Mother Jones: “The contributions are among more than a dozen major donations to the 2020 Santos campaign for which the name or the address of the donor cannot be confirmed, a Mother Jones investigation found. A separate $2,800 donation was attributed in Santos’ reports filed with the Federal Election Commission to a friend of Santos who says he did not give the money.”
“Under federal campaign finance law, it is illegal to donate money using a false name or the name of someone else.”
Rep. George Santos’ (R-NY) campaign committee “is facing new questions from federal regulators after submitting paperwork listing a new treasurer who says he never took the job,” the AP reports.
“The Federal Election Commission sent a letter Thursday to the Devolder Santos for Congress campaign seeking clarity on the switch. It’s the latest scrutiny for the New York congressman who has been caught fabricating many elements of his life story.”
“A Republican technology firm says it is asking Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to correct yet another apparent error on his campaign spending records,” NBC News reports.
“Santos reported paying WinRed more than $206,000 to process donations to his 2022 campaign, records show. But that amount doesn’t match up with how much money Santos actually raised.”
“A Republican fundraising platform, WinRed charges candidates a 3.94% fee for contributions made online by credit card. At that rate, Santos would have had to have raised more than $5.2 million through WinRed to warrant a $206,000 payment to the firm.”
Rep. George Santos’ (R-NY) campaign briefly reported making 1,200 small payments that totalled $254,000 to “anonymous” but then amended its filing to remove them, the Washington Post reports.
“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,” ABC News reports.
“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.”
“Rep. George Santos’ congressional campaign reported dozens of transactions just cents below the threshold that would have triggered a requirement to preserve spending records — an unusual spending pattern that is now part of broader complaints about alleged financial improprieties,” Politico reports.
“Santos, who admitted in December that he faked parts of his biography, already faces a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission alleging his campaign repeatedly reported suspicious expenses. Those included eight charges of exactly $199.99 at an Italian restaurant in Queens and another $199.99 charge at a Miami-area hotel where rooms do not usually go for less than $600 per night. The specific amount matters because campaigns are required by law to keep receipts or invoices for expenses greater than $200.”
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) “filed a flurry of amended campaign finance reports, telling the feds, among other things, that a $500,000 loan he gave to his campaign didn’t, in fact, come from his personal funds as he’d previously claimed,” the Daily Beast reports.
“However, while the new amended filing told us where the funds did not come from, it also raised a new question—where did the money come from?”
Michigan state senators raised, on average, only 11% of their campaign funds in that period from the districts in which they ran, MLive reports.
Nearly half of elected legislators in both the House and Senate won election after raising no more than 10% of their money from the constituents they sought to represent.
PACs represented a majority of the fundraising for 33 campaigns of the 38 elected senators, and for 66 representatives in the 110-member House.
“A dark money group tied to conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo was dissolved three days after Politico inquired about whether it helped to facilitate the multi-million-dollar sale of former White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway’s polling company,” Politico reports.
Politico: “Doubling down on mass emails and texts is still a way to raise significant cash, and federal candidates and committees raised a combined $3.3 billion on ActBlue and WinRed, the parties’ primary online fundraising platforms, during the 2022 cycle.”
“But people who work in the field are growing concerned that fundraising appeals are crowding out newsletters, volunteer efforts and other forms of communication amid the insatiable and never-ending hunt for cash.”
Mother Jones: “As multiple investigations—federal, state, and local—envelope Santos and local Republicans demand he resign, one person who might be able to provide answers about his puzzling money trail is a veteran GOP operative named Nancy Marks, who was the the treasurer of Santos’ two congressional campaigns.”
“Not only was she a key part of his political machine—and deeply tied into Republican politics locally and nationally—she was a business partner of Santos. Her story, which has yet to draw much public examination, is an important component of the Santos tale.”
A month before George Santos was elected to Congress, one of his large donors received a call asking him to consider making another sizable contribution,” the New York Times reports.
“The request came from a Republican loyalist calling on behalf of RedStone Strategies, which was described in an email to the donor as an ‘independent expenditure’ group that was supporting Mr. Santos’s bid to flip a Democratic House seat in New York… The donor came through: Days later, on Oct. 21, he sent $25,000 to a Wells Fargo Bank account belonging to RedStone Strategies.”
“Three months later, Mr. Santos is now in Congress, but where the donor’s money went is unclear. The Federal Election Commission said it had no evidence that RedStone Strategies was registered as a political group, and there do not appear to be any records documenting its donors, contributions or spending.”
“When Justice Department prosecutors unsealed an indictment against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on Tuesday morning, they revealed an array of serious charges against the crypto boy-king for billions of dollars in high-profile financial crimes, but the very last count opens a new mystery—an enigmatic straw donor scheme to violate federal campaign finance laws,” the Daily Beast reports.
Said U.S. Attorney Damian William: “All of this dirty money was used in service of Bankman-Fried’s desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington.”
“A member of George Santos’ political team had a plan to raise money for the Republican congressman’s campaign: Impersonate the chief of staff of now House Speaker Kevin McCarthy,” CNBC reports.
“Wealthy donors received calls and emails from a man who said he was Dan Meyer, McCarthy’s chief of staff, during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles… His name was actually Sam Miele, and he worked for Santos raising money for his campaign.”
“The impersonation of the top House Republican’s chief of staff adds to an emerging picture of a winning congressional campaign propelled by fabrications and questionable tactics. Santos now finds himself in the sights of investigators and in danger of losing his political career even after he’s been sworn into office. In raising money for his campaign, Santos fed donors the same falsehoods he gave voters.”
“The Federal Election Commission has flagged issues with contributions made to embattled Rep.-elect George Santos’ campaign,” CNN reports.
“The commission has requested clarification and more information on certain donors and about apparent excessive contributions to Santos’ winning 2022 campaign for his Long Island seat.”
Theodore Schleifer: “Among the many lingering mysteries of the Bankman-Fried saga is how exactly these effective altruist, S.B.F.-employed operatives were spending so much money on Democratic politics in the first place. Sure, operatives can stack their income with consulting work, but enough to donate $100,000-plus in one campaign cycle? That is indeed peculiar.”
“But, as several friends of the people in question have noted, effective altruists are, well, peculiar. They donate more money to charity than average people, and they donate more money to aligned politicians too. Like lobbyists, they are also professionally in the business of cultivating relationships. So if an effective-altruist operative was making $400,000 a year in salary as a strategist (for S.B.F. and other clients), could they set aside, say, 25 percent of that money for political donations?”
Meanwhile, Rolling Stone notes Democrats are scouring their books for donations linked to Bankman-Fried.
Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Stacey Abrams raised more than $103 million for her failed rematch this year against Gov. Brian Kemp, a record-setting haul for a Georgia gubernatorial race that allowed her to experiment with unconventional ways to promote her candidacy.”
“But her campaign’s expenditures have come under sharper scrutiny as new details emerge about the tight cash crunch she faced before her November defeat to Kemp by nearly 8 points.”
“Federal prosecutors accused FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who made nearly $40 million in political contributions in the 2022 election cycle, with violating multiple campaign finance laws,” CNBC reports.
“The indictment says Bankman-Fried and others violated numerous federal campaign finance laws, including giving contributions ‘in the names of other persons.'”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.