George Santos is evidence
Congressman-Elect George Santos, scheduled to be sworn into Congress in days, is under investigation by a New York prosecutor (NBC News):
“The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are nothing short of stunning. The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said in a statement about her fellow Republican on Wednesday. “No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.”
Santos, who made history last month as the first openly LGBTQ non-incumbent Republican to be elected to Congress, was the subject of a bombshell investigation The New York Times published this month, which found much of Santos’ background appeared to have been manufactured, including claims that he had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and had graduated from Baruch College.
Daily Beast has reporting on the mysterious source of the $700k Santos lent his campaign from his Devolder Organization. Roger Sollenberger and William Bredderman have identified four Santos corporate clients. Remember, candidates may contribute as much as they wish of their own money to their campaigns. But they may not accept corporate donations:
Santos confirmed to The Daily Beast on Wednesday that he withdrew money from the firm to underwrite his campaign. He made the same claim in an interview on Monday, telling WABC radio host and Santos donor John Catsimatidis that the combined $700,000 in loans—scattered in varying increments across a period of more than a year—“was the money I paid myself through the Devolder Organization.” (Santos’ most recent financial disclosure shows a $750,000 salary from the Devolder Organization, along with dividends valued between $1 million and $5 million.)
Jordan Libowitz, communications director of government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), tells the Beast, “Two major problems here. One, if it’s the company’s money, it’s not his money. If it were Santos personally doing business as the company—that is, if it were his bank accounts—that’s okay. But this is an actual corporation, and you can’t make a corporation to run money through to your campaign.”
That’s akin to laundering money to finance a political campaign.
“If I wished to illegally fund a campaign and hide it, what I would do is run the money through a dummy corporation, then to a dark money group that supports the campaign. But if I was not that up on things, or a little lazy, I might … set up the dummy corporation, say it’s in the name of the candidate, then have the candidate pay himself the money and give it to the campaign,” Libowitz said. “This isn’t to say that this is clearly an illegal pass-through donation scheme, because we don’t know the full picture yet—but if it were one, this is what it would look like.”
Santos could be looking at criminal charges if he violated campaign finance laws to fund his campaign. The Beast identified several campaign and Santos victory PAC donors who also invested in Devolder:
The Daily Beast has confirmed four Devolder Organization clients: the New York-based Tantillo Auto Group, two organizations tied to the influential Ruiz family in south Florida, and another firm associated with Long Island insurance magnate James C. Metzger. Santos acknowledged all four of these clients on Wednesday.
Here’s where the Santos financing gets interesting:
Florida corporate filings show two Devolder LLC, were created about two weeks apart in January 2022. Their leadership consists of relatives of billionaire Miami attorney John Ruiz, a personal injury and class action lawyer who parlayed his Medicare payor recovery business into a multibillion-dollar IPO that flopped this summer.
In September 2021, Alex Ruiz, then 22, became CEO of Cigarette Racing, a renowned luxury powerboat manufacturer which his family took over in the course of building their multibillion-dollar special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
A few months later, the Ruiz children created the entities that would retain the Devolder Organization. Mayra Ruiz told The Daily Beast they hired the Devolder Organization in “early” 2022, but did not reply to follow-ups. Notably, in an interview with Semafor on Wednesday, Santos named yacht sales as one of the tasks the Devolder Organization handled for its clients.
It is too early to say whether some of these funds and accounts were, as Libowitz speculates, set up as illegal pass-throughs. But there is little about Santos that appears authentic.
Lost in the “Catch Me If You (Oh, you already did!)” tale of George Santos is what it says about how infected the Republican Party is with Trumpism. Santos may be a pathological liar in his own right, but Trump developed the party faithful’s taste for liars and for shameless lying. That craving will outlast Trump. He’s modified the party’s DNA to match his, and Santos, Kari Lake, Team Kraken, and the rest of MAGA world suggest he’s replicating himself.
Is it any coincidence that Santos named his firm the Devolder Organization just as Donald Trump did with his?
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