I confess to wonder that George Santos isn’t higher up in the GOP than he is, or even being considered by Donald Trump as a running mate. The man may be the new kid in town, but he’s a pro when it comes to politically related fraud. Damn. He should have taught a class at Trump University in fleecing the rubes. Here are some incredible excerpts from the DOJ website via Raw Story:
Santos led “a fraudulent scheme to steal the personal identity and financial information of contributors to his campaign.”
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said, “Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization.”
In one instance he allegedly charged $12,000 on a donor’s credit card and then moved the money directly into his own personal account.
“Santos allegedly led multiple additional fraudulent criminal schemes, lying to the American public in the process,” the release said. “The FBI is committed to upholding the laws of our electoral process. Anyone who attempts to violate the law as part of a political campaign will face punishment in the criminal justice system,” stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Smith.
“The defendant – a Congressman – allegedly stole the identities of family members and used the credit card information of political contributors to fraudulently inflate his campaign coffers,” the District Attorney Donnelly said in the Justice Department release. “We thank our partners in the US Attorney’s Office and the FBI as we work together to root out public corruption on Long Island.”
And of course more lies to the FEC were found. That’s what got this ball rolling in the first place.
In another case, Santos is accused of “submitting materially false reports to the FEC on behalf of the campaign.” The release also links Santos’ treasurer Nancy Marks to this act. She recently made a plea deal with the DOJ. The scheme was to artificially inflate the campaign’s fundraising numbers and mislead the FEC, a national Republican Party committee, and the public, the allegations continue.
Specifically, the filing says that Santos and his campaign were trying to qualify for a program the national GOP had where they’d give “financial and logistical support to Santos’ campaign” if he met the terms.
“Santos had to demonstrate, among other things, that his congressional campaign had raised at least $250,000 from third-party contributors in a single quarter,” said the court documents. So, it created the appearance he was meeting the benchmark, but he wasn’t, DOJ alleges. At least 10 family members of Santos and Marks made contributions to the campaign, but those family members never actually made the donations, the allegations suggest.
“Santos and Marks agreed to falsely report to the FEC that Santos had loaned the campaign significant sums of money,” said the documents. In fact, Santos never made the loan as he never had the money to do it, according to the authorities.
The loan has been part of the questions about Santos because the previous year he claimed that he was near bankruptcy and unable to pay his rent. The following year he was able to give a massive loan to the campaign. In fact, the loan was all a lie, the DOJ suggests.
All Santos needs is his own reality TV show and he can go on to be a vintage GOP candidate for president. This is incredible, this level of misbehavior in anybody not named Trump. Oh, and he supports Jim Jordan for Speaker, by the way. Nothing like the coveted Santos endorsement, especially since his personal cachet now has approximately the same appeal as fish left in the sun for a few weeks.
But this does make sense, identity theft. He’s used different names, claimed to be straight, gay, a member of different professions, having expertise in all kinds of areas. He himself has admitted to being “a terrible liar.” Why not just grab the wallets and bank accounts of those people who actually do the things that Santos claims he does, because Santos believes that he is that person — at least while he’s stealing from them. Who knows? Maybe that will be part of the insanity defense he offers.
Let’s hope this House seat moves to the blue column. This guy is a mess. His constituents would be better off represented by a hamster.
Unfortunately, looks like NY-03 & the nation is stuck with lower than sewage scum Devolder-Santos through January 19, 2025. Though if he’s sentenced & imprisoned B4 then, at least he won’t be casting any votes in the House of Representatives against democracy and furthering Putin’s Kremlin goals of weakening the USA.
This is what happens when these things are not dealt with. Santos should have resigned and he still should. All he’s doing is bringing disgrace to his district and hamstringing the House. McCarthy knew all this could and would happen but he was so desperate for votes that he decided to just let it all ride.
How has he found time to do this when he’s running NASA, the Nobel Prizes, Nascar, and The Olympic Games?