Rep. George Santos Files 2024 Reelection Paperwork amid Criminal Investigations and House Ethics Probe
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Embattled New York Rep. George Santos filed paperwork on Tuesday indicating that he intends to run for reelection in 2024 — even as controversy swirls about lies he told on the campaign trail and multiple authorities conduct investigations into his finances.
A statement of candidacy filed Tuesday indicates that Santos will again seek the District 3 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a seat he was elected into in November, shortly before a bombshell New York Times report found that many of the claims he made on the campaign trail and on his resume were unsubstantiated.
The outlet alleged that he misled voters about his level of education, previous jobs and family ties to the Holocaust, news that earned him bipartisan condemnation for misrepresenting himself.
Santos himself acknowledged that he had "embellished" significant portions of his resume, telling the New York Post that he lied about working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, as he had previously asserted, and about attending Baruch College and New York University (he did not attend college).
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In the weeks and months that followed, more mysteries cropped up, like the source of his income, which has seemingly grown by hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years.
In 2020, when Santos launched his first, ultimately unsuccessful run for the House, he stated in a financial disclosure that he had no assets and no earned income.
But his financial situation appeared to have markedly improved by the time he decided to launch a second run for the House in 2022, with Federal Election Commission filings showing he lent at least $700,000 to his campaign, and $27,000 to his political action committee.
Santos has said the funds came from his company, the Devolder Organization, which The Washington Post reports was organized just one month before the Republican declared his latest candidacy in 2021.
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Santos is currently under federal investigation over questions about his finances, and the Nassau County District Attorney's Office in New York has announced that it, too, is investigating the incoming lawmaker for fabrications that District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly called "nothing short of stunning."
Santos recently told colleagues he would temporarily resign from his assignments on the Small Business and Science Committees while various investigations into his past play out.
Federal investigators are also reportedly looking into claims that Santos once scammed a Navy veteran out of $3,000 meant for his ailing service dog, CNN and Politico reported in February.
In recent weeks, allegations directed at Santos have grown, with the lawmaker's ex-roommate saying the freshman congressman once spearheaded a credit card-skimming fraud at ATMs.
Politico reports that the former roommate — Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha — made the allegations in a sworn declaration submitted to the FBI.
Trelha was convicted of the fraud in 2017, Politico reports, and deported to Brazil as a result. In his sworn declaration, Trelha claims, "the person in charge of the crime of credit card fraud when I was arrested was George Santos / Anthony Devolder."
