The congressman faces a federal criminal charge
The Tax Code and the Campaign Finance System: Indictments against George Santos and a Social Welfare Organization as Charged with the Explicit Campaign Finance Violations
The allegation in the indictment is thatSantos relied on repeated dishonesty and deception to reach the halls of Congress and enrich himself.
When asked at the White House if he would pushSantos out of office, McCarthy declined to say.
Santos also faces a charge that in 2020, he fraudulently applied to receive unemployment benefits when he was employed and running for Congress in his first bid for public office.
The Nassau County Republican Committee, which helped elect Santos, has since called on him to resign, as have some prominent GOP lawmakers from New York.
“Close to 80% of people polled think he should not be in office,” Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., told NPR in February, after urging Santos to step aside.
There is one immediate consequence of the details of the indictment against George Santos being made public on Wednesday: the Department of Justice will bring charges against an untruthful public official for campaign finance violations. It doesn’t happen often enough in an era of widespread abuses, because so many abuses are either technically legal or occur in a gray area that seems to scare off federal law enforcement.
The scheme Mr. Santos is charged with is so flagrant, so spectacularly dumb in both conception and execution, that Justice clearly decided it had a no-brainer of a case. Mr.Santos might have gotten away with an improper political money stream if he had structured it the way grown ups do.
According to the indictment, to which Mr. Santos pleaded not guilty, he told donors they could support his campaign by giving money to a tax-exempt “social welfare organization,” known by its I.R.S. designation as a 501(c)(4), which would then buy TV ads for his campaign. These so-called social welfare groups — such as Leonard Leo’s Marble Freedom and the Koch family’s Americans for Prosperity — already constitute one of the greatest abuses of the tax code and the campaign finance system, because they allow donors to give large amounts anonymously and were never supposed to be used for political purposes. The beginning of the 2010 congressional elections were when Karl Rove and other Republican operatives began to use them as a way to introduce dark money into politics. The I.R.S., to its lasting discredit, allowed the practice, as long as the primary activity of a group wasn’t politics.
The Santos controversy has created a political headache for Republicans, especially in New York, where GOP candidates face tough reelection fights next year.
He had to answer numerous questions about his campaign finances, which included a $700,000 gift he made to his own election effort.
He lied about his education, professional accomplishments, volleyball record, and his family’s experiences in the Holocaust, as well as about his record as a champion volleyball player.
The freshman lawmaker pushed the boundaries of conventional political scandal after his victory in last November’s midterms. He used a lot of fake persona to get voters to support him.
“At the height of the pandemic in 2020, George Santos allegedly applied for and received unemployment benefits while he was employed and running for Congress,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a statement.
According to the criminal indictments, Santos claimed the money would fuel his bid for office, but instead spent the cash on luxury designer clothes and to make a car payment and pay personal credit card bills.
“This indictment seeks to hold Santos accountable for his alleged fraudulent schemes and blatant misrepresentations,” said the U.S. Attorney.
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — Republican Rep. George Santos surrendered to federal authorities at a courthouse in suburban Long Island on Wednesday facing 13 counts of criminal wrongdoing.
