The murkiness and secrecy around the sudden wealth of disgraced, super-lying Congressman George Santos/Anthony Devolder has become a bit clearer thanks to some new exclusive reporting by the Washington Post. The Post has revealed that Santos/Devolder has closer financial ties to the cousin of sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg than was previously known.
According to the Post, Andrew Intrater, the cousin of Vekselberg, and his wife each gave the maximum $5,800 to Santos’ main campaign committee and “tens of thousands more since 2020 to committees linked to him, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.” And there’s more:
The relationship between Santos and Intrater goes beyond campaign contributions, according to a statement made privately by Santos in 2020 and a court filing the following year in a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against a Florida-based investment firm, Harbor City Capital, where Santos worked for more than a year.
Taken together, the evidence suggests Santos may have had a business relationship with Intrater as Santos was first entering politics in 2020. It also shows, according to the SEC filing, that Intrater put hundreds of thousands of dollars into Santos’ onetime employer, Harbor City, which was accused by regulators of running a Ponzi scheme.
The Post notes that Intrater’s investment firm Columbus Nova has historically had extensive ties to the business interests of Vekselberg. As recently as 2018, when Vekselberg was sanctioned by the Treasury Department, his conglomerate was Columbus Nova’s largest client. In a Harbor City Zoom meeting in 2020, Santos/Devolder stated that Columbus Nova as a “client” of his.
Also, Harbor City received a $625,000 deposit from a company registered in Mississippi, FEA Innovations, that identifies Intrater as its lone officer, according to an exhibit included in the SEC’s complaint against Harbor City.
In addition, the Post report notes extensive ties between Intrater and Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen.
The Post reporting does not make a direct connection between Vekselberg and Intrater and the sudden influx of cash received by the company that Santos/Devolder established in 2021 after Harbor City’s assets were frozen. That company paid Santos/Devolder more than $3.5 million over the next two years. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if those links eventually come out.