Gay Rep. George Santos (R-NY) has been accused of listing a man as his campaign financier and using his signature without consent. The accusation comes amid increased scrutiny over Santos’ other questionable claims and possible campaign finance violations.
An updated campaign finance report, filed by Santos on Tuesday to the Federal Election Commission, listed consultant Thomas Datwyler as Santos’s treasurer. The report also used Datwyler’s signature. However, the day before the report was filed, Datwyler had told Santos’s office that he didn’t want the treasurer position, Datwyler’s attorney Derek Ross told ABC News.
“It’s completely illegal to sign somebody else’s name on a federal filing without their consent,” Adav Noti, senior vice president at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, told the aforementioned news outlet. “That is a big, big no-no.”
Noti said it would make sense for Santos to want a new treasurer seeing as his past treasurers are facing investigations for possibly violating campaign finance laws in the freshman congressperson’s past campaign finance filings.
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Among the eyebrow-raising discrepancies in Santos’s 2022 campaign finance report are two personal contributions of $500,000 and $125,000 that he made to his own election campaign from his personal funds. He said the money came from his company, Devolder Organization LLC. But the company only had an estimated revenue of $43,688 on July 2022, even though Santos’s financial disclosure forms said the company earned over $1 million in 2021 and 2022.
If the money didn’t come from Santos’s company, he is required to explain the true source. Confusing matters even more, the updated campaign finance report, filed by Santos on Tuesday, said that the $500,000 and $125,000 hadn’t actually come from his personal funds.
Marc E. Elias, a lawyer who has worked for senior Democratic lawmakers, tweeted about Santos’s use of Datwyler’s signature. “This isn’t going to end well. I would suggest that all of the treasurers, potential treasurers, past and future treasurers, and alleged treasurers for Santos’ campaigns get lawyers asap.”
Santos has admitted to lying about graduating from Baruch College and New York University, working directly for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and wearing drag during his teen years in Brazil.
However, he hasn’t explained the fact that no evidence supports his past claims of founding a charity called Friends of Pets or attending the Horace Mann prep school, or his claims that his grandparents escaped persecution from Nazis in Ukraine, his mom died due to the September 11 terrorist attacks, four of his employees died in the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, and that he is married to the man he currently calls his husband.
Santos had confessed to stealing and forging a dead man’s checks in Brazil, but later denied it after Brazilian legal authorities reopened a case on the matter. Santos’s old roommates also claimed that he stole from them. He has also been accused of stealing money from a fundraiser for a military vet’s dying dog.
More recently, Santos claimed he was the victim of an assassination attempt. He also claimed that, in summer 2021, a robber took his shoes in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue, one of New York City’s busiest streets. A former roommate claimed that Santos said he was a fashion model and a reporter for the Brazilian news outlet Globo — neither is true.
Republican Congress members have begun badmouthing Santos to the press. One senator called him “nutty as a fruitcake” and compared him to an animal murderer. Six Republican congresspeople from New York and the Nassau County Republican Party have all called on Santos to resign.
A recent Siena College poll found that 71 percent of New York City suburbanites think Santos should resign. Only 8 percent of respondents said they had a favorable view of Santos. Santos has repeatedly said that he won’t quit.
