Republican Congressman George Santos, this Monday at the Capitol in Washington.EVELYN HOCKSTEIN (Portal)
Like his leader Donald Trump, New York Republican Congressman George Santos is well on his way to amassing a large collection of allegations. Santos, who was already charged with fraud and money laundering, was accused Tuesday of stealing the identities of donors to his campaign and then using their credit cards to make tens of thousands of dollars in illicit payments. According to prosecutors, some of the stolen money ended up in his own bank account. The new 23-count indictment replaces an indictment previously filed against the Republican in which he was accused, among other things, of embezzling campaign funds and lying to Congress about his assets.
Santos, 35, was elected to represent a district in Long Island and Queens, New York, in last November’s midterm elections, in which Republicans overtook the state’s Democrats by taking four traditional seats. Thanks to an investigation by journalist Andrew Silverstein, which was immediately picked up by the New York Times, the false reports on which he had based his CV and his personal biography soon became known. The new charges filed this Tuesday add to the charges filed against him in May, in which he was accused, among other things, of stealing public funds and lying on federal information forms. The lawmaker, who has not resigned despite demonstrating his lies and plans to run for re-election next year, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the most serious charges, electronic fraud and money laundering. Money presented at the time by Brooklyn District Attorney Breon Peace.
Although he admitted to fabricating entire chapters of his biography, Santos pleaded not guilty to the charges and repeatedly rejected calls from Democrats and some of his fellow Republicans to resign. He only temporarily left the two House committees to which he was appointed after taking possession of their minutes in January. And he did it, he assured at the time, while the investigation into his controversial trail of lies, which had already been widely proven, continued.
The new charges include an allegation that he billed his campaign more than $44,000 over several months using donors’ cards without their knowledge. He once spent $12,000 on a taxpayer’s credit card and transferred “most” of that money to his personal bank account, according to prosecutors.
Santos is also accused of falsely telling the Federal Election Commission that he had borrowed his own $500,000 for his campaign to convince Republican Party officials that he was a reputable and creditworthy candidate, when in reality he had less than Had $8,000 in the bank. Although he boasted during the campaign of a comfortable social and financial situation and owned several properties and accounts, journalistic investigations destroyed the façade of his supposed success and showed that he lived with his mother, brothers and other tenants in a modest house in an enclave in Nueva York . The same applies to his supposed university degree and the first steps of his career on Wall Street: everything was the product of his invention.
“As alleged, Santos is accused of stealing people’s identities and charging his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, thereby lying to the FEC [Comisión Electoral Federal, en sus siglas inglesas] and more broadly, informing the public about the financial status of his campaign,” Attorney Peace said in a statement.
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Not only did he lie to voters about a successful career on Wall Street, his academic and athletic achievements, his volunteer work in animal rescue, and even his Jewish heritage – he did this in a district where descendants of Holocaust victims live – What was previously immediately exposed by Silverstein – the network of pathological fables from which he made the leap into politics represents one of the worst sins that a public figure – and especially a politician – can commit in the United States.
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