Congressman Dan Goldman and Congressman Ritchie Torres Demand Republican Leadership Proactively Cooperate With Investigations Into George Santos

Reporting from New York Times Reveals that Speaker McCarthy, Chairwoman Stefanik, Congressional Leadership Fund President Conston Were Aware of George Santos’s Lies Long Before They Became Public

Following Ethics ComplaintFiled by Goldman, Torres, New York Congressmen Demand Answers From Republican Leadership
 
Read the Letter Here
 

Washington, D.C. - Following reporting from the New York Times revealing that senior Republican leadership was aware of Congressman George Santos’s web of lies and deceit long before it became public, Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) and Congressman Ritchie Torres (NY-15) today issued a formal letter to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Chair of the House Republican Caucus Elise Stefanik, and Congressional Leadership Fund President Dan Conston demanding that they proactively and forthrightly cooperate with all current and future investigations into Congressman George Santos, including the potential Ethics Investigation following the official complaint filed by Goldman and Torres last week.  
 
“It is deeply troubling to learn that Speaker McCarthy, Chairwoman Stefanik, and CLF President Conston knew about George Santos’s scheme to defraud the American people long before the election,” Congressman Dan Goldman said. “Investigators examining Mr. Santos’s conduct must understand the entire web of deceit, and it is therefore essential that McCarthy, Stefanik, and Conston immediately and proactively cooperate with all current and future investigations into Mr. Santos’s fraudulent conduct. The American people have a right to know whether Republican leadership was complicit in perpetrating this fraud on the voters.”
 
Congressman Ritchie Torres said: "Thanks to even more intrepid public reporting, we now know that the highest levels of Republican leadership were at least partially aware of some of the lies on which Rep. George Santos built a dishonest and disgraceful campaign to reach elected office. What's particularly troubling is that Republican leadership chose to stay silent and allow him to continue to campaign and defraud the very people he is now somehow supposed to represent. This only goes to show that the one thing House Republicans care about is maintaining power at all costs, even if it means willfully welcoming a man plagued with mounting ethical and criminal investigations into their ranks because they know they need his vote. The American people deserve a full and transparent understanding of what Republican leadership knew, when they knew it, and what steps they're going to take to hold Rep. Santos accountable for his despicable web of deception."
 
Yesterday, the New York Times published a detailed report that Speaker McCarthy, Chairwoman Stefanik, and Congressional Leadership Fund President Conston knew about the web of lies used by Congressman George Santos to deceive his voters long before they became public.  
 
In December, public reporting indicated that multiple Republican insiders were aware of Mr. Santos’s alleged inaccuracies and embellishments, and that they were considered a ‘running joke.’ A senior Republican leadership aide reportedly told the New York Post: “As far as questions about George in general, that was always something that was brought up whenever we talked about this race. It was a running joke at a certain point.”
 
According to the Times, in November of 2021, then-candidate Santos commissioned a ‘vulnerability study’ to identify weaknesses in his candidacy that might have been leveraged by an opposing candidate during the course of a campaign. The analysis revealed that Mr. Santos had fabricated his educational background, worked for a firm accused of a Ponzi scheme, had multiple evictions and a suspended Florida driver’s license, which called into question his residency in New York, as well. After Mr. Santos refused to withdraw from the race, much of his campaign team resigned.
 
The Times determined that Republicans with positions of influence at the highest levels of the party were made aware of Mr. Santos’s fabrications at the time they were uncovered by the study. As the Times states, this is the most “explicit evidence to date that a small circle of well-connected Republican campaign professionals had indications far earlier than the public” of Mr. Santos’s attempt to defraud the voters.
 
Chairwoman Stefanik was one of Mr. Santos’s strongest endorsers and supporters, and it is now almost certain that Ms. Stefanik was aware of Mr. Santos’s web of lies long before the election. One of Chairwoman Stefanik’s top political aides assisted Mr. Santos’s campaign, including by helping Mr. Santos find new staff and vendors after many quit in light of the ‘vulnerability’ study.
 
After Mr. Santos defiantly stayed in the race and hired new campaign vendors, the Times report underscores concerns within Speaker McCarthy’s orbit that Mr. Santos’s fraud might be uncovered.  
 
According to the Times, “in the run-up to the 2022 contest, Dan Conston, a close ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy who leads the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main House Republican super PAC, also confided in lawmakers, donors and other associates that he was worried information would come out exposing Mr. Santos as a fraud.”   
 
Speaker McCarthy has long been a forceful advocate for transparency in our election process. On November 5, 2020, Mr. McCarthy tweeted, “Americans demand TRANSPARENCY in our election process now!”  
 
Congressmen Goldman and Torres agree, and therefore hope that Mr. McCarthy, Ms. Stefanik, and Mr. Conston will lead by example and be transparent about the degree to which they were complicit in perpetrating this fraud on the voters of New York’s Third Congressional District and the American people.  

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