New GOP Congressman Already Caught Potentially Violating Federal Law

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George Santos, a Republican who was recently elected as a Congressman on Long Island in New York, was already caught potentially violating federal law covering financial disclosure forms.

He claimed in a financial disclosure form filed just a few months ago with the House that he owned a company called the Devolder Organization, which he characterized as a go-between for investors and investment funds, and from this company he claimed he was making a salary of $750,000 a year — but he didn’t identify a single client for Devolder, despite requirements for individual sources providing over $5,000 in income to be disclosed. Violations that are “knowing and willful” of the requirements for these personal financial disclosures are federal crimes punishable by up to five years in prison and large financial penalties.

Issues ensnaring Santos extend from there. Available information also seemingly indicates he has lied about basic elements of his background, including where he worked, where he went to school, and an animal rescue group he founded for which the IRS could find no record indicating it ever held a tax-exempt status. Someone who was supposed to benefit from a fundraiser in which Santos and his animal rescue group were involved in 2017 indicated to the Times they never even received the money. Santos just kept losing possible outs the further the Times dove into his background. Teams for the attorney generals in both New York and New Jersey found no record indicating his animal rescue organization was ever registered as a charity in either state.

Bios for Santos have claimed he worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, but neither company could find any record of him doing so. The school he claimed he attended was a New York institution called Baruch College from which he alleged he graduated in 2010 — but the school also found no record of him graduating the year he cited.

There is no website associated with the Devolder Organization, and the Times indicated it was unable to find records of any assets associated with the business from which Santos claimed he was drawing a large salary. Adding to the confusion, he is getting money from somewhere considering he loaned his own campaign nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in this year’s midterm elections. His claimed employment at Citigroup was in a field in which the company no longer even worked in the time period when a campaign bio claimed he was on the team. He said he was in asset management there after graduating from college, but a spokesperson for the company observed it ended its work in asset management some half a decade earlier, in 2005.

It’s not as though Santos can simply pass off responsibility for what is apparently nonsense to someone else. He personally claimed in a New York interview that four employees of his died in the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, but there is no indication anyone involved with any company Santos has run died there. Other claims available info indicates he personally made include that he and his family held a portfolio of over a dozen properties, but he didn’t disclose any property holdings in the area, and no property records indicating ownership by Santos, his immediate family, or his ghost company the Devolder Organization could be found in New York City or Nassau County, which includes portions of Long Island.