Records that Rep.-elect
George Santos’ campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission show 37 expenditures, on office supplies, hotels, ride-share app Uber, restaurants and more, for the exact same amount: $199.99.
Campaign finance experts say those expenditures the New York representative-elect reported stood out for a key reason: They are one penny below the dollar figure above which the FEC requires campaigns to keep receipts.
THIS is the reason to investigate them...the lies indicate a personality who is willing to be dishonest, and his financial reports have red flags too.
Santos’ FEC reports contain a number of unusual expenditures, including exorbitant expenses on air travel and hotels, particularly in Miami, and $10,900 in what are listed as rent payments to the company Cleaner 123. The company’s address is a house on Long Island, and The New York Times, which first published a story on Santos’ campaign finance filings,
reported that a neighbor said Santos had been living there for months.
The expenditures, and particularly the $199.99 payments to Uber, Walgreens, Walmart, Best Buy, Delta Airlines, Il Bacco Restaurante and more, “definitely stood out to me,” said campaign finance expert Paul S. Ryan, the deputy executive director of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation.
He said the payments could reflect an effort to skirt FEC requirements for campaigns to keep receipts for expenditures over $200. The FEC encourages candidates to keep receipts below that threshold, but only mandates them for payments over $200.
However, Ryan said, the consistent appearance of $199.99 charges effectively shows that Santos knew about the threshold he was attempting to skirt – potentially inviting Justice Department scrutiny and criminal penalties.
and then there is this which makes his finances even more suspicious:
CNN confirmed reporting from The New York Times that Santos was charged with embezzlement in a Brazilian court in 2011, according to case records from the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice. However, court records from 2013 state that the charge was archived after court summons went unanswered and they were unable to locate Santos.
In the interview with the New York Post, Santos denied that he had been charged with any crime in Brazil.