The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York has opened an investigation into George Santos, a Republican who recently won a Congressional race to represent portions of New York’s Long Island and part of New York City.
Santos now faces evidence of expansive lies in personal claims and campaign biographies of the candidate. This deception evidently covered key details of his personal, professional, and educational backgrounds, and connected to these revelations are concerns about where exactly he got hundreds of thousands of dollars he loaned his 2022 campaign. He has credited the funds to a financial services company he ostensibly runs called the Devolder Organization, where Dun & Bradstreet estimated earlier this year that revenue was under $50,000. Although Santos didn’t include a single name for any client for that company in financial disclosure forms he filed with the House in September, a new report from The Daily Beast revealed four of them — and in all four instances, Santos was involved through his business with folks who supported his campaign.
Several members of the families behind three of the companies made financial donations to his campaign, as did James C. Metzger, who leads an insurance company called The Whitmore Group. Guess who else donated to Santos? Andrew Intrater, a cousin of Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, whose wealth was among the holdings targeted by global authorities after the Putin regime launched its further aggression against Ukraine earlier this year leading to the ongoing war. Intrater donated $80,000 to a political action committee led by Santos’s sister. He and his wife also donated directly to a Santos campaign organization. Strict prohibitions on candidates using foreign funds would seemingly connect to looking at where Intrater’s funds originated. The Daily Beast noted he had a role as a money manager for Vekselberg.
Santos could face further scrutiny depending on exactly how he handled the money he himself loaned to his campaign before pouring it in. If the funds were company money, he can’t legally just donate it in large amounts. For legal purposes, he would have to make the money as personal income before issuing these loans. A report from The New York Times says the federal investigation — which isn’t even the only investigation now active into Santos — is looking at his finances. “The federal investigation, which is being run by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, is focused at least in part on his financial dealings, according to a person familiar with the matter,” they said. The district attorney in Nassau County, New York, which includes parts of Long Island, is also investigating. (Notably, that official is a Republican.) “No one is above the law, and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it,” Anne Donnelly, who serves as district attorney, said.
