Congress finds ‘substantial evidence’ George Santos violated ethics, committed crimes including fraud and used campaign funds for personal use in damning ethics report

The House Ethics Committee released its long-awaited report on George Santos on Thursday, finding “substantial evidence” that the Long Island liar had filed false election reports, used campaign funds for personal purposes and engaged in fraud.

The committee made no recommendation on whether the House should take action to reinstate Santos, RN.Y. which, according to chairman Michael Guest, would have taken ‘many months’. It voted unanimously in favor of a criminal referral to the Ministry of Justice.

The bipartisan party stated in its report:

“Representative Santos attempted to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his candidacy for the House of Representatives for his own personal financial gain.

He shamelessly stole from his campaign.

He deceived donors into making contributions to his campaign that they believed were contributions for his personal benefit.”

Following last month’s failed attempt to expel Santos from the House of Representatives, Republican Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest will introduce a new resolution to expel Santos. A vote on that would take place after Thanksgiving.

Santos announced he would not seek re-election after the report was released.

The report also states that the congressman reported bogus loans to his political committees so that donors and party committees would make further donations to him.

The report found that Santos tricked people into donating to RedStone Strategies, which was listed in 2022 by a committee dedicated to supporting his candidacy, and then transferred that money to his personal account, using the money from Sephora, OnlyFans and a $4,000 purchase from Hermes. .

It was also discovered that he spent campaign funds on Botox treatments and lavish trips to Atlantic City with his husband.

“Representative Santos continues to flout his statutory financial disclosure obligations and has failed to correct numerous errors and omissions,” the committee said, despite being reminded of the fact.

“The ISC (Subcommittee on Investigations) also found that despite his efforts to blame others for much of the misconduct, Representative Santos was a knowing and active participant in the misconduct. Particularly troubling was Representative Santos’ lack of candor during the investigation itself.”

In addition, Santos has pleaded not guilty in federal court to 23 charges, including identity theft, charging his donors’ credit cards without their consent and filing false campaign reports.

He is not expected to appear in court until September next year.

One charge for $1,500 and one for $1,400 on his campaign debit card, which was not filed with the FEC, was listed as “Botox” and a former Santos employee told the committee that the then-candidate once took him to a Botox appointment which was close to a campaign. event.

On July 24 and 25, 2022, another $2,300 was spent at Atlantic City resorts and no campaign goal could be identified, but an employee did recall that “Santos told him he enjoyed visiting casinos to play roulette, often with his husband.’

Another $3,300 in Airbnb expenses were reported as “hotel stays” on July 7, 2022 – a weekend calendar from Santos left him with “a weekend off at Hampton’s.”

The report notes another $20,000 from the campaign went to Santos’ company Devolder, whose account had a negative balance at the time. From there, the money was used to make $6,000 worth of purchases in Ferragamo, withdraw $800 in cash at a casino, withdraw another $1,000 in cash near Santos’ apartment and pay his rent.

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives voted handily against expelling the congressman, with 213 against Santos’ expulsion, 179 in favor and 19 voting “present.”

Some members had insinuated that they wanted to wait for the Ethics report before voting to expel him. Thus, more members are expected to change their votes in favor of expulsion after Thursday.

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