Congressman George Santos, who faced outrage and ridicule for a litany of lies about his heritage, education and professional pedigree, has been charged with federal criminal offenses, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The charges against Santos, filed in the Eastern District of New York, remain under wraps.
The people were unable to comment on specific details of the case and spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity.
Contacted Tuesday, Santos said: “This is new to me.”
“They are the first to call me about this,” he said in a brief telephone interview.
CNN first reported the allegations.
The New York Republican has admitted to lying about his Jewish ancestry, his Wall Street background, his college degrees and his record as a star volleyball player. Serious questions have also been raised about his finances, such as the origin of what he claimed was a quickly amassed fortune despite his recent financial troubles, including evictions and debts of thousands of dollars in back rent.
Santos has resisted calls to resign and recently announced he was running for re-election. He claimed that his lies about his life story, which included telling people that he had worked in various international financial companies and that he had a sumptuous real estate portfolio, were harmless embellishments on his resume.
However, the pressure for him to resign has been intense. Journalists and the public harassed him. They mocked him on social media and on late-night TV. His fellow New York Republicans demanded that he resign, saying that he had betrayed the voters and his own party with his lies.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office and the New York Attorney General’s Office had previously stated that they were investigating possible violations of the law.
In addition to questions about his life, Santos’ campaign spending drew scrutiny for unusual payments for travel, lodging and other items.
The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission and urged regulators to investigate Santos. The “mountain of lies” Santos spread during the campaign about his life story and qualifications, the center said, should prompt the commission to “investigate thoroughly what appear to be similarly outright lies about how his campaign raised and spent money”.
In his statements to the FEC, Santos initially said he had loaned his campaign and related political action committees more than $750,000, money he claimed came from a family business.
However, the wealth needed to make those loans seems to have come out of nowhere. In a financial statement filed with the clerk of the US House of Representatives in 2020, Santos stated that he had no assets and his annual income was $55,000.
His company, the Devolder Organization, was not incorporated until the spring of 2021. However, last September, Santos filed another financial disclosure form reporting that this new company, incorporated in Florida, had paid him a salary of $750,000 in each of the last two years, plus another $1 million to $5 million in dividends.
In an interview, Santos described the Devolder Organization as a business that helped the wealthy buy things like yachts and planes.
Court records indicate that Santos was the subject of three eviction proceedings in Queens between 2014 and 2017 for non-payment of rent.
Some Republicans, including those in his district, have harshly criticized Santos for his dishonesty. The Nassau County Republican Committee, which supported his candidacy, said it would not support Santos for re-election.
Santos lost his first congressional race in 2020, but ran again in 2022, winning a district that lies in suburban Long Island and a small sliver of Queens.
2023-05-09 22:42:00
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