George Santos Indictment Underwhelms, Leaves Lingering Suspicions

Rep. George Santos’s long-awaited indictment is both shocking and underwhelming. The defendant is—and, by the grace of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, will likely remain—a sitting US congressman, and his alleged crimes spanning both public and private affairs suggest dishonesty at his core.

At the same time, the indictment’s 13 counts appear garden-variety or in some cases petty fraud: five counts of wire fraud for soliciting political campaign contributions under false pretenses, three money-laundering counts for transferring the fraudulently secured contributions to personal bank accounts, three counts involving fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits, and two counts for making false statements in House financial disclosure reports Santos (R-N.Y.) submitted to the House Committee on Ethics. Santos isn’t alleged to have been part of any wider conspiracy—his motives appear narrowly focused on financial self-interest, but with broader implication given his elected office.

Of these counts, the first five contain the most substantial allegations, charging Santos with devising a scheme in 2022 to encourage donors to contribute to a company he secretly controlled, but falsely held out as authorized to make “independent expenditures” in support of his candidacy. In reality, the indictment says, the bulk of contributions went to pay Santos’s personal expenses, including luxury clothing items and credit card payments. The indictment doesn’t state the total value of monies Santos received in the scheme, but it appears to be at least $74,000.

The other charges are decidedly less impressive. Santos allegedly received $24,744 in unemployment benefits from New York state in 2020-2021, though during that time he was supposedly employed by a Florida-based investment firm with an annual salary of $120,000. And Santos’s alleged false statements to the House Committee on Ethics consisted of overstating his 2019-2020 income from one source while failing to disclose his income from another, making his net overstatement of income for 2019-2020 around $2,000; and overstating significantly his total income for 2021-2022 while failing to disclose his income from one particular source. Would anyone other than Santos have been indicted on felony charges, or at all, for offenses such as these?

No one could have expected the indictment to get to the bottom of every outlandish misstatement Santos himself has spread, but more light would have been welcome. For example, in campaign filings, Santos claimed to have made at least $3 million in the two years before his election—after claiming a small fraction of that amount in the previous election cycle—and to have raised another $3 million for his campaign from various sources.

The indictment notes the huge discrepancy between the income Santos reported to the Committee on Ethics and the income the government was able to document, but doesn’t try to explain his motive in blatantly exaggerating his income.

Suspicions have lingered that Santos was acting as a front for far right-wing megadonors or Viktor Vekselberg, a Putin-linked Russian oligarch who is a cousin of a major Santos contributor, but the indictment, without more, implicitly dashes such theories.

Nevertheless, the indictment is more than sufficient reason for Santos to step down from his position in the House. So far, he has refused.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Kevin J. O’Brien is a partner in Ford O’Brien Landy who practices white collar defense, securities litigation, and commercial litigation.

Write for Us: Author Guidelines