Episode 1: The Campaign

Pushkin. Okay, so, how are you going to start this?

Well, I'm really excited. This is kind of new for us.

Absolutely a little role reversal. Amy gains McQuaid as my producer. She's worked on the past four seasons of deep Cover. It may not have heard Amy's voice about in effect you did, because when we do a season of deep Cover, Amy's the one that reads through all thousand pages of the court transcript and knows every last detail. She's the one who helps me track down sources and wed through hours of interviews to make the episodes that you've heard.

George Anthony de Volder Santos, Oh.

Good morning, chabach allom too, everybody.

This is him speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in twenty twenty two.

I'm a first generation born American, like many in our great nation. My parents came to this country in search of the American dream.

Today.

He ran for Congress to represent New York's third District on Long Island, which is where I grew up. And a huge part of his message was this that he was the embodiment of the American dream. And that message worked because he won.

Only in this country can the little boy born in a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens in New York City become a United States congressman at thirty four?

Okay, interesting, So I know there's a lot more that he said on the campaign trail, but can you just give me the recap.

So the version of George Santos that he sold on the campaign trail was that George Stantos was a successful businessman working in the financial industry. He claimed that he'd worked for Goldman, Sachs and City Group. He claimed that he had gone to college at Baruch and NYU. He had also told some stories about his personal life.

I'm very proud of my Jewish heritage. I'm very proud of my grandparents' story.

Claiming Jewish heritage and said that some of his family members had survived the Holocaust. Here he is speaking to a reporter for a Jewish news service.

I'm so proud to be able to keep our family going forward and showing that not only did we survive, but now I'm able to go advocate and fight for other Jewish people all across my my district.

So the story that he told was an inspiring one. Here he was the son of Brazilian immigrants who had built this impressive life for himself, living in New York City as an openly gay man, working on Wall Street, getting into politics, and it seemed like this moment when he won would just be the cherry on top. He was going to be a congressman.

I mean, it's inspiring. I'm kind of inspired hearing it.

But in the coming weeks and months, another narrative would start to emerge, a different version of George Santos, one that was far more alarming. And if it were true, then this was a man who lied, cheated, and stole from people who trusted him, basically one man with two faces, and it left a lot of people, including myself, wondering

Yeah, I remember that headline.

The story revealed that Santos had essentially fabricated a lot of information on his resume. But through my reporting, I've been finding that that story was really just the beginning. So George Santos is actually scheduled to go to trial in just a few weeks in September. He's facing a whole bunch of charges, wirefraud, money laundering, falsifying records, identity theft,

I do?

I know exactly where. I was actually coming out of the Starbucks and it broke, and I was heading into our office right by the State House.

And the timing here is really interesting because she actually accepted the job right before the New York Times story broke.

Everyone is sending like, Niassa, have you seen this? Oh my god, is this the guy you're working for? My stomach had dropped, and I thought, what the well, I don't want to say the F bomb, but but that's what I'm thinking.

At this point, like how many days on the job is she?

By the way, so Nesa hasn't actually started working for Santos in that moment. She's still working in Boston for the Republican administration there, so she's not actually even in touch with George Santos. But she did hear through the grapevine through some staffer that a story about Santos would be coming.

I already knew there was going to be a hit piece, but my understanding was that this was just going to be We thought it was going to be a traditional hit piece of conservative Republican Flip's Democrat seat.

But of course that was not the New York Times story at all. The New York Times story made clear that a lot of the stories that George Santos had told on the campaign trail were at best inaccurate, at worst entirely fabricated. And so after the story publishes, Santos comes out with this statement through his attorney that says it's no surprise that Congressman elect Santos has enemies at The New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations.

I even spoke with the chief of Stuff and he said he's speaking with his lawyers. They're going to handle it. And I just said, okay, well, like they need to handle it immediately, because you know, this is this is really bad.

And is Santo's freaking out at this point.

So I can't vouch for how Santos is feeling because I have not spoken with him directly.

We've tried, yes.

Yes, we've reached out to him for comment. So far he's declined those requests. But Santos appears to have been attempting some damage control. He's not giving a ton of interviews, but he does grant one to Fox News and it's a guest anchor, so it is Tulca Gabbard conducting the interview.

First question I really want to ask you now that all this has been revealed, is what does the word integrity mean to you?

Well, Tulsi, thank you for having me, you know, to answer your question. Integrity is very important, and bellis What does it mean?

Though?

What does it mean?

Because the meaning of the word actually matters in practice.

Of course, it means to carry yourself in an honorable way. And I made a mistake, and I think humans are flawed and we all make mistakes.

Tulsi, this is.

Fox News and he's a Republican and he's getting very hostile treatment here. So, I mean, lord knows what would happen if he had gone on MSNBC or even CNN. I'm wondering how is this playing out with his constituents.

Yeah, I mean, I remember the reaction was pretty swift.

George Chantlis's campaign last year was a campaign of decei, lies, fabrication. He deceived the voters of the third Congressional district.

That's Joe Chiro, head of the Republican Party in Nasa County. This is from a press conference they held where he, along with other New York Republicans, actually ask for Santos' resignation.

There's absolutely no way mister Santos can be an effective member of Congress and represent the people who elected him.

One of the questions I have is like, talk to me about this district that elects him.

Yeah. So Santos ran in New York's third congressional district, which if you've ever looked at a political map, you know these districts get drawn in a kind of crazy, nonsensical way. When you look at the district itself, it holds part of Nasa County, which is where I grew up, and specifically in my neighborhood, I can say it's a lot of working class folks, so people who commute into

It's funny because when you describe it, I totally almost get why he would have to be a guy, that would be a chameleon, that would have to be able to play a lot of different parts, because his constituency is just like a crazy cross section of America.

Yeah, and I think when George Santos is running for office, he is building the narrative around himself that he started from nothing and built himself into a successful businessman in the financial industry. So he claims that he was working for Goldman Sachs, he claims that he was working for City Group.

None of these things are true. None of that is a crime.

That's true. But it's around the same moment in time that new reports are emerging that Santos is being investigated for actual crimes he may have committed.

The Republican District Attorney of Nassau County says she's looking into whether any of those fabrications amounted to crimes, and federal prosecutors are also looking into Santos's financial disclosures. Stunning revelations and questions about his personal and professional life continue to come to light, including new questions about the money he spent on his campaign.

We'll be right back. So when the New York Times story comes out, there are a number of things that are exposed, but there are also a lot of questions remaining. And so I think, you know, reporters, especially reporters who are working in DC can kind of smell blood in the water, right, and they're like, what else can I find out about this guy?

I was trying to cover the New York area because I'm a New Yorker, and I understood that there was this buzz that there were some members that might actually overcome some of the Democratic nominees that were running for Congress.

Okay, Jake. So this is Kadea Goba, and she's a political reporter for Semaphore, which is this sort of newer journalism outlet.

So I set out in October to interview a bunch of them. George Santos did not give me access after he won. He was like, he became a challenge to me. I needed to talk to this man.

Kadia actually worked at BuzzFeed before she was with Semaphore, but she hasn't always been a journalist. This is a second career.

I was in the clothing industry for over two decades as a sales rep. So this is sort of a midlife crisis that worked out anyways.

So near the end of twenty twenty two, Kadilla is working as a reporter on Capitol Hill and she meets George Santos, in person. She gave him her card. You know, I'm a reporter working on the hill, would love to be in touch, but he doesn't give her his But she gets his phone number anyways, and she wants to talk to him, so she's calling a lot, even though he would never pick up until this one time.

I remember very distinctly he either called me back or picked up the phone this one time and said, I remember not giving you my phone number, which I thought was very funny because he understood who had been calling him, but just was intentionally ignoring me.

Whatever.

Fine, He eventually picked up the phone, and he told me that at that time he was going on Fox, that I shouldn't tell anyone, but maybe he could talk to me afterwards.

Wait, this is the same interview that we heard at the top with Tulci Gabbard.

Yep.

So I watched the interview and it went terribly.

My question is do you have no shame?

Look, I understand everybody wants to knitpick at me. I'm going to reassure this once and for all. I'm not a facade. I'm not a persona.

You could tell he was uncomfortable. It wasn't what he expected. I think he thought this was going to be a good opportunity for him to talk about what happened or explain his situation, and none of that happened. So of course I kind of just texted him after the interview was over and kind of said like, are you free or do you want to talk? And he texted back like something like get your pen and paper ready.

Wow. That kind of surprises me. Given how badly it went, you think maybe he would be a little guns Oh.

I think Kadilla's view was the opposite that. You know, he thought that the Fox interview would be a good opportunity and then when it went so poorly, he's just kind of panicking, and he's he's open to talking to people because he wants to clear the air. Right, he's in crisis mode, I see.

So yeah, they just get back up to the plate again kind of thing.

And sure enough, like maybe fifteen minutes later, he called me, and I think I talked to him as he drove from the Fox studio home.

So what is your goal in that interview? What is the big question you want to ask?

Clearly I want to ask where he got his money from, because that was like the big discrepancy.

Right, He had presented himself on the campaign trail as this wealthy, successful individual. How much money does he have really and what is the source of that money?

So this is what Kadia is talking about, the big the discrepancy and where did the money come from?

Yeah, and Kadia is following this, and I think it would be fair to say that a lot of reporters were fixated on this question at the time of you know, okay, George Santos has been exposed as a potential liar. What else could he be lying about? It appears on paper like George Santos has a lot of money, but is that actually the case? And it's around this time that many people start looking at his campaign finance filings. And one of those people is a guy named Sarav Ghosh.

I'm the director of Federal Campaign Finance Reform at Campaign Legal Center, and what I work on every day are the laws that govern how people raise and spend money when they're trying to convince others to vote for them.

He was a lawyer at the FEC, which is the Federal Election Commission, and it's basically Sarov's job to find people violating campaign finance laws.

I see, so he's like a nonprofit do good or private detective exactly.

So Siav and his team would eventually file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, and some of the things that they flag actually show up later on in the federal indictment against Santos.

Interesting, I see.

Uh, you know that week between Christmas and New Year's when basically no one wants to work. Yeah, definitely that week Surav and his team were actually surprisingly busy. They started reviewing santosis campaign finance filings, and a few things stick out to Surrov right away.

There was this glaring disconnect between his personal finances, as he had reported on financial disclosure form that every House candidate is required to file, and his campaign reports, which indicated he had loaned his own campaign a ton of money, a six figure sum north of seven hundred thousand dollars.

Wow.

So it's it's very I won't say comment, it's not unheard for a candidate to loan his own campaign that kind of money, or even to just give it to the campaign outright, but you typically expect to see backing that up a financial disclosure that shows, well, this person is wealthy, right, they have the assets, they have the income. With Santos, it was the exact opposite.

So one thing quickly that I should just mention to you. Jake Santos actually ran for Congress twice. He ran first in twenty twenty. He lost. SIREV look through those records too, he claimed to loan his unsuccessful twenty twenty campaign something like eighty thousand dollars. That didn't really make sense because in twenty twenty he had personal assets and income of just fifty five thousand dollars according to his self reporting, So it was just fifty five thousand dollars.

Fifty five thousand, yeah, wow, So it made no sense how somebody with fifty five thousand dollars could even afford to loan his campag eighty thousand dollars.

So what Suraba is outlining here is that alongside those campaign filings, he's supposed to also be reporting what kind of income he's making, what kind of assets he has. And Surav's looking at this and just truly saying the math isn't adding up. And then when you get to twenty twenty two, when he's running the second time, he's loaning his campaign even more money that there's one loan

That's one of his surnames as de Vold. And he claimed that this organization, which was founded within months of losing in the twenty twenty election, he claimed that this company was basically an overnight success story.

And he was.

Very ambiguous and sketchy, quite quite honestly about what the company did and how it made so much money overnight.

So he's filing these disclosures with the House, is that correct?

Correct?

Basically saying like, look, I've got this apartment in Brazil, I've got this company over here, Like yeah, I'm a wealthy man like I am more than capable of loading my campaign this money. And my question is was that true? Did he actually have any of these assets or was this also part of his fabulous's tale.

So Sarav is looking at this and to be very clear, sav does not believe the financial disclosure form. I think also because he's looking at the previous forms and just saying, how did this materialize overnight? Right? And he's also suspicious of like what's driving this income? And that is a question that Kadella, the reporter you heard from earlier, is also very interested in getting an answer to you know, what is going on with George Santos and his money,

This is also eight o'clock at night, So I'm like in my apartment. You know, Congress has been out for weeks now, and I was like, I can't believe this is happening. I'm actually interviewing this guy that everyone is talking about. So I was working with like a Hanvis and kind of was just like, so, how'd you.

Get all of this money? That was like my first question.

He gave this scenario where like, okay, let's say someone buys a boat and they don't want to go through like the normal chain, they want a smaller broken tree. I come in and I kind of negotiate the deal and you know, introduce them to potential sellers. And he called this thing capital intro. He kept saying capital Intro, and I was like, well, what is that? And he explained that capital introduction you basically just connect hedge fund people with investors.

Essentially. What is.

That?

Doesn't even really make sense to me, Like how does? But okay, so he's like he's like a connector. I mean, had the guy ever actually sold a boat?

The New York Times would later report that the FBI was curious about this question too, and in fact, there was at least one yacht sale that Santos brokered while he was running for Congress that there are a lot of questions about. But that's about all we know, Okay, But jumping back to December twenty twenty two, Kadella just had that interview with George Santos and he told her

And is it enough business that it could explain these massive contributions of the campaign. What half a million dollars right exactly?

And so Sarab is just trying to connect these dots. And there's two things that Sirov is fairly suspicious of. The first is that Santos is not listing any clients on these disclosure forms, and you know, Siav and multiple others flag that because if you're in this so called capital introduction industry, you should have clients. That's basically the whole business model. So that's concerning. The second is that Sirov is also suspicious about the timing of all of this.

That's fucking crazy.

Like how many boats do you have to sell? A Yeah, make that up.

I mean, that's like the greatest success story of all the time if it's true. Dude sold some yachts mighty quick.

And there's something about that that's just not sitting right with Sirov, and that leads him to wonder, Okay, where is Santos actually getting this money from and he has a couple theories about that.

So in our mind, this was a possible straw donor scheme. A straw donor scheme is basically a scheme in which someone is making a contribution to a candidate or a pack through someone else. So Santos, in our mind, was getting money from some external source. And that could be a corporation, it could be a billionaire, it could be a foreign national. So any of these possibilities struck us

It's interesting to me because to me, I get why Sarab thinks that it's a straw donor, because that's like, that's his his his purview, that's his job. He's looking at people who are skirting finance campaign finance law. Right, he doesn't realize that he's actually going after like a hustler. Is there a paper shail that shows like a deposit to his campaign coffers.

That's not required. Okay, so he can say I loaned this out to my campaign, but he doesn't actually have to back that up. With a wire transfer or a bank account showing that money hits right. And so it's a requirement for transparency, but it's limited, and so he's able to stay on paper. Yes, I am a wealthy businessman, and I was able to loan my campaign this six figure sum.

I see, okay, because where I thought this was going was that the loan was bullshit and this was just a way for him to make money.

Well, you might be right about that, so, Jake. What the government has alleged is that Santos lied in these campaign finance reports in a sense inflating his fundraising numbers. So prosecutors alleged that at least some of these loans that Santos said he made to his campaign did not happen, and they also alleged that he fudged these numbers for a very specific reason.

Santos he understood that his campaign had to report earning a certain amount or report raising a certain amount of money to get support from the party, and so that was something that the investigations revealed, is that he had emails where he was making it clear that he was trying to establish, you know, that he'd hit those benchmarks and so qualified for the kind of support from the Republican Party that only folks with that amount of financial viability would be able to receive.

If I'm understanding this correctly, and this guy is coming in and selling a whole story about how much money he made and how much money he's loaned his his campaign, and it smells like bullshit. The question is to what end? And if I'm understanding this correctly, he was actually trying to hustle the Republican Party basically, just to convince them that he was healthier and stronger and a bigger baller than he really was.

Yeah, and I think that there's a clear goal here, and this is supported by what the government outlines in the indictment. I mean, what they allege is that Santos and his campaign treasurer Nancy Marx did this in order to gain support from the Republican Party. And Nancy is the person on his staff that is responsible for those filings. Now, I should tell you Nancy Marx took a plea deal last year for her role in some of this, and I expect to hear a lot more about all of

Does sirob think that any money actually even existed like this five hundred thousand dollars? Was it ever real or is it just all on paper just like a full on like charade.

So this is something that I've dug into a lot, and the story is actually really complicated. What the government alleges is that at a certain point in time related to that twenty twenty two campaign, George Santos claimed to have loaned his own campaign five hundred thousand dollars. What the government alleges is that loan never happened, No money

I get it, you know, he using his personal charm and potentially his lies is like getting popular support. But it's one thing to claim you were a successful businessman. But then by loaning yourself this money or appearing to you're passing the second test, which is he has the war chest to make this work, We're going to supplement that money. Being the Republican Party and really helped push him over the line.

And it actually goes a step further. What the government is alleging is that he that Santos and Nancy Marks also conspired to put fake donations on the books in the names of people who never either never gave or didn't given that amount. What it looks like is that they were really manipulating these reports to present a version of Santos's campaign that was much healthier than the reality.

Right, it might quibble with your phrasing of that. It doesn't seem like the Times blows the story open. It's more like they find a crack and that the sad may be a fairly big one, but a crack, and that the sod that he has created about this super successful businessman that he is. And it's like, then all these other people are kind of like peering into the crack and being like, what else is in there?

Yeah, No, you're right, And I will say that this is really just the beginning of what will be uncovered about George Santos, and ultimately this is a story of personal betrayal. Coming up on the next episode of Deep Cover. George Santos.

His mom is pretty central his campaign. He called her a Wall Street executive. He said that she escaped the South Tower during nine to eleven. He said that she was a big political actor.

There are a few people in this world you should not lie to. You're a lawyer, your doctor, and your communications director.

This series is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Joey fish Ground. Our editor is Karen Chakerji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith, mastering by Jake Gorski, fact checking by Anica Robbins. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney. Music in this episode is from Luis Gerra and Epidemic Sound Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, and Greta Cone. I'm Jake calpern