Speaker 1: Pushkin. Okay, so, how are you going to start this?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm really excited. This is kind of new for us.
Speaker 1: Absolutely a little role reversal. Amy gains McQuaid as my producer.
Speaker 1: She's worked on the past four seasons of deep Cover.
Speaker 1: It may not have heard Amy's voice about in effect
Speaker 1: you did, because when we do a season of deep Cover,
Speaker 1: Amy's the one that reads through all thousand pages of
Speaker 1: the court transcript and knows every last detail. She's the
Speaker 1: one who helps me track down sources and wed through
Speaker 1: hours of interviews to make the episodes that you've heard.
Speaker 1: So while we're hard at work on the next season
Speaker 1: of deep Cover, we have a special mini series for
Speaker 1: you in a brand new format. About a year ago.
Speaker 1: Amy comes to me and says, look, there's this story
Speaker 1: I really want to report. A story that took place
Speaker 1: in fact where Amy grown up, A story about a
Speaker 1: man who may just be one of the greatest liars
Speaker 1: of all time, which got my attention because it sounded
Speaker 1: an awful lot like a deep Cover story unfolding in
Speaker 1: real time.
Speaker 2: George Anthony de Volder Santos, Oh.
Speaker 3: Good morning, chabach allom too, everybody.
Speaker 2: This is him speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: I'm a first generation born American, like many in our
Speaker 3: great nation. My parents came to this country in search
Speaker 3: of the American dream.
Speaker 4: Today.
Speaker 2: He ran for Congress to represent New York's third District
Speaker 2: on Long Island, which is where I grew up. And
Speaker 2: a huge part of his message was this that he
Speaker 2: was the embodiment of the American dream. And that message
Speaker 2: worked because he won.
Speaker 3: Only in this country can the little boy born in
Speaker 3: a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens in New York
Speaker 3: City become a United States congressman at thirty four?
Speaker 1: Okay, interesting, So I know there's a lot more that
Speaker 1: he said on the campaign trail, but can you just
Speaker 1: give me the recap.
Speaker 2: So the version of George Santos that he sold on
Speaker 2: the campaign trail was that George Stantos was a successful
Speaker 2: businessman working in the financial industry. He claimed that he'd
Speaker 2: worked for Goldman, Sachs and City Group. He claimed that
Speaker 2: he had gone to college at Baruch and NYU. He
Speaker 2: had also told some stories about his personal life.
Speaker 4: I'm very proud of my Jewish heritage. I'm very proud
Speaker 4: of my grandparents' story.
Speaker 2: Claiming Jewish heritage and said that some of his family
Speaker 2: members had survived the Holocaust. Here he is speaking to
Speaker 2: a reporter for a Jewish news service.
Speaker 4: I'm so proud to be able to keep our family
Speaker 4: going forward and showing that not only did we survive,
Speaker 4: but now I'm able to go advocate and fight for
Speaker 4: other Jewish people all across my my district.
Speaker 2: So the story that he told was an inspiring one.
Speaker 2: Here he was the son of Brazilian immigrants who had
Speaker 2: built this impressive life for himself, living in New York
Speaker 2: City as an openly gay man, working on Wall Street,
Speaker 2: getting into politics, and it seemed like this moment when
Speaker 2: he won would just be the cherry on top. He
Speaker 2: was going to be a congressman.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's inspiring. I'm kind of inspired hearing it.
Speaker 2: But in the coming weeks and months, another narrative would
Speaker 2: start to emerge, a different version of George Santos, one
Speaker 2: that was far more alarming. And if it were true,
Speaker 2: then this was a man who lied, cheated, and stole
Speaker 2: from people who trusted him, basically one man with two faces,
Speaker 2: and it left a lot of people, including myself, wondering
Speaker 2: who is the real George Santos. I think the thing
Speaker 2: that a lot of people might remember is the New
Speaker 2: York Times story that broke in December of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: because it was pretty explosive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that headline.
Speaker 2: The story revealed that Santos had essentially fabricated a lot
Speaker 2: of information on his resume. But through my reporting, I've
Speaker 2: been finding that that story was really just the beginning.
Speaker 2: So George Santos is actually scheduled to go to trial
Speaker 2: in just a few weeks in September. He's facing a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of charges, wirefraud, money laundering, falsifying records, identity theft,
Speaker 2: a whole bunch. I've been talking with lots of people
Speaker 2: to essentially try and figure out how did George Santos
Speaker 2: go from lies about where he went to school and
Speaker 2: where he worked to allegations of serious federal crimes, crimes
Speaker 2: that could land him in prison for roughly two decades,
Speaker 2: and just how deep to his go. This is deep
Speaker 2: Cover George Santos, Episode one the campaign. Jake, I want
Speaker 2: to go back in time to that moment when the
Speaker 2: New York Times story broke, because that's when the cracks
Speaker 2: in Santos's facade really start to show. Okay, So two
Speaker 2: journalists at the New York Times, their names are Grace
Speaker 2: Ashford and Michael Gold, they come out with this massive story.
Speaker 2: It's called who is Rep. Elect George Santos? His resume
Speaker 2: may be largely fiction. The headline from this story is really,
Speaker 2: maybe this guy isn't who he claimed to be? And
Speaker 2: that for me was a moment where I heard from
Speaker 2: basically everyone in my life who knew I was from
Speaker 2: Long Island and knew that I worked on stories like this,
Speaker 2: and just you know, asking me, what the fuck what
Speaker 2: happened here? Who is this guy? And how did he
Speaker 2: get elected? He's, you know, living this double life essentially
Speaker 2: who he says he is in public, but who he
Speaker 2: actually is in private. And one person who is in
Speaker 2: the center of this mess was George Santos's communications director.
Speaker 2: Her name is Nasa Woomer. Do you remember where you
Speaker 2: were when the New York Times story broke? Oh?
Speaker 5: I do?
Speaker 6: I know exactly where. I was actually coming out of
Speaker 6: the Starbucks and it broke, and I was heading into
Speaker 6: our office right by the State House.
Speaker 2: And the timing here is really interesting because she actually
Speaker 2: accepted the job right before the New York Times story broke.
Speaker 6: Everyone is sending like, Niassa, have you seen this? Oh
Speaker 6: my god, is this the guy you're working for? My
Speaker 6: stomach had dropped, and I thought, what the well, I
Speaker 6: don't want to say the F bomb, but but that's
Speaker 6: what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: At this point, like how many days on the job
Speaker 1: is she?
Speaker 2: By the way, so Nesa hasn't actually started working for
Speaker 2: Santos in that moment. She's still working in Boston for
Speaker 2: the Republican administration there, so she's not actually even in
Speaker 2: touch with George Santos. But she did hear through the
Speaker 2: grapevine through some staffer that a story about Santos would
Speaker 2: be coming.
Speaker 6: I already knew there was going to be a hit piece,
Speaker 6: but my understanding was that this was just going to
Speaker 6: be We thought it was going to be a traditional
Speaker 6: hit piece of conservative Republican Flip's Democrat seat.
Speaker 2: But of course that was not the New York Times
Speaker 2: story at all. The New York Times story made clear
Speaker 2: that a lot of the stories that George Santos had
Speaker 2: told on the campaign trail were at best inaccurate, at
Speaker 2: worst entirely fabricated. And so after the story publishes, Santos
Speaker 2: comes out with this statement through his attorney that says
Speaker 2: it's no surprise that Congressman elect Santos has enemies at
Speaker 2: The New York Times who are attempting to smear his
Speaker 2: good name with these defamatory allegations.
Speaker 6: I even spoke with the chief of Stuff and he
Speaker 6: said he's speaking with his lawyers. They're going to handle it.
Speaker 6: And I just said, okay, well, like they need to
Speaker 6: handle it immediately, because you know, this is this is
Speaker 6: really bad.
Speaker 1: And is Santo's freaking out at this point.
Speaker 2: So I can't vouch for how Santos is feeling because
Speaker 2: I have not spoken with him directly.
Speaker 1: We've tried, yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, we've reached out to him for comment. So far
Speaker 2: he's declined those requests. But Santos appears to have been
Speaker 2: attempting some damage control. He's not giving a ton of interviews,
Speaker 2: but he does grant one to Fox News and it's
Speaker 2: a guest anchor, so it is Tulca Gabbard conducting the interview.
Speaker 7: First question I really want to ask you now that
Speaker 7: all this has been revealed, is what does the word
Speaker 7: integrity mean to you?
Speaker 3: Well, Tulsi, thank you for having me, you know, to
Speaker 3: answer your question. Integrity is very important, and bellis What
Speaker 3: does it mean?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 2: What does it mean?
Speaker 7: Because the meaning of the word actually matters in practice.
Speaker 3: Of course, it means to carry yourself in an honorable way.
Speaker 3: And I made a mistake, and I think humans are
Speaker 3: flawed and we all make mistakes.
Speaker 2: Tulsi, this is.
Speaker 1: Fox News and he's a Republican and he's getting very
Speaker 1: hostile treatment here. So, I mean, lord knows what would
Speaker 1: happen if he had gone on MSNBC or even CNN.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering how is this playing out with his constituents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I remember the reaction was pretty swift.
Speaker 5: George Chantlis's campaign last year was a campaign of decei, lies, fabrication.
Speaker 5: He deceived the voters of the third Congressional district.
Speaker 2: That's Joe Chiro, head of the Republican Party in Nasa County.
Speaker 2: This is from a press conference they held where he,
Speaker 2: along with other New York Republicans, actually ask for Santos' resignation.
Speaker 8: There's absolutely no way mister Santos can be an effective
Speaker 8: member of Congress and represent the people who elected him.
Speaker 1: One of the questions I have is like, talk to
Speaker 1: me about this district that elects him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Santos ran in New York's third congressional district,
Speaker 2: which if you've ever looked at a political map, you
Speaker 2: know these districts get drawn in a kind of crazy,
Speaker 2: nonsensical way. When you look at the district itself, it
Speaker 2: holds part of Nasa County, which is where I grew up,
Speaker 2: and specifically in my neighborhood, I can say it's a
Speaker 2: lot of working class folks, so people who commute into
Speaker 2: New York City every day, cops, firefighters, teachers. It also
Speaker 2: includes the north shore of Long Island, which is like
Speaker 2: Gatspeak country. There's lots of big houses and old money.
Speaker 2: And over the years the district has changed, the lines
Speaker 2: have been redrawn, but by the time that Santos was running,
Speaker 2: the district included a little sliver of Queens which is
Speaker 2: actually where Santos grew up.
Speaker 1: It's funny because when you describe it, I totally almost
Speaker 1: get why he would have to be a guy, that
Speaker 1: would be a chameleon, that would have to be able
Speaker 1: to play a lot of different parts, because his constituency
Speaker 1: is just like a crazy cross section of America.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think when George Santos is running for office,
Speaker 2: he is building the narrative around himself that he started
Speaker 2: from nothing and built himself into a successful businessman in
Speaker 2: the financial industry. So he claims that he was working
Speaker 2: for Goldman Sachs, he claims that he was working for
Speaker 2: City Group.
Speaker 1: None of these things are true. None of that is
Speaker 1: a crime.
Speaker 2: That's true. But it's around the same moment in time
Speaker 2: that new reports are emerging that Santos is being investigated
Speaker 2: for actual crimes he may have committed.
Speaker 9: The Republican District Attorney of Nassau County says she's looking
Speaker 9: into whether any of those fabrications amounted to crimes, and
Speaker 9: federal prosecutors are also looking into Santos's financial disclosures. Stunning
Speaker 9: revelations and questions about his personal and professional life continue
Speaker 9: to come to light, including new questions about the money
Speaker 9: he spent on his campaign.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. So when the New York Times
Speaker 2: story comes out, there are a number of things that
Speaker 2: are exposed, but there are also a lot of questions remaining.
Speaker 2: And so I think, you know, reporters, especially reporters who
Speaker 2: are working in DC can kind of smell blood in
Speaker 2: the water, right, and they're like, what else can I
Speaker 2: find out about this guy?
Speaker 10: I was trying to cover the New York area because
Speaker 10: I'm a New Yorker, and I understood that there was
Speaker 10: this buzz that there were some members that might actually
Speaker 10: overcome some of the Democratic nominees that were running for Congress.
Speaker 2: Okay, Jake. So this is Kadea Goba, and she's a
Speaker 2: political reporter for Semaphore, which is this sort of newer
Speaker 2: journalism outlet.
Speaker 10: So I set out in October to interview a bunch
Speaker 10: of them. George Santos did not give me access after
Speaker 10: he won. He was like, he became a challenge to me.
Speaker 10: I needed to talk to this man.
Speaker 2: Kadia actually worked at BuzzFeed before she was with Semaphore,
Speaker 2: but she hasn't always been a journalist. This is a
Speaker 2: second career.
Speaker 10: I was in the clothing industry for over two decades
Speaker 10: as a sales rep. So this is sort of a
Speaker 10: midlife crisis that worked out anyways.
Speaker 2: So near the end of twenty twenty two, Kadilla is
Speaker 2: working as a reporter on Capitol Hill and she meets
Speaker 2: George Santos, in person. She gave him her card. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm a reporter working on the hill, would love to
Speaker 2: be in touch, but he doesn't give her his But
Speaker 2: she gets his phone number anyways, and she wants to
Speaker 2: talk to him, so she's calling a lot, even though
Speaker 2: he would never pick up until this one time.
Speaker 10: I remember very distinctly he either called me back or
Speaker 10: picked up the phone this one time and said, I
Speaker 10: remember not giving you my phone number, which I thought
Speaker 10: was very funny because he understood who had been calling him,
Speaker 10: but just was intentionally ignoring me.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 10: Fine, He eventually picked up the phone, and he told
Speaker 10: me that at that time he was going on Fox,
Speaker 10: that I shouldn't tell anyone, but maybe he could talk
Speaker 10: to me afterwards.
Speaker 1: Wait, this is the same interview that we heard at
Speaker 1: the top with Tulci Gabbard.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 10: So I watched the interview and it went terribly.
Speaker 2: My question is do you have no shame?
Speaker 3: Look, I understand everybody wants to knitpick at me. I'm
Speaker 3: going to reassure this once and for all. I'm not
Speaker 3: a facade. I'm not a persona.
Speaker 10: You could tell he was uncomfortable. It wasn't what he expected.
Speaker 10: I think he thought this was going to be a
Speaker 10: good opportunity for him to talk about what happened or
Speaker 10: explain his situation, and none of that happened. So of
Speaker 10: course I kind of just texted him after the interview
Speaker 10: was over and kind of said like, are you free
Speaker 10: or do you want to talk? And he texted back
Speaker 10: like something like get your pen and paper ready.
Speaker 1: Wow. That kind of surprises me. Given how badly it went,
Speaker 1: you think maybe he would be a little guns Oh.
Speaker 2: I think Kadilla's view was the opposite that. You know,
Speaker 2: he thought that the Fox interview would be a good
Speaker 2: opportunity and then when it went so poorly, he's just
Speaker 2: kind of panicking, and he's he's open to talking to
Speaker 2: people because he wants to clear the air. Right, he's
Speaker 2: in crisis mode, I see.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they just get back up to the plate
Speaker 1: again kind of thing.
Speaker 10: And sure enough, like maybe fifteen minutes later, he called me,
Speaker 10: and I think I talked to him as he drove
Speaker 10: from the Fox studio home.
Speaker 2: So what is your goal in that interview? What is
Speaker 2: the big question you want to ask?
Speaker 10: Clearly I want to ask where he got his money from,
Speaker 10: because that was like the big discrepancy.
Speaker 2: Right, He had presented himself on the campaign trail as
Speaker 2: this wealthy, successful individual. How much money does he have
Speaker 2: really and what is the source of that money?
Speaker 1: So this is what Kadia is talking about, the big
Speaker 1: the discrepancy and where did the money come from?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Kadia is following this, and I think it
Speaker 2: would be fair to say that a lot of reporters
Speaker 2: were fixated on this question at the time of you know, okay,
Speaker 2: George Santos has been exposed as a potential liar. What
Speaker 2: else could he be lying about? It appears on paper
Speaker 2: like George Santos has a lot of money, but is
Speaker 2: that actually the case? And it's around this time that
Speaker 2: many people start looking at his campaign finance filings. And
Speaker 2: one of those people is a guy named Sarav Ghosh.
Speaker 11: I'm the director of Federal Campaign Finance Reform at Campaign
Speaker 11: Legal Center, and what I work on every day are
Speaker 11: the laws that govern how people raise and spend money
Speaker 11: when they're trying to convince others to vote for them.
Speaker 2: He was a lawyer at the FEC, which is the
Speaker 2: Federal Election Commission, and it's basically Sarov's job to find
Speaker 2: people violating campaign finance laws.
Speaker 1: I see, so he's like a nonprofit do good or
Speaker 1: private detective exactly.
Speaker 2: So Siav and his team would eventually file a complaint
Speaker 2: with the Federal Election Commission, and some of the things
Speaker 2: that they flag actually show up later on in the
Speaker 2: federal indictment against Santos.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I see.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know that week between Christmas and New Year's
Speaker 2: when basically no one wants to work. Yeah, definitely that
Speaker 2: week Surav and his team were actually surprisingly busy. They
Speaker 2: started reviewing santosis campaign finance filings, and a few things
Speaker 2: stick out to Surrov right away.
Speaker 11: There was this glaring disconnect between his personal finances, as
Speaker 11: he had reported on financial disclosure form that every House
Speaker 11: candidate is required to file, and his campaign reports, which
Speaker 11: indicated he had loaned his own campaign a ton of money,
Speaker 11: a six figure sum north of seven hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 11: So it's it's very I won't say comment, it's not
Speaker 11: unheard for a candidate to loan his own campaign that
Speaker 11: kind of money, or even to just give it to
Speaker 11: the campaign outright, but you typically expect to see backing
Speaker 11: that up a financial disclosure that shows, well, this person
Speaker 11: is wealthy, right, they have the assets, they have the income.
Speaker 11: With Santos, it was the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: So one thing quickly that I should just mention to you.
Speaker 2: Jake Santos actually ran for Congress twice. He ran first
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. He lost. SIREV look through those records too,
Speaker 2: he claimed to loan his unsuccessful twenty twenty campaign something
Speaker 2: like eighty thousand dollars. That didn't really make sense because
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty he had personal assets and income of
Speaker 2: just fifty five thousand dollars according to his self reporting,
Speaker 2: So it was just fifty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 11: Fifty five thousand, yeah, wow, So it made no sense
Speaker 11: how somebody with fifty five thousand dollars could even afford
Speaker 11: to loan his campag eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So what Suraba is outlining here is that alongside those
Speaker 2: campaign filings, he's supposed to also be reporting what kind
Speaker 2: of income he's making, what kind of assets he has.
Speaker 2: And Surav's looking at this and just truly saying the
Speaker 2: math isn't adding up. And then when you get to
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, when he's running the second time, he's
Speaker 2: loaning his campaign even more money that there's one loan
Speaker 2: in particular of five hundred thousand dollars. In March of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, Santos files a disclosure form that lists
Speaker 2: his assets and income. In this document, you can see
Speaker 2: he lists an apartment in Brazil that he values somewhere
Speaker 2: between half a million and a million dollars. He says
Speaker 2: he has somewhere between one hundred and two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars in a checking account. And then there's
Speaker 2: this business called the Devolder Organization, and he values the
Speaker 2: Devolder Organization as somewhere between a million and five million dollars.
Speaker 11: That's one of his surnames as de Vold. And he
Speaker 11: claimed that this organization, which was founded within months of
Speaker 11: losing in the twenty twenty election, he claimed that this
Speaker 11: company was basically an overnight success story.
Speaker 1: And he was.
Speaker 11: Very ambiguous and sketchy, quite quite honestly about what the
Speaker 11: company did and how it made so much money overnight.
Speaker 1: So he's filing these disclosures with the House, is that correct?
Speaker 2: Correct?
Speaker 1: Basically saying like, look, I've got this apartment in Brazil,
Speaker 1: I've got this company over here, Like yeah, I'm a
Speaker 1: wealthy man like I am more than capable of loading
Speaker 1: my campaign this money. And my question is was that true?
Speaker 1: Did he actually have any of these assets or was
Speaker 1: this also part of his fabulous's tale.
Speaker 2: So Sarav is looking at this and to be very clear,
Speaker 2: sav does not believe the financial disclosure form. I think
Speaker 2: also because he's looking at the previous forms and just saying,
Speaker 2: how did this materialize overnight? Right? And he's also suspicious
Speaker 2: of like what's driving this income? And that is a
Speaker 2: question that Kadella, the reporter you heard from earlier, is
Speaker 2: also very interested in getting an answer to you know,
Speaker 2: what is going on with George Santos and his money,
Speaker 2: Where is this alleged income coming from? And just to say,
Speaker 2: if it's not already clear, all of this is happening
Speaker 2: at the same time. So we have Sarav, who's our watchdog.
Speaker 2: Him and his team are digging into these campaign finance
Speaker 2: reports in the week between Christmas and New Year's and
Speaker 2: that same week, Kadea, the clothing sales rep turned journalist,
Speaker 2: is trying to get that interview with George Santos and
Speaker 2: she's going to finally get it in the moment after
Speaker 2: his disastrous interview on Fox, and so he's actually calling
Speaker 2: her on the drive home from the Fox studio.
Speaker 10: This is also eight o'clock at night, So I'm like
Speaker 10: in my apartment. You know, Congress has been out for
Speaker 10: weeks now, and I was like, I can't believe this
Speaker 10: is happening. I'm actually interviewing this guy that everyone is
Speaker 10: talking about. So I was working with like a Hanvis
Speaker 10: and kind of was just like, so, how'd you.
Speaker 2: Get all of this money? That was like my first question.
Speaker 10: He gave this scenario where like, okay, let's say someone
Speaker 10: buys a boat and they don't want to go through
Speaker 10: like the normal chain, they want a smaller broken tree.
Speaker 10: I come in and I kind of negotiate the deal
Speaker 10: and you know, introduce them to potential sellers. And he
Speaker 10: called this thing capital intro. He kept saying capital Intro,
Speaker 10: and I was like, well, what is that? And he
Speaker 10: explained that capital introduction you basically just connect hedge fund
Speaker 10: people with investors.
Speaker 2: Essentially. What is.
Speaker 12: That?
Speaker 1: Doesn't even really make sense to me, Like how does?
Speaker 1: But okay, so he's like he's like a connector. I mean,
Speaker 1: had the guy ever actually sold a boat?
Speaker 2: The New York Times would later report that the FBI
Speaker 2: was curious about this question too, and in fact, there
Speaker 2: was at least one yacht sale that Santos brokered while
Speaker 2: he was running for Congress that there are a lot
Speaker 2: of questions about. But that's about all we know, Okay,
Speaker 2: But jumping back to December twenty twenty two, Kadella just
Speaker 2: had that interview with George Santos and he told her
Speaker 2: that he works in capital introduction. This is what Kadea
Speaker 2: reports attributing to George Santos, of course, and that brings
Speaker 2: us back to Sarav, who reads Kadia's reporting, And for Sarav,
Speaker 2: it's just not really checking out. And I think even
Speaker 2: if what Santos told Kadea is true, maybe he did
Speaker 2: sell a boat or two, but from Sarab's perspective, this
Speaker 2: still doesn't really account for the massive cash windfall that
Speaker 2: he appears to have almost overnight, I see. And so
Speaker 2: Sarav's question, and what he's trying to piece together through
Speaker 2: the reporting that's emerging is what is the full picture
Speaker 2: of Devolder? You know, what kind of business is Devolder doing?
Speaker 2: What kind of money is Devolder bringing in right?
Speaker 1: And is it enough business that it could explain these
Speaker 1: massive contributions of the campaign. What half a million dollars
Speaker 1: right exactly?
Speaker 2: And so Sarab is just trying to connect these dots.
Speaker 2: And there's two things that Sirov is fairly suspicious of.
Speaker 2: The first is that Santos is not listing any clients
Speaker 2: on these disclosure forms, and you know, Siav and multiple
Speaker 2: others flag that because if you're in this so called
Speaker 2: capital introduction industry, you should have clients. That's basically the
Speaker 2: whole business model. So that's concerning. The second is that
Speaker 2: Sirov is also suspicious about the timing of all of this.
Speaker 2: He notices that Santos declares his candidacy one month and
Speaker 2: then he incorporates de Volder the next month, and then
Speaker 2: he's making loans to his campaign the month after that.
Speaker 1: That's fucking crazy.
Speaker 2: Like how many boats do you have to sell? A Yeah,
Speaker 2: make that up.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like the greatest success story of all
Speaker 1: the time if it's true. Dude sold some yachts mighty quick.
Speaker 2: And there's something about that that's just not sitting right
Speaker 2: with Sirov, and that leads him to wonder, Okay, where
Speaker 2: is Santos actually getting this money from and he has
Speaker 2: a couple theories about that.
Speaker 11: So in our mind, this was a possible straw donor scheme.
Speaker 11: A straw donor scheme is basically a scheme in which
Speaker 11: someone is making a contribution to a candidate or a
Speaker 11: pack through someone else. So Santos, in our mind, was
Speaker 11: getting money from some external source. And that could be
Speaker 11: a corporation, it could be a billionaire, it could be
Speaker 11: a foreign national. So any of these possibilities struck us
Speaker 11: as deeply problematic in our mind. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 11: his money, it was someone else, and not knowing is
Speaker 11: part of the problem, maybe the biggest problem.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me because to me, I get why
Speaker 1: Sarab thinks that it's a straw donor, because that's like,
Speaker 1: that's his his his purview, that's his job. He's looking
Speaker 1: at people who are skirting finance campaign finance law. Right,
Speaker 1: he doesn't realize that he's actually going after like a hustler.
Speaker 1: Is there a paper shail that shows like a deposit
Speaker 1: to his campaign coffers.
Speaker 2: That's not required. Okay, so he can say I loaned
Speaker 2: this out to my campaign, but he doesn't actually have
Speaker 2: to back that up. With a wire transfer or a
Speaker 2: bank account showing that money hits right. And so it's
Speaker 2: a requirement for transparency, but it's limited, and so he's
Speaker 2: able to stay on paper. Yes, I am a wealthy businessman,
Speaker 2: and I was able to loan my campaign this six
Speaker 2: figure sum.
Speaker 1: I see, okay, because where I thought this was going
Speaker 1: was that the loan was bullshit and this was just
Speaker 1: a way for him to make money.
Speaker 2: Well, you might be right about that, so, Jake. What
Speaker 2: the government has alleged is that Santos lied in these
Speaker 2: campaign finance reports in a sense inflating his fundraising numbers.
Speaker 2: So prosecutors alleged that at least some of these loans
Speaker 2: that Santos said he made to his campaign did not happen,
Speaker 2: and they also alleged that he fudged these numbers for
Speaker 2: a very specific reason.
Speaker 11: Santos he understood that his campaign had to report earning
Speaker 11: a certain amount or report raising a certain amount of
Speaker 11: money to get support from the party, and so that
Speaker 11: was something that the investigations revealed, is that he had
Speaker 11: emails where he was making it clear that he was
Speaker 11: trying to establish, you know, that he'd hit those benchmarks
Speaker 11: and so qualified for the kind of support from the
Speaker 11: Republican Party that only folks with that amount of financial
Speaker 11: viability would be able to receive.
Speaker 1: If I'm understanding this correctly, and this guy is coming
Speaker 1: in and selling a whole story about how much money
Speaker 1: he made and how much money he's loaned his his campaign,
Speaker 1: and it smells like bullshit. The question is to what end?
Speaker 1: And if I'm understanding this correctly, he was actually trying
Speaker 1: to hustle the Republican Party basically, just to convince them
Speaker 1: that he was healthier and stronger and a bigger baller
Speaker 1: than he really was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that there's a clear goal here,
Speaker 2: and this is supported by what the government outlines in
Speaker 2: the indictment. I mean, what they allege is that Santos
Speaker 2: and his campaign treasurer Nancy Marx did this in order
Speaker 2: to gain support from the Republican Party. And Nancy is
Speaker 2: the person on his staff that is responsible for those filings. Now,
Speaker 2: I should tell you Nancy Marx took a plea deal
Speaker 2: last year for her role in some of this, and
Speaker 2: I expect to hear a lot more about all of
Speaker 2: this at trial. I mean, this program that Santos receives
Speaker 2: by hitting these fundraising benchmarks, right, Yeah, he gets support
Speaker 2: with ads, he gets support splitting the cost of polls,
Speaker 2: focus groups, what they call coordinated expenditures, which is basically like,
Speaker 2: we're going to spend money with you and for you, right,
Speaker 2: And so if he's trying to get into office, he
Speaker 2: understandably wants this support from the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: Does sirob think that any money actually even existed like
Speaker 1: this five hundred thousand dollars? Was it ever real or
Speaker 1: is it just all on paper just like a full
Speaker 1: on like charade.
Speaker 2: So this is something that I've dug into a lot,
Speaker 2: and the story is actually really complicated. What the government
Speaker 2: alleges is that at a certain point in time related
Speaker 2: to that twenty twenty two campaign, George Santos claimed to
Speaker 2: have loaned his own campaign five hundred thousand dollars. What
Speaker 2: the government alleges is that loan never happened, No money
Speaker 2: changed hands in that moment. Now, some reporting has indicated
Speaker 2: that maybe later on some money might have gotten moved
Speaker 2: around to try and potentially make the books look better.
Speaker 2: But what the government is charging in their indictment is
Speaker 2: that this loan did not happen when the campaign said
Speaker 2: it happened, and that it happened for a specific reason,
Speaker 2: and that was to hit these campaign benchmarks, the fundraising benchmarks,
Speaker 2: in order to get this support at a critical moment
Speaker 2: in his campaign.
Speaker 1: I get it, you know, he using his personal charm
Speaker 1: and potentially his lies is like getting popular support. But
Speaker 1: it's one thing to claim you were a successful businessman.
Speaker 1: But then by loaning yourself this money or appearing to
Speaker 1: you're passing the second test, which is he has the
Speaker 1: war chest to make this work, We're going to supplement
Speaker 1: that money. Being the Republican Party and really helped push
Speaker 1: him over the line.
Speaker 2: And it actually goes a step further. What the government
Speaker 2: is alleging is that he that Santos and Nancy Marks
Speaker 2: also conspired to put fake donations on the books in
Speaker 2: the names of people who never either never gave or
Speaker 2: didn't given that amount. What it looks like is that
Speaker 2: they were really manipulating these reports to present a version
Speaker 2: of Santos's campaign that was much healthier than the reality.
Speaker 2: We've spent this episode talking about this moment in December
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two, when the New York Times reporting
Speaker 2: kind of blows the story open and then everyone is
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what else they could find out
Speaker 2: in the wake of that.
Speaker 1: Right, it might quibble with your phrasing of that. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like the Times blows the story open. It's
Speaker 1: more like they find a crack and that the sad
Speaker 1: may be a fairly big one, but a crack, and
Speaker 1: that the sod that he has created about this super
Speaker 1: successful businessman that he is. And it's like, then all
Speaker 1: these other people are kind of like peering into the
Speaker 1: crack and being like, what else is in there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, you're right, And I will say that this
Speaker 2: is really just the beginning of what will be uncovered
Speaker 2: about George Santos, and ultimately this is a story of
Speaker 2: personal betrayal. Coming up on the next episode of Deep Cover.
Speaker 2: George Santos.
Speaker 12: His mom is pretty central his campaign. He called her
Speaker 12: a Wall Street executive. He said that she escaped the
Speaker 12: South Tower during nine to eleven. He said that she
Speaker 12: was a big political actor.
Speaker 6: There are a few people in this world you should
Speaker 6: not lie to. You're a lawyer, your doctor, and your
Speaker 6: communications director.
Speaker 1: This series is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Joey
Speaker 1: fish Ground. Our editor is Karen Chakerji. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Jacob Smith, mastering by Jake Gorski, fact checking by
Speaker 1: Anica Robbins. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney.
Speaker 1: Music in this episode is from Luis Gerra and Epidemic
Speaker 1: Sound Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, and Greta Cone.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake calpern