Amid mounting calls for Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., to resign from Congress over the numerous lies he told about his biography, Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., on Tuesday sent a letter to the Federal Election Commission urging the agency to investigate potential illegal activity surrounding the embattled Republican’s campaign finances.
“George Santos has essentially lied about every aspect of his life,” Torres said at a press conference on Long Island, which Santos represents in Congress. “He has essentially pretended to be a biracial Ukrainian-Belgian-Brazilian volleyball champion and brain cancer survivor whose mother died twice, including on 9/11, whose ancestors survived the Holocaust, whose employees died in the Pulse mass shooting, and who miraculously became a multimillionaire overnight.
“But even more appalling, alarming than his personal and political deception, it's his financial deception,” Torres said.
In its bombshell exposé exposing the lies about Santos's biography, the New York Times also raised questions about his finances, including that he lent more than $700,000 to his 2022 congressional campaign after reporting that he had earned only $55,000 in 2020.
“The $700,000 question is: Where did all the money come from?” Torres said.
"A decade ago, George Santos was a wage earner, accumulated thousands of dollars in debt and facing repeat eviction and apparently stealing scarves," Torres said. "And then miraculously, in 2021 and 2022, he reported earning millions of dollars."
In his financial disclosures, Santos reported a $750,000 salary and over $1 million in dividends in 2021 and 2022 from his company, the Devolder Organization. He once described Devolder as his “family’s firm,” and said it managed $80 million in assets.
But the company, which has no public website or LinkedIn page, is “shrouded in secrecy,” Torres said.
“Mr. Santos claims that he earned millions of dollars from clients, yet he has disclosed the names of none of those clients on his congressional financial disclosure, as required by federal law,” Torres said.
Last week, Torres and Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee against Santos for “failing to file timely, accurate and complete financial disclosure reports as required by law.”
Now Torres is asking the FEC to investigate the relationship between Santos, the Devolder Organization and Redstone Strategies, another mysterious company that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Santos but never registered with the FEC. “There's no public accounting of where those dollars went and how those dollars were spent,” Torres said.
Federal and local prosecutors are investigating Santos to see if any crimes were committed.
Last week, a defiant Santos said he would resign only if all the people who voted to elect him in New York's Third Congressional District in November asked him to.
"I was elected to serve the people of #NY03 not the party & politicians,” Santos tweeted on Wednesday afternoon. "I will NOT resign!"
On Sunday, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the new chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, said Santos would be ousted from Congress if it is determined that he broke campaign finance laws.
"He's a bad guy. This is something that — it's really bad. He's not the first politician, unfortunately, to make it to Congress to lie," Comer said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
"He's going to be under strict ethics investigations, not necessarily for lying, but for his campaign finance potential violations," he continued. "So I think that Santos is being examined thoroughly. It's his decision whether or not he should resign; it's not my decision. But certainly, I don't approve of how he made his way to Congress.”
In a newly unearthed radio interview from 2020, Santos claimed he had been a volleyball star at Baruch College in New York and subsequently received two knee replacements. “That’s how serious I took the game,” he said. Baruch College has no record of his ever attending the school.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Torres elicited laughs when discussing the volume of the embattled congressman’s admitted lies.
“I cannot state with certainty whether his actual name is George Santos,” Torres said, adding: “All of these lies would be laughable if not for the fact that he's in the United States Congress.”
Santos, Jones said, is both “evil and stupid.”
According to reports, the New Yorker will serve on both a small business and a science-related panel.
There are more allegations about Congressman George Santos, this time about allegedly stealing money from a disabled veteran. CBS2's Dick Brennan reports.
Other critics also mocked Santos for being named to two House committees despite an extensive history of lying.
Former President Donald Trump said he has never read any part of a book in which the columnist E. Jean Carroll accused him of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s, according to court records unsealed Wednesday. Trump was questioned under oath in October by lawyers for Carroll, who is suing the Republican. During his 5 1/2-hour deposition, Trump said he hasn't read Carroll's book, “What Do We Need Men For?" and didn't see excerpts of it in a New York magazine article when the book was released in 2019.
E. Jean Carroll is suing Trump for defamation and sexual assault. In a deposition, Trump appeared to mistake a photo of Carroll for Marla Maples.
A New Jersey veteran says Rep. George Santos organized a fundraiser for his dying service dog in 2016, only to pocket the money for himself. He shared his story with CBS2's Christina Fan.
The embattled Republican congressman went by the stage name Kitara Ravache, according to some posts on social media.
Republicans are rolling out the red carpet for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and placing her on powerful House committees.
"The Late Show" host showed what the conspiracy theorist lawmaker can do with her new committee assignment.
During his online address at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos on Jan.
The best-dressed celebrities of the month, including Jennifer Coolidge, Kendall Jenner, Michelle Yeoh, and more.
The bachata artist, who is known for keeping his personal life private, gave fans a glimpse of his pregnant girlfriend in his latest music video for "Solo Conmigo"
“You have to love the irony. And the audacity, quite frankly," Gregory Morey-Parker told the CNN anchor.
"I would just name celebrities and name what kind of tail they would have if they had a tail."View Entire Post ›
Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel talk all about their new movie "Shotgun Wedding" that features romance, action and more.
The former president compared the bureau to Nazi Germany’s secret police and suggested that it is led by “Marxist Thugs.”
Robert Spindell, a former Milwaukee election official who acted as a fraudulent Trump elector in 2020, said in an email newsletter that Republicans "can be especially proud" of lowered turnout in Milwaukee in November, "with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas."
Comedy CentralA little more than a month after Trevor Noah officially said goodbye to The Daily Show, Comedy Central welcomed former Saturday Night Live cast member Leslie Jones as the first of several planned guest hosts on Tuesday night. And she had a hell of a story to start with in the inadvertently suggestive statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that was unveiled in Boston the day before.After staring for a few seconds at the sculpture, which is supposed to depict King and his wife, Coretta
Rep. Santos, a New York Republican, has been mired in controversy since his election for a string of lies he's told in recent years
