In a recent letter to House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who is in his first term, highlighted claims of financial fraud made against George Santos.
Santos is a first-term GOP Congressman from New York who has now been criminally charged at the federal level for alleged theft of public funds involving him receiving what prosecutors said constituted tens of thousands of dollars in unemployment help for which he wasn’t actually eligible. Garcia noted Comer’s past statements of interest in pursuing accountability around the use of assistance funds made available in connection to the spread of COVID-19 and asked whether the Oversight Committee would hold a follow-up hearing to examine the Santos issue. Garcia is himself a member of the Oversight panel, as is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), with whom the California Democrat has on occasion rhetorically sparred.
“It is ironic that the same week Representative Santos is being indicted for unemployment fraud, you are pursuing legislation on the House Floor that would send surprise bills to workers who receive accidental overpayment through no fault of their own,” Garcia wrote in his missive.
You’d think that Republicans who supposedly are so committed to rooting out financial misconduct would look at seemingly glaring examples of it shining from their own corner, but we all know where this is going. The other allegations Santos is facing involve claims he shepherded money from prospective campaign donors to a personal company of his, after which he used those funds for largely personal expenses. Herschel Walker, the failed GOP Senate candidate in Georgia, was actually recently accused (just by media reports) of perpetrating his own scheme right in line with the first part of those circumstances, meaning getting prospective donations sent to a personal company, which generally just isn’t permitted under federal law.
Rep. Robert Garcia, who has spearheaded the effort to expel George Santos, wants the Oversight Committee to follow up on the panel's COVID aid fraud hearing with an investigation into Santos' alleged fraud: pic.twitter.com/7X0obNbvaH
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) May 10, 2023
