Santos campaign spent $365,000 'with no record of where it went': NYT

The campaign of Rep. George Santos (R-NY) spent $365,000 on expenses that don't disclose a recipient or purpose – and nobody can figure out what they were for, reportedThe New York Times.

The purchases account for 12 percent of his entire campaign's expenditure — many times above the typical amount of non-itemized expenses a campaign reports.

"Several donors said in interviews that the Santos campaign or associated groups misrepresented how much they gave. Campaign finance documents show discrepancies between what the Santos campaign reported having spent and what recipients, such as other Republican candidates, reported having been given," said the report.

"When the campaign has amended its filings, as it has 36 times, some payments have gone up or simply disappeared. And though other New York candidates list $26,000 in donations from Mr. Santos, the contributions do not appear in his filings at all, The Times’s analysis showed."

The former general counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Bill McGinley, said the spending reports were "all over the place and do not make any sense."

Notably, prior to April 2022, Santos did itemize more of his campaign expenses — revealing payments to fancy restaurants and lavish hotels. But at that point, he logged $250,000 in payments to "Anonymous." He removed references to "Anonymous" in May's filings, but still didn't disclose where the money went.

This is on top of previous reporting that showed a number of bizarre campaign finance in Santos' reports, including charges to a parking lot in Miami Beach that city officials say would be impossible; a series of charges for $199.99, which is one cent below the limit at which it becomes necessary to provide itemized receipts; and, perhaps most seriously, evidence that many of Santos' top donors don't actually exist, which could indicate an illegal straw donor scheme.

The Justice Department recently asked the Federal Election Commission to refrain from penalty actions against Santos, which experts have said is a sign U.S. attorneys are criminally investigating the matter.

Santos, who was elected to Congress last year, is already facing a litany of scandals after he was exposed as having lied about almost every aspect of his personal life on the campaign trail, including his education, work experience, and his claim to be Jewish and descended from Holocaust refugees. In addition to the campaign finance issues, he is also under investigation for allegedly scamming a fundraiser for a disabled veteran's service dog, and prosecutors in Brazil, from which he immigrated, are reviving a dormant check fraud case against him.