WASHINGTON – The Federal Election Commission sent a letter this week to Recent York Republican Representative-elect George Santos’ fundraising committee requesting clarification on certain donors.
Within the letter the commission flagged contributions accepted by Santos’s political committee, which received three $25,000 contributions from Matthew Bruderman, Jeff Vacirca, and Todd O’Connell and a further grand from Bruderman.
Under the Federal Election Campaign Act (the Act), contributions are subject to limits. In 2021 the Commission announced updated contribution limits that were effective for federal elections in 2021-22.
Through the two-year midterms election cycle the limit for contributions by individuals to federal candidates for President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives was to $2,900 per election. Since the primary and general count as separate elections, individuals may give $5,800 per candidate per cycle.
“If any contribution you received exceeds the bounds, you’ll have to refund the excessive amount,” Sarah Vivian, a senior campaign finance and reviewing analyst on the FEC said in an emailed statement.
CNN noted that letter informed Santos that the knowledge listed for 3 of his listed donors – “Best Efforts/Best Efforts,” “NYCBS/MD” and “NYCBS/Self Employed” – is “not acceptable” and that his campaign “must provide the missing information.” If the campaign cannot provide the knowledge, the FEC said it must provide evidence, intimately, of its best efforts to acquire the knowledge.
Last week, CNN reported on records that Santos’ campaign filed with the FEC, which showed dozens of expenses slightly below the commission’s threshold to maintain receipts.
Those expenditures “definitely stood out to me,” campaign finance expert Paul S. Ryan, the deputy executive director of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation told the news network.
“My view is a bunch of expenditures right below legal requirement for the committee to maintain receipts is evidence that he knew what he was doing,” Ryan said. “If in actual fact he did misuse campaign funds, this was a blatant effort to evade detection.”
Reacting to the CNN reporting Santos’ lawyer, Joe Murray, said the “suggestion that the Santos campaign engaged in any illegal spending of campaign funds is irresponsible, at best.”
This latest episode within the saga of the congressman-elect adds to the continuing probes by media outlets and investigation by Federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Recent York. Anne Donnelly, the Republican district attorney for Nassau County, and the office of Recent York State Attorney General Letitia “Tish” James had previously announced investigations into Santos based on the recent revelations over his lies, misrepresentations, and questionable funds from multiple media outlets in Recent York looking into his background.
The 34-year-old Santos had admitted that he deceived voters in Recent York’s Third Congressional District regarding his work history and education. His arrival in Washington to take up his congressional seat and be sworn in as a part of the incoming 118th Congress has been met with calls for him to put aside including Recent York’s other openly gay Congressman Democrat, Rep. Ritchie Torres, to induce the House Ethics Committee to probe the Republican’s fundraising on the campaign trail, saying the “complete fabrication” of his background could signal other issues.
“George Santos admits his life story is a whole fabrication. His pitiful confession shouldn’t distract us from concerns about possible criminality and corruption. The Ethics Committee MUST investigate how he made his money. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Torres said.
Upon learning of the recent FEC letter, in an email to the Blade, Torres said:
“George Santos is a habitual liar who knowingly misrepresented every facet of his personal and skilled life so as to reach elected office.
It’s a disgrace that he’s even allowed to step foot on the House floor, take part in the votes for Speaker, and possibly be sworn in as a latest member of Congress. I hope the FEC inquiry, together with the opposite pending investigations surrounding Mr. Santos, are only the start of the large but obligatory untangling of his web of deception. Perhaps then we are going to all learn what the people of Recent York deserve — and what he seems to know nothing about — the reality.”
Torres also took aim at Santos sitting next to anti-LGBTQ+ Georgia Republican Majorie Taylor Greene in a sarcastic tweet eviscerating Santos for his false claim that his grandparents had escaped the Holocaust and that he had Jewish heritage which he later backed off.
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos told the Recent York Post. “I said I used to be ‘Jew-ish.’”
Rep. Greene had suggested in a Facebook post in 2021 that wildfires in California weren’t natural. She claimed that the blazes had been began by California utility company PG&E, along side a outstanding European Jewish banking family using an area laser.
Majorie Taylor Greene to George Santos:
“I never said Jewish space lasers. I meant Jew-ish space lasers.” pic.twitter.com/zlx0llyRKg
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) January 6, 2023
Santos, like the opposite 434 Representatives of the House, has been unable to be sworn-in as members of his GOP party have squabbled over making California Representative Kevin McCarthy Speaker.
Without an elected leader, the House stays paralyzed, delaying members’ oaths of office, GOP committee assignments, investigations and hearings and passage of laws. Until a speaker is a elected by a majority of the chamber, the House can do little else beyond voting for a speaker or moving to adjourn.
Earlier today the House adjourned until 10 p.m. following the thirteenth vote, which saw Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) gain some additional ground but still missing the mark and acquiring enough votes to take up the gavel.
Santos has backed McCarthy which is why some political pundits consider explains the GOP leader’s silence on Santos and his lies and grifting because the California Republican literally needs every vote he can get to change into Speaker.
