It seems that with every passing day Rep. George Santos becomes enmeshed in even more lies and mounting legal problems.
ABC News reported:
With a disclosure filing deadline approaching as questions swirl around his use of campaign funds, embattled Rep. George Santos' campaign appears to be left without a treasurer.
On Wednesday, several fundraising committees associated with the freshman congressman from New York filed amendments to their statements of organizations, notifying the Federal Election Commission of a new treasurer.
But the newly listed treasurer, Thomas Datwyler, a veteran campaign finance treasurer who has served on multiple other political organizations, says he does not work for the Santos campaign and that the filings were signed under his name without his consent.
"On Monday, we informed the Santos campaign that Mr. Datwyler would not be serving as treasurer," Datwyler's attorney Derek Ross told ABC News. "It appears that there's been a disconnect between that conversation and the filings today, which we did not authorize."
So now there are even more questions swirling about the amended version of previously filed quarterly disclosures on fundraising and expenditures filed by Santos’ campaign on Tuesday.
As Laura Clawson wrote earlier today there is a big question about Santos’ lies about where he got the $700,000 he lent to his campaign because there’s no evidence Santos ever had that much money.
Clawson noted that the campaign unchecked a single box that had been checked in previous filings. The box was originally marked to say that the loan came from “personal funds of the candidate.” Now it’s not saying that money came from Santos’ own money, in two amended reports about $500,000 and $125,000 loans from Santos. But there was no explanation of where the money came from.
Adav Noti, former associate general counsel at the Federal Election Commission and now senior vice president and legal director of the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, told ABC News that someone with the login credentials for Santos’ fundraising committees would have had to file the amended documents and list Datwyler's name as the new treasurer.
ABC quoted Navi as saying:
"This is a very, very strange situation because those amendments that were filed today are electronically signed, or at least they say they're electronically signed by the new treasurer," Noti said. "I don't really understand how this could have happened."
"It's completely illegal to sign somebody else's name on a federal filing without their consent. That is a big, big no-no," Noti said.
Santos’ campaign committee and various other affiliated committees had previously listed Nancy Marks of Campaigns Unlimited as the treasurer.
ABC News said there were already lots of questions about whether the Santos campaign violated FEC finance regulations. It appeared that some donors may have given more than the federal contribution limit. There were also dozens of expenditures of $199.99, just under the $200 threshold that requires a receipt in campaign expense filings to the FEC.
Another day, another headache for Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy who desperately needs Santos’ vote given the GOP’s slim House majority.
And we’re left waiting for the next shoe to drop. Who put up the money for Santos’ campaign? What is Santos’ real name and did he take the oath of office under his actual name? Is he an undocumented migrant as well as a drag queen from Brazil?
Stay tuned.
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