Looks like the walls are closing in on George Santos, Anthony Devolder or whatever name he goes by now. One of the major lines of inquiry involves the $700,000 he said on financial declarations he gave personally to his campaign. He’s now amended that document to retract that claim but now that leaves the question of where it came from. If it came from overseas interests or from a pyramid scheme, that’ll be a big problem for him. And the FBI has apparently asked the FEC (the electoral commission) to suspend its investigation (which is civil in nature), which is regarded as a sign the FBI is opening up a criminal investigation. But the problem is that such an investigation will take a fair bit of time and Santos may be able to see out his 2 year term before the rubber meets the road.
Unfortunately for Santos, there are smaller investigations that might end up in court a lot sooner. A leading candidate is an FBI investigation into the scam he allegedly perpetrated on a veteran who needed about $3,000 to pay for his dog to be treated for cancer. Santos ran an unregistered charity Friends of Pets United (and the fact it was unregistered could lead to a charge in NY and possible tax offences if he failed to report “earnings” from the charity). He set up a GoFundMe page and raised the $3,000 but then came up with a variety of excuses to avoid paying it over. He then cut off contact and presumably kept the money. The dog died untreated.
Feds probing Santos’ role in service dog charity scheme, Politico.
It’s hard to see how he gets out of this one. The veteran has the texts sent to and from Santos and has a witness, another veteran and former policeman who acted as an intermediary. He also made a complaint to NY police who did nothing. Brazenly, Santos included his so-called charity in his campaign materials. It’s going to be hard for him to deny receiving the money and if he has no documentation to show he paid the money for the dog’s treatment, then he’s forked. Fat chance anyone’s going to take him at his word.
And there’s no silver lining in the story for right wingers. If Santos had scammed a black lesbian Democrat, he would have been a GOP hero. But scamming a veteran dog owner alienates the veteran community and dog lovers. And Republicans love to wrap themselves in the flag and supposedly stand behind veterans and the military, even though that’s mostly a charade.
