Congress Member-elect Dan Goldman on Tuesday called for his incoming colleague, Republican George Santos, to be investigated for campaign finance fraud following Santos confirming reports that he fabricated several key parts of his résumé whilst running for office.
Santos had won a general election over Democrat Robert Zimmerman to represent a northeastern Queens and Nassau County seat currently represented by outgoing Congress Member Tom Suozzi in November.
In a Monday blitz of media interviews, Santos admitted to findings – first reported by The New York Times – that he lied about graduating from Baruch College and New York University. He also admitted that he never worked for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, owned any property and isn’t Jewish — all of which he claimed in two successive runs this year and in 2020.
Goldman, a Democrat who’s a former federal prosecutor who served as lead counsel in the first impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, released a lengthy statement Tuesday morning calling on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York to investigate Santos for inconsistencies in his campaign finance disclosures.
“Congressman-elect George Santos has now admitted that he is a total fraud,” Goldman said. “He didn’t graduate college, didn’t work on Wall Street or in private equity, doesn’t own property, and isn’t Jewish — all of which he asserted in order to dupe the voters in Queens and Nassau County.”
“This clear pattern of intentionally disseminating misinformation in order to defraud the voters of New York’s Third Congressional District also requires that all of Mr. Santos’s disclosures, which are inconsistent with his recent statements, must be thoroughly investigated by the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York for campaign finance fraud,” he added.
Goldman pointed to findings that Santos reported earning millions of dollars in his FEC filings from his company, the Devolder Organization, despite the fact that the Times wasn’t able to locate any public-facing assets or any clients associated with the firm.
A September financial statement showed that Santos was earning a $750,000 salary from Devolder and it was reported he lent $700,000 to his own campaign.
“Given Santos’s pattern of lies and deception, and the suspicious circumstances surrounding the Devolder Organization, the federal election and law enforcement authorities must investigate whether the Devolder Organization was created simply as a pass-through entity through which Santos funneled illegal campaign contributions,” Goldman said.
