Victoria’s Secret Fashions, a Flipped Desk, an Allegedly Stolen Ikea Dresser: The George Santos Story Will get Even Weirder

Marketing campaign-Cash Strikes

Santos beforehand claimed {that a} $500,000 mortgage he made to his marketing campaign had come from his private funds, which raised numerous questions provided that it wasn’t clear how he would have had that sort of money sitting round. (In truth, as The New York Occasions reported final month, Santos was evicted by two completely different landlords and appeared, at one time, to be unable to pay simply $2,250 in hire.)

However a brand new marketing campaign finance submitting, per the Day by day Beast, tells a special story. The submitting nonetheless says that the half one million {dollars} got here “from the candidate,” however the beforehand ticked field indicating “private funds of the candidate” is checked now not. One other new submitting reveals {that a} $125,000 “mortgage from the candidate” additionally was not constructed from private funds. And for those who’re discovering your self much more confused than you had been 30 seconds in the past, you’re not alone. “Now we have a variety of seasoned attorneys within the workplace and in our group, and everyone seems to be just about collectively scratching their heads,” Robert Maguire, the analysis director for the watchdog group Residents for Duty and Ethics in Washington, informed NBC Information of the filings. Brendan Fischer, deputy govt director of presidency watchdog Documented, informed the Day by day Beast: “I don’t know what they suppose they’re doing. Santos’s marketing campaign may need unchecked the ‘private funds of candidate’ field, however it’s nonetheless reporting that the $500,000 got here from Santos himself. If the ‘mortgage from candidate’ didn’t truly come from the candidate, then Santos ought to come clear and disclose the place the cash actually got here from. Santos can’t uncheck a field and make his authorized issues go away.”

And go away they haven’t! Final month federal prosecutors in Brooklyn reportedly launched an investigation into the congressman, which was mentioned to incorporate a probe of his funds. He’s additionally underneath investigation by the Nassau County District Lawyer’s Workplace. In the meantime, the New York State lawyer common’s workplace has individually mentioned it’s “wanting into a variety of points” regarding Santos.

The Different Marketing campaign-Cash Strikes

It was already identified that Santos’s marketing campaign shadily recorded greater than three dozen bills all costing $199.99, an quantity conveniently only one cent under the brink at which campaigns should preserve receipts. However simply how shady was it? Effectively, a brand new report from Politico places it in stark phrases for anybody pondering that possibly this entire factor was actually only a humorous coincidence:

Campaigns rack up tens of millions of {dollars} in bills and hundreds of line gadgets per marketing campaign, however it’s uncommon for them to notch even one $199 expense, based on a Politico evaluation of marketing campaign finance data. FEC knowledge reveals greater than 90% of Home and Senate marketing campaign committees across the nation didn’t report a single transaction valued between $199 and $199.99 throughout the 2022 election cycle.

Santos reported 40 of them.

The rarity of marketing campaign bills falling so near the authorized restrict for retaining receipts has raised issues that the Santos marketing campaign’s disbursements had been “intentionally falsified,” a grievance from the Marketing campaign Authorized Middle alleges. Main questions on Santos’s marketing campaign financing stay unanswered, together with the supply of $700,000 that the New York congressman ostensibly loaned to his marketing campaign regardless of questions on his private funds.

“This was a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar operation,” Adav Noti, a former FEC lawyer and senior vice chairman on the Marketing campaign Authorized Middle, which has filed a grievance in opposition to the New York congressman, informed the outlet. “We don’t know the place the cash got here from. We don’t know the place the cash went to.”

In associated information, Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose Speakership has been one humiliation after one other, mentioned on Tuesday that Santos can be faraway from Congress if the Home Ethics Committee determines he broke the legislation. Till then, nevertheless, he’ll be backing the man. “You already know why I’m standing by him? As a result of his constituents voted for him,” McCarthy mentioned, leaving out the half about his constituents having voted for a completely completely different particular person.