think this scandal alone will prevent President Biden from pursuing a second term, but it weakens one of his primary lines of attack against former President Trump if he is the GOP nominee,’ Giancarlo Sopo, a Republican strategist, told Fox News Digital. ‘The biggest risk for Democrats is that it could demoralize their voters, especially if the DOJ’s investigation escalates.’

‘President Biden handed the GOP a potent political gift,’ said Republican strategist Colin Reed. ‘Just ask former President Hillary Clinton how questions about the mishandling of classified information can impact the prospects of a campaign. It’s a non ideological issue that resonates with voters across the spectrum. Biden’s ability to weather the storm will determine not only the prospect of his 2024 chances, but also the remainder of his first term.’

Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic campaign strategist, told Fox News Digital that the content of the documents will determine whether a Biden re-election is attainable — but he fully expects Republicans to use Biden’s classified documents investigation as ammunition.

‘It depends on the quantity and depends on the content of the documents. But what it does do is it increases the laugh track sound at Mar-a-Lago because it just reduces, for many people, the anger about Trump and his documents and makes it easier for Biden to be criticized.’

‘Because they’re probably laughing their heads off at Mar-a-Lago and all this does is increase the volume of that laugh,’ Sheinkopf said of the ongoing investigation into documents found at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. ‘And it makes Republicans feel that they’re empowered and that Biden is somehow much more vulnerable and Democrats are much more vulnerable because he leads the Democrat Party.’

‘In two years from now when people go to the polls, what they’re going to be focused on is did the president take action on their prescription drug costs? Did the president take action on climate change? Did the president take action on inflation? And the answer to that question is yes he did,’ Joe Caiazzo, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked on numerous presidential campaigns, says this current controversy won’t be on the minds of voters in 2024.

Days after additional classified materials were found in Biden’s home, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the situation.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is not ruling out the possibility that national security may have been jeopardized by President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. 

Schiff appeared on ABC’s ‘This Week’ Sunday, after a third batch of classified documents was found at President Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware. 

ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Schiff whether it was possible national security had been jeopardized – an assessment Schiff made after the FBI seized classified documents from former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August. 

‘I don’t think we can exclude the possibility without knowing more of the facts,’ Schiff replied. ‘We have asked for an assessment in the intelligence community of the Mar-a-Lago documents. I think we ought to get that same assessment of the documents found in the [Penn Biden Center], as well as the home of President Biden.’ 

White House lawyer Richard Sauber said Saturday that six pages of classified documents were found during a search of Biden’s private library. That announcement came after the discovery of documents found in December in Biden’s garage and in November at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, from his time as vice president. 

The apparent mishandling of classified documents and official records from the Obama administration is under investigation by a former U.S. attorney, Robert Hur, who was appointed as a special counsel on Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

‘I’d like to know what these documents were. I’d like to know what the [special counsel’s] assessment is, whether there was any risk of exposure and what the harm would be and whether any mitigation needs to be done,’ Schiff said. ‘I think that would be appropriate and consistent with what we requested in the case of Mar-a-Lago.’ 

Sauber has previously said that the White House was ‘confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake.’

Sauber’s statement did not explain why the White House waited two days to provide an updated accounting of the number of classified records. The White House is already facing scrutiny for waiting more than two months to acknowledge the discovery of the initial group of documents at the Biden office.

Schiff said he would ‘reserve judgment’ when asked whether the Biden administration should have revealed the discovery of the documents sooner.

He added: ‘I think it’s important to point out that the Biden approach was very different in the sense that it looks – as far as we can tell – that it was inadvertent that these documents were in these locations.’ 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

In his remarks celebrating the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., President Biden repeated the questionable claim that he frequented a Black church during the civil rights movement.

Biden gave a speech at King’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta Sunday on what would have been the slain civil rights icon’s 94th birthday. The president opened his remarks by repeating a claim – connecting himself to the civil rights movement – that has been disputed repeatedly in the past.

‘Let’s lay one thing to rest. I may be a practicing Catholic, but used to go to 7:30 Mass every morning in high school and then in college, before I went to the Black church,’ Biden said. ‘Not a joke. Andy knows this.’

‘Andy, it’s so great to see you, man,’ the president continued, addressing former U.N. Ambassador and former Southern Christian Leadership Conference executive director Andrew Young. ‘You’re one of the greatest we’ve ever had. Andy and I took on apartheid in South Africa and a whole lot else. They didn’t want to see him coming. But we used to – that’s when we would organize to march and to desegregate the city.’

During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden frequently mentioned how he would help organize anti-segregation protests at Union Baptist Church, a prominent Black church led by the late Rev. Otis Herring in Wilmington, Delaware.

‘When I was a teenager in Delaware, for real, I got involved in the civil rights movement,’ Biden said at the Bethlehem Baptist Church in South Carolina in January 2020. ‘I’d go to 8 o’clock Mass, then I’d go to Rev. Herring’s church where we’d meet in order to organize and figure where we were going to go, whether we were going to desegregate the Rialto movie theater or what we were going to do.’

While Richard ‘Mouse’ Smith, the former president of the Delaware NAACP, defended Biden in a 2019 op-ed, claiming, ‘We know Joe as the ally who was there beside us to protest the Rialto Theater’s discriminatory policy to segregate moviegoers based on race,’ his claim about attending Herring’s church was disputed.

Longtime congregants told the Washington Free Beacon at the time that they didn’t recall Biden attending the church. The revelation came about the same time Biden was forced to admit his repeated claims about being arrested with Young in apartheid-era South Africa were untrue.

‘I was never arrested and I don’t think [Biden] was, either,’ Young said at the time.

‘I guess I wasn’t arrested, I was stopped,’ Biden admitted.

Biden also acknowledged in the 1980s that he was not a civil rights activist and never marched during the movement.

‘During the ’60s, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement,’ Biden, who was running for president at the time, said during a speech in 1987. ‘I was not an activist. I worked at an all-Black swimming pool in the east side of Wilmington, Delaware. I was involved in what they were thinking, in what they were feeling.’

‘But I was not out marching, I was not down in Selma,’ he continued. ‘I was not anywhere else.’

Biden’s speech Sunday at Ebenezer comes as he is embroiled in controversy over the alleged mishandling of Obama-era classified documents.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate how the president handled classified documents after leaving the vice presidency in 2017. The White House on Saturday revealed that five additional classified records were found at Biden’s home in Wilmington.

Biden was invited to Ebenezer by Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor.

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Thomas Catenacci and The Associated Press contributed to this report.