Speaker 1: Pushkin so Jake.
Speaker 2: When we started reporting this series, I set out to
Speaker 2: speak with one of Santos's donors because I thought it
Speaker 2: would be interesting to talk to someone who chose to
Speaker 2: support Santos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I totally didn't think you're gonna get anyone
Speaker 3: to talk to you on the record.
Speaker 2: Me too, But also, I mean, Santos's donors play a
Speaker 2: significant role in the indictments against him, so I was
Speaker 2: hopeful I would get someone on the record. And now,
Speaker 2: with George Santos pleading guilty in federal court, we won't
Speaker 2: have a trial, and so there's many people we won't
Speaker 2: hear from. But today you're gonna hear from someone who
Speaker 2: was subpoenaed, someone who was expecting to have to testify
Speaker 2: about George Santos, who once upon a time was his ally.
Speaker 4: I met George at an event in Maddictuck, out east
Speaker 4: on Long Island, probably in twenty twenty one. It was hot,
Speaker 4: so it must have been the summer.
Speaker 1: This is Kathy Soref.
Speaker 4: It was an event that was held by someone I
Speaker 4: didn't know, but I had been invited to this, probably
Speaker 4: because of my history of supporting conservative candidates.
Speaker 2: She's a Republican donor who lives on Long Island on
Speaker 2: the north.
Speaker 3: Shore, the North Shore like Gatsby Country.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: Kathy has voted for every Republican presidential candidate since Gerald Ford.
Speaker 2: When I interviewed Kathy at her house, there was a
Speaker 2: lot going on. I got the sense that Kathy's house
Speaker 2: is always buzzing with activity. And also just me calling
Speaker 2: it a house is really underselling it, because this place
Speaker 2: was massive.
Speaker 1: Outside.
Speaker 2: There are these colorful sculptures of animals all over the property,
Speaker 2: like think pink, blue, purple. The house is at the
Speaker 2: end of a private road, and when I parked outside,
Speaker 2: I noticed there was room to park. I guess at
Speaker 2: least ten cars outside the front door.
Speaker 4: What do you call the house the Villa Gorilla?
Speaker 1: Where did that name come from?
Speaker 4: Well, it's disputed. My nephews take credit for it, but
Speaker 4: I think that Douglas named it that after a Warren
Speaker 4: Zevon saw.
Speaker 2: Douglas is her husband. So all this to say, she's
Speaker 2: got a great house for parties. Anyway, back to the
Speaker 2: moment when Kathy first met George Santos. She told me
Speaker 2: that before she actually met him in person, at that
Speaker 2: Republican fundrase r out east on the Island, she got
Speaker 2: a phone call.
Speaker 4: I don't know how much of a coincidence it was,
Speaker 4: but I received a phone call from George asking for
Speaker 4: money because he was announcing his candidacy.
Speaker 3: Before that even met. He just like cold called.
Speaker 1: Her, yes, well, out of the blue.
Speaker 3: Like he'd just gotten a whiff of what she might
Speaker 3: do for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And then when she arrives at the fundraiser, guess who
Speaker 2: she's sitting with.
Speaker 4: We were seated at the same table. George described himself
Speaker 4: as being independently well to do and felt that he
Speaker 4: it was his civic duty to participate in public service.
Speaker 2: And Kathy told me that she liked him even from
Speaker 2: that first meeting, even if he wasn't her perfect candidate.
Speaker 4: George is not your average type and certainly not my
Speaker 4: ideal political candidate, but for a Republican running in Democrat
Speaker 4: New York, I thought he would be he would win. So,
Speaker 4: you know, I said that I would support him and
Speaker 4: give him, you know, a couple of events which I
Speaker 4: did to help him introduce him to other people. So
Speaker 4: I expended a lot of my own personal political capital,
Speaker 4: meaning my friends and connections who participate in conservative politics,
Speaker 4: and they supported George for the same reason that I did.
Speaker 3: What does she mean by that? What is her reason?
Speaker 2: I think she meant that he was a candidate who
Speaker 2: could maybe win in New York and in that district.
Speaker 1: You know, she found him quite charming.
Speaker 4: Well, he's kind of a weird guy, but he's kind
Speaker 4: of oddly charismatics, whip it smart, a very very quick thinking,
Speaker 4: he has a lot of social references, and he's very palsy.
Speaker 2: And Kathy isn't the only one who saw something promising
Speaker 2: in this new young candidate. She was just one of
Speaker 2: many donors who contributed to the Santos campaign. Donors who
Speaker 2: were deceived and in some cases defrauded, And these donors
Speaker 2: have played a huge role in his unraveling.
Speaker 1: The man who flew under the radar for so long and.
Speaker 2: Seemingly got away with a lot of lies and half
Speaker 2: truths and deceit has finally had to face some real consequences.
Speaker 2: This is Deep Cover George Santos Episode four, The Donor. So,
Speaker 2: as you're aware, Santos was indicted twice, but I want
Speaker 2: to talk for a moment about that first indictment that
Speaker 2: came down in May of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: We were shocked.
Speaker 5: My phone is literally blowing up in the worst way possible.
Speaker 5: Inquiries about saying, is George going to jail? What's going on?
Speaker 5: And it's just I thought, my reputation is so screwed.
Speaker 2: That's Nesa Woomer. She was Santos's communications director. So this
Speaker 2: indictment is for thirteen counts. The charges range from money
Speaker 2: laundering to stealing public money, wire fraud, and making false
Speaker 2: statements to Congress. And it's in that moment that everyone
Speaker 2: can see for the first time, really what sort of
Speaker 2: criminal allegations George Santos is facing. These are things that
Speaker 2: go beyond the stories that he told about his personal
Speaker 2: life or some fabrications on his resume. A lot had
Speaker 2: been speculated. Things come into sharp focus when the charges
Speaker 2: come out.
Speaker 5: I'm disgusted. I'm thoroughly disgusted. I thought, okay, now we're
Speaker 5: in you know, wire fraud and money laundering. You know,
Speaker 5: respect is gone. It became it was too much and
Speaker 5: it became too toxic.
Speaker 2: And directly following that indictment, Santos faces a vote from
Speaker 2: the House. Someone introduces a resolution to expel him. Essentially
Speaker 2: to oust him from Congress, and I'm.
Speaker 6: Personally in favor of this individual's expulsion from this House. Regretably, however,
Speaker 6: I'm in the understanding that we currently do not have
Speaker 6: the two thirds support from members of this House to
Speaker 6: expel that individual.
Speaker 2: So, just to break down what's happening here, you're hearing
Speaker 2: from a Republican also from New York, who is not
Speaker 2: happy with Santos. But at this moment in time, the
Speaker 2: Republicans have the majority in the House, and it seems
Speaker 2: like politically there are quite a few Republicans who don't
Speaker 2: want to put that into jeopardy.
Speaker 3: Just to be clear here, this is a district that
Speaker 3: could swing back to blue in theory.
Speaker 2: Yes, so the House votes to keep Santos in office
Speaker 2: for now. But in this moment, Nesa is done. You know,
Speaker 2: she's asked around for advice and they've all basically told
Speaker 2: her the same thing.
Speaker 4: They just said.
Speaker 5: If I were you, or if I was advising a client,
Speaker 5: I would resign. The longer you stay, the longer it's
Speaker 5: going to hurt you.
Speaker 2: NASA resigns right after that unsuccessful vote to oust Santos
Speaker 2: from Congress.
Speaker 3: So I'm curious back in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: the donors that George Santos was courting people like Kathy.
Speaker 3: Do you get the sense that she had any idea
Speaker 3: what this guy was really up to.
Speaker 2: Kathy has said to me that she had no clue
Speaker 2: about what George Santos was up to, and I believe
Speaker 2: her on that. I mean, she had no reason not
Speaker 2: to trust him in that moment. I do get the
Speaker 2: sense that Kathy and George Santos formed a friendship in
Speaker 2: the time that they knew each other.
Speaker 4: He came to my house several times. He would drop.
Speaker 4: He claimed to live near here. He told me that
Speaker 4: his mother died of cancer. He told me that his
Speaker 4: mother went to Harvard.
Speaker 1: He told you that his mother went to Harvard.
Speaker 4: Yes, he did. And he also told me that he
Speaker 4: had survived cancer.
Speaker 1: That George had survived cancer.
Speaker 4: Right, he did tell me that, did he give? I
Speaker 4: didn't go into it because when someone says, oh, yes,
Speaker 4: I'm a cancer survivor, I didn't say, well, what kind
Speaker 4: did you have? I just was kind of stunned. I said, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry. That added to his story and appeal that
Speaker 4: he's a survivor.
Speaker 3: You see It's like it's like a jazz musician. He's
Speaker 3: just improvising. I haven't heard these these Santos stories yet.
Speaker 2: This is yes, wow, yeah, this is the first time
Speaker 2: I had heard a lot of this too. And I
Speaker 2: think that maybe some of these stories were cherry picked
Speaker 2: for Kathy.
Speaker 3: What do you mean that you think that some of
Speaker 3: these stories might have been cherry picked for Kathy?
Speaker 2: Like these are things that George Santos thought would impress Kathy,
Speaker 2: and I should say. Kathy would later tell me it
Speaker 2: was actually Yale that his mother attended, not Harvard, and
Speaker 2: that she actually isn't all that impressed by an Ivy
Speaker 2: League education. But regardless, I see this as George Santos
Speaker 2: trying to play the role trying to impress Kathy. I see,
Speaker 2: And George needs someone like Kathy to like him, right,
Speaker 2: because Kathy is a door to connections to more money,
Speaker 2: Which brings us back to this event that Kathy decides
Speaker 2: she's going to throw for George at the Villa Gorilla.
Speaker 2: She couldn't remember the exact date, but thinks it was
Speaker 2: ing the twenty twenty two campaign. She told me she
Speaker 2: sent out printed invites, and of course I wanted to
Speaker 2: hear every detail.
Speaker 1: Santos stood at the door. He was like the welcome wagon.
Speaker 4: He was greeting everyone, and we were standing in the
Speaker 4: front hall and I would introduce him to everyone. It
Speaker 4: was casual. Then we were inside and outside, and then
Speaker 4: he gave this talk in the living room. George was
Speaker 4: very funny and engaging.
Speaker 3: It's funny the image of him standing at the door
Speaker 3: to this mansion as if he were welcoming guests to
Speaker 3: his own home. I mean it just that seems so
Speaker 3: believable to me and so kind of fitting for this
Speaker 3: guy's aspirations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and who.
Speaker 3: Were the people at Villa Gorilla that evening?
Speaker 4: My focus is next generation, So we had quite a
Speaker 4: few young people here from the area. Maybe we had
Speaker 4: thirty people. But I'm sure he raised a fair amount
Speaker 4: of money. I had several of my local, longtime friends
Speaker 4: who showed up for it. It was tremendously horrible for
Speaker 4: me of what happened.
Speaker 2: What happened, meaning when she eventually learned what Santos was
Speaker 2: really up to. When the New York Times story came out.
Speaker 4: The guy hood winked everyone. For me, I'm furious because
Speaker 4: I spent some of my friends that I asked to
Speaker 4: support George. I mean all of them, they know me,
Speaker 4: so they're you know, and they were hoodwinked and know
Speaker 4: that I was hoodwinked. But they were upset that they
Speaker 4: were dragged into this and it was my responsibility.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 4: I am mad at myself for not doing my own
Speaker 4: due diligence.
Speaker 3: Does Kathy see herself as a victim?
Speaker 2: Kathy told me that she considers herself that she was
Speaker 2: defrauded by George Santos, but she does not think that Santos,
Speaker 2: you know, stole from her. She does not think that
Speaker 2: her credit card information was misused in any way. And
Speaker 2: the reason that's irrelevant distinction is because Santo's did steal
Speaker 2: from some of his donors by charging their credit cards
Speaker 2: without their consent for large sums of money.
Speaker 4: He did not steal from me. I probably in total,
Speaker 4: besides the and it probably cost me a few thousand
Speaker 4: dollars to give him an event. I probably in addition,
Speaker 4: maybe it was about six thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: I've seen Newsday did like a review of federal election data,
Speaker 2: and I think they pegged you at like seven thousand.
Speaker 4: Well maybe some you know, I don't really keep track
Speaker 4: of it. I gave him a check. I think maybe
Speaker 4: one time I gave him a credit card. I don't remember.
Speaker 4: I don't I'd have to go through all of my
Speaker 4: right papers again. But it was, you know, nominal, like
Speaker 4: one thousand dollars at a time.
Speaker 2: I have to ask the question, do you know of
Speaker 2: anyone who attended a fundraiser at your house may have
Speaker 2: had their credit card information?
Speaker 4: I don't know for a fact any of that.
Speaker 2: So to be clear, Kathy does not know if anyone
Speaker 2: in her orbit that she had at the fundraiser was
Speaker 2: part of this credit card fraud scheme, whether they were
Speaker 2: targets for that. But I can say that the indictment
Speaker 2: lays out some other examples in detail, and Santos goes
Speaker 2: on a spending spree with his donor's credit cards. More
Speaker 2: on that after the break.
Speaker 3: So credit card fraud, it's a pretty big deal. How
Speaker 3: much are we talking about money wise here?
Speaker 2: So there's one example in particular that's laid out in
Speaker 2: the indictment, And to protect this person's ident, it's anonymized,
Speaker 2: so they're only referred to as contributor number twelve. So
Speaker 2: this all begins when contributor number twelve sends their credit
Speaker 2: card info to the Santos campaign and the Santos team
Speaker 2: charges it for more than they should on that day.
Speaker 2: And this is an issue for two reasons, the first
Speaker 2: being that contributor number twelve did not authorize this overcharge,
Speaker 2: but also it's over the limit of what's allowed, which
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty two was twenty nine hundred dollars
Speaker 2: that you could give once for the primary and then
Speaker 2: again in the general election.
Speaker 3: Okay, so in theory, that's fifty eight hundred for the two.
Speaker 3: Now what's the deal with contributor number twelve? How much
Speaker 3: over was this person charged?
Speaker 2: So Contributor number twelve was charged fifteen thousand, eight hundred dollars,
Speaker 2: so almost sixteen thousand in contributions, which is ten thousand
Speaker 2: over what is technically allowed.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, is that is that a mistake? You
Speaker 3: want to say, like, right, did this happen more than once?
Speaker 1: It did?
Speaker 2: So Santos and his team attempted over forty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: of contributions from Contributor twelve over the course of a
Speaker 2: few months, so they repeatedly charged his card. And then
Speaker 2: we see an even more brazen act when the indictment
Speaker 2: lays out that Santos just started sending money to his
Speaker 2: own personal account directly, again without any authorization from Contributor
Speaker 2: number twelve. So in one case, they used their credit
Speaker 2: card billing information to transfer more than eleven thousand dollars
Speaker 2: to Santos's personal bank account.
Speaker 3: He's like a kid in a candy store with no
Speaker 3: one watching, it seems like.
Speaker 2: And this is also the first time in the indictment
Speaker 2: we hear about something that prosecutors call company number one.
Speaker 2: At a certain point during the twenty twenty two campaign,
Speaker 2: Santos uses the credit card billing information of Contributor twelve,
Speaker 2: charges twelve thousand dollars and it hits the account of
Speaker 2: Company number one.
Speaker 3: What is company number one?
Speaker 2: So the House Ethics Report and other reporting has identified
Speaker 2: Company number one as red Stone Strategies. Red Stone Strategies
Speaker 2: is all over this indictment as company number one.
Speaker 3: And let me guess it was formed just before the election.
Speaker 2: It was formed in November twenty twenty one, so yes,
Speaker 2: around the time that Santos is mounting his campaign for
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty two election.
Speaker 1: It was formed in Florida.
Speaker 2: Santos is a major stakeholder of Redstone Strategies gets tried
Speaker 2: to distance himself, but his fingerprints appear to be all
Speaker 2: over this company. And so, basically, going back to contributor
Speaker 2: number twelve for a moment, they are charged twelve thousand
Speaker 2: dollars to Redstone Strategies, and then it seems like what
Speaker 2: prosecutors allegend the indictment is that most of that twelve
Speaker 2: thousand dollars goes from Redstone Strategies directly to Santos's personal
Speaker 2: bank account.
Speaker 3: Again, okay, so I have a question about contributor number twelve.
Speaker 3: How did this person not notice that their credit card
Speaker 3: was being charged excessively by tens of thousands of dollars?
Speaker 3: Like at my house when I see like an Amazon
Speaker 3: charge for nine ninety nine that I don't recognize, I'm like, huh, so,
Speaker 3: what's going on here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 2: I wish I had an answer for you, okay, And
Speaker 2: I should say that there are two other donors who
Speaker 2: each made contributions of twenty five one thousand dollars to
Speaker 2: Redstone Strategies. That is a problem for multiple reasons, and
Speaker 2: Redstone Strategies was not set up to accept political contributions,
Speaker 2: it was not actually registered with the proper authorities.
Speaker 3: Where does that money go?
Speaker 2: So they were told that money would go to pay
Speaker 2: for advertising, but it looks like that money almost all
Speaker 2: of it, So fifty thousand dollars total went directly to
Speaker 2: Santosi's personal accounts. In the indictment, they say that that
Speaker 2: went to cash withdrawals, personal purchases of luxury designer clothing,
Speaker 2: credit card payments, a car payment, payments on personal debts.
Speaker 2: The House report gets even more specific. They claimed that
Speaker 2: some of that fifty thousand dollars was actually spent at
Speaker 2: or Mez, the fancy designer store, over four thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Right, which is a legitimate business expense if you're going
Speaker 3: to convinced owners at the Villa Gorilla that you are
Speaker 3: the man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe he thought that that was just you know,
Speaker 2: so much of Santos's campaign was trying to keep up
Speaker 2: appearances and court the Kathyes of the world right and
Speaker 2: show them that he was on their level, and so
Speaker 2: maybe he felt like he needed to engage in this
Speaker 2: kind of spending to keep up this persona By the
Speaker 2: time that that second indictment is out and the House
Speaker 2: ethics report has been published. A lot of people are
Speaker 2: just done with George Santos. For at least some Republicans
Speaker 2: in Congress, they've seen enough, and they have one more
Speaker 2: vote to oust him from Congress. In December of twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: Three, two thirds voting in the affirmative, the resolution is adopted.
Speaker 7: The cheer announces to the House that in light of
Speaker 7: the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, mister Santos,
Speaker 7: the whole number of the House is now four hundred
Speaker 7: and thirty four.
Speaker 3: Hold up, Amy, So what does this mean for Republicans
Speaker 3: in the House, Like, what's going to happen with Santos's seat?
Speaker 2: So there was actually already a special election held for
Speaker 2: Santos's seat earlier this year and the Democrat won, so
Speaker 2: ultimately one less Republican in the House because of all
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 4: He was working in his own self interest and he
Speaker 4: succeeded bizarrely and becoming a congressman.
Speaker 2: You can still hear Kathy trying to make sense out
Speaker 2: of this, figuring out how this happened and who is
Speaker 2: to blame more on that in a minute, I was
Speaker 2: struck by one thing that Kathy said in particular, towards
Speaker 2: the end of our conversation.
Speaker 4: He would never have won as himself, which is another
Speaker 4: commentary on societ. I mean, George none of himself. He's
Speaker 4: a smart guy. I don't think he went to college,
Speaker 4: but I mean it's I mean, in the future, I
Speaker 4: think that college is going to be passe. And George,
Speaker 4: if he was left to what he could actually do.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's pretty smart and talented, but he didn't
Speaker 4: have the credentials, so he lied about his credentials, and
Speaker 4: he didn't have the money, so he stalled. Or I
Speaker 4: just shouldn't say he stole. He's accused of stealing to
Speaker 4: to you know, it's the old Machiavellian means to an end.
Speaker 3: Well, he never would have won as himself, is what
Speaker 3: she says. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, if I'm hearing
Speaker 3: her right, she's almost saying like maybe, like at some
Speaker 3: point in the future, the things that he needed, like
Speaker 3: going to college, is going to become passe. It's not
Speaker 3: going to be this kind of bar to entry. She's
Speaker 3: kind of seeing future where some of the old benchmarks
Speaker 3: for what makes a good congressman or whatever or not there.
Speaker 3: And it's almost like she's saying he was ahead of
Speaker 3: his time and so he just had to lie to
Speaker 3: get around the kind of bars to entry that existed,
Speaker 3: but that he actually was smart enough and charming enough
Speaker 3: to that he had those kind of core aspects of
Speaker 3: what it would take, but he just couldn't get in
Speaker 3: because he didn't meet these other thresholds that are we
Speaker 3: still insist upon. I don't know. It's like she's almost
Speaker 3: like sympathetic to him in this moment.
Speaker 1: Oh, completely.
Speaker 2: And I found this fascinating because in this moment she's
Speaker 2: very self aware, I think, and that's what I hear
Speaker 2: is just you know, society wouldn't have accepted him as himself.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because she says it's a commentary on society
Speaker 3: that society never would have accepted George for who he was.
Speaker 3: But what she's really saying is I never would have
Speaker 3: accepted George for who he was. I mean she in
Speaker 3: this case, she is the gatekeeper. Yeah, she's the gatekeeper
Speaker 3: of this society completely. And I am certain, or I
Speaker 3: feel certain, that George Santos understood that deep in his bones.
Speaker 3: And if that is true, I wonder if he held
Speaker 3: a contempt that fueled his ability and his willingness to
Speaker 3: brazenly lie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're still see, so you're still fixated on the
Speaker 2: why George Santos did this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the end, that's the question that I think
Speaker 3: is gonna Yeah, that's the question that stays with me.
Speaker 3: At least I keep thinking that, like, maybe there's kind
Speaker 3: of deeper explanations to what he did then maybe at
Speaker 3: first blush it.
Speaker 2: Seems Yeah, Look, I think that it's interesting to parse
Speaker 2: that out, and we could we could spend the next
Speaker 2: twenty years arguing about the why. But for me, the
Speaker 2: more interesting question is how does something like this happen?
Speaker 2: Because I don't think under standing the psychology of George
Speaker 2: Santos is going to prevent the next George Santos. I
Speaker 2: think understanding the forces that put him in this position
Speaker 2: and allowed him to get away with seemingly so many
Speaker 2: lies and crimes without consequence for quite some time that
Speaker 2: is the bigger issue to be addressing here, And so
Speaker 2: how do you prevent that from happening again? I mean,
Speaker 2: it's interesting when Kathy first hears about the New York
Speaker 2: Times reporting, she's furious, but not even with Santos as
Speaker 2: much as she's angry with the Republican Party in Nasa
Speaker 2: County and one guy who is the head of the
Speaker 2: Republican committee named Joe Cairo.
Speaker 4: Well, what the hell? What about picking up the goddamn
Speaker 4: telephone and calling Brooke, calling NYU, calling Goldman Sachs. And
Speaker 4: this was not the first campaign, this was the second campaign.
Speaker 4: And so to me, I mean, Joe Cairo should be
Speaker 4: fired out, you know, as far as I'm concerned. I mean,
Speaker 4: I am furious with him. I mean, George pulled the
Speaker 4: wool over his eyes. It's like, uh, you know, mister
Speaker 4: Ripley meets catch me if you can.
Speaker 2: I asked Joe Cairo for comment about this. He conceded
Speaker 2: that there were some shortcomings in the vetting process. He
Speaker 2: once told a reporter quote, I guess unfortunately we rely
Speaker 2: on the person to be truthful to us. But I
Speaker 2: will also say that there's no real requirement for these
Speaker 2: committees to vet members of Congress. So it really comes
Speaker 2: down to the parties and journalists and whoever else is
Speaker 2: paying attention to root out problems with these candidates who
Speaker 2: are running for office. And I think that that's what
Speaker 2: this story lays bare, that this is potentially a weak
Speaker 2: point in this whole process.
Speaker 3: There are some federal jobs where they do vet people.
Speaker 3: I know, I have a buddy who was a Foreign
Speaker 3: Service officer, and they did all kinds of background check
Speaker 3: on him. They even call me. I mean, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of federal government jobs where they vet people, but
Speaker 3: I guess this is not one of them. And it's
Speaker 3: interesting because Kathy she's furious at Joe Cairo, the Republican
Speaker 3: operative who kind of made the introduction, because he didn't
Speaker 3: do this due diligence. And I get that on some level,
Speaker 3: like Kathy's job is to raise the money, it's not
Speaker 3: to vet the candidates. So she did her job right,
Speaker 3: She opened her house, she called her friends, all this
Speaker 3: and that.
Speaker 2: Right, because I think it goes further than that that
Speaker 2: this was a personal relationship that she had with George Santos.
Speaker 2: So she feels angry with the party for not vetting
Speaker 2: this guy better, while also being sort of shocked that
Speaker 2: she's been lied to so extensively by this person, that
Speaker 2: she trusted, this guy that she let into her world.
Speaker 4: I'd never had anyone lie to me so bald facedly.
Speaker 3: When the scandal breaks, does she hear from George, does
Speaker 3: he like call up to check in or anything.
Speaker 4: George was fishing around to see if I was going
Speaker 4: to be on his side, and I said, I never
Speaker 4: want to speak to him again.
Speaker 3: Wait, did she tell him that to his face?
Speaker 2: Kathy told me that one of Santos's staffers reached out
Speaker 2: to her to kind of feel her out, but she
Speaker 2: says in that moment, I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm never talking to you again.
Speaker 2: It was clear to her she could see plainly that
Speaker 2: he had lied to her to her face, and she
Speaker 2: wasn't willing to tolerate that. I think Kathy really feels
Speaker 2: burned twice because she was duped by this guy, but
Speaker 2: also because she opened up her doors and her network
Speaker 2: and those people were also duped by George Santos, and
Speaker 2: she feels responsible. The moment for Kathy where I think
Speaker 2: this becomes incredibly serious is when the indictment comes down
Speaker 2: and she has to relive this all over again.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 4: I was horrified. It was incredulous. I immediately wrote a
Speaker 4: letter of apology to my friends, saying it was my
Speaker 4: responsibility for not doing my independent due diligence.
Speaker 2: You know, Kathy is clearly not happy with the Republican
Speaker 2: Party in New York. She made that extremely clear in
Speaker 2: our interview, but I think she also feels how a
Speaker 2: lot of people have felt, how did.
Speaker 1: We not see it?
Speaker 2: There are numerous places in this story where you can
Speaker 2: feel like this is a story of the system working, right,
Speaker 2: that you have journalists, and you have watchdog groups, and
Speaker 2: you have investigators both within the House and within the
Speaker 2: Department of Justice that all do their jobs. And that's
Speaker 2: why we know as much as we know at this
Speaker 2: point about Santos and the extent of his schemes. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm still stuck on the question of how did this
Speaker 2: go on for so long undetected?
Speaker 3: I mean, because like, look, and this is not to
Speaker 3: diminish this is not to take away from any of
Speaker 3: the investigations that went on, But at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, the unraveling of this occurs by doing some
Speaker 3: very simple things. Calling up Baroke College and saying, hey,
Speaker 3: did this guy go here? Calling up Goldman Sachs and
Speaker 3: saying did this guy work here? Or looking at his
Speaker 3: campaign finance records online which are publicly available. Right, all
Speaker 3: of which is to say, this isn't Watergate, this isn't
Speaker 3: deep throat where there's like some guy in a bench
Speaker 3: who's like revealing some secrets that otherwise would be totally inaccessible.
Speaker 3: This is information that is relative accessible and just for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, folks had not been picking up the phone
Speaker 3: and looking over the reports. And I'm not pointing a
Speaker 3: finger to anyone saying, oh, anyone fell out there, but
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm just noting that that's that's the thing
Speaker 3: that's so striking about this story. It's not that the
Speaker 3: information was inaccessible or contained by one impossible to access source.
Speaker 3: It was just that no one bothered to pick up
Speaker 3: the phone. And that's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: So, and this might surprise you, because it was surprising
Speaker 2: to me. Someone did pick up the phone his own campaign,
Speaker 2: and a report was commissioned.
Speaker 3: Wait and when WHOA sorry, this is crazy? Who commissioned this?
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one, the Santos campaign commissioned a vulnerability
Speaker 2: report on their candidate. It's quite common in politics these days. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you would do opposition research where you're trying
Speaker 2: to learn about the other candidate, but there's also what
Speaker 2: they call a vulnerability study or a vulnerability report, which
Speaker 2: is how can I best prepare for attacks that my
Speaker 2: opponent might work, and so the report costs nearly seventeen
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. The results come back and they find a
Speaker 2: lot of the same things that had been laid out
Speaker 2: that would later come to light in the New York
Speaker 2: Times report, what like that he had faced multiple evictions
Speaker 2: and that there was no record of his college degrees.
Speaker 2: So again, like a lot of the things that we
Speaker 2: the public would learn about in December of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two were known to his campaign over a year prior.
Speaker 2: There's reporting to indicate that members of his team left
Speaker 2: after that report came through, and Santos maintained to his
Speaker 2: team at that time that he had diplomas that he
Speaker 2: could show them. It's the same familiar Santo's refrain of
Speaker 2: I have answers, I have receipts, but that never materializes.
Speaker 2: And so you know, throughout this story there are so
Speaker 2: many moments of when this whole thing could have collapsed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because there were people who knew and walked away and
Speaker 2: washed their hands of it and for whatever reason did
Speaker 2: not come forward to out this guy.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you thought, I mean, and now I
Speaker 3: understand why Kathy gets so mad for not vetting him. Also,
Speaker 3: seventeen thousand dollars, Amy does we should have said call
Speaker 3: out to listeners. We hear deep Cover will do it
Speaker 3: for one quarter of that price.
Speaker 1: We will call Beroke College for a fraction of that.
Speaker 3: Give me five hundred bucks, and I will call all
Speaker 3: the places the guy claimed to work and tell you
Speaker 3: if that's not true, and you'll have it back in
Speaker 3: six hours.
Speaker 2: I know, I really want to talk to somebody who
Speaker 2: worked on that report.
Speaker 1: So these are still like I still have.
Speaker 2: Questions here, right, Yeah, I mean I was really hoping
Speaker 2: that this would go to trial so we could air
Speaker 2: out all of the specifics, like who is contributed number twelve?
Speaker 1: Right, I don't know that I'll get an answer to that.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering. You said you talked to Kathy after this.
Speaker 3: What's her feeling because she said she was expecting to testify,
Speaker 3: So how does she feel about how did she feel
Speaker 3: about the plea?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, actually wasn't sure if Kathy was going to speak
Speaker 2: with me again, but I got her on the phone
Speaker 2: this morning.
Speaker 8: It was good news for me that George pleaded guilty
Speaker 8: on Monday, because now I don't.
Speaker 4: Have to go and testify.
Speaker 8: Good thing that George went ahead and wasn't so arrogant
Speaker 8: as to continue this and that at least he's passing
Speaker 8: up and you know, hopefully he will serve his sentence,
Speaker 8: be repentant, and hopefully he'll learn his lesson and will
Speaker 8: stop lying to eating and feeling.
Speaker 2: If he apologized to you, would you forgive him?
Speaker 8: Not now?
Speaker 4: Not now?
Speaker 8: You know you don't again you we believe him until
Speaker 8: it's like you want to see what he actually does.
Speaker 3: This series was produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid, Izzy Carter
Speaker 3: and Joey fish Ground. Our editor is Karen shakergi Our
Speaker 3: executive producer is Jacob Smith. Mastering by Jake Gorsky, fact
Speaker 3: checking by Anica Robbins. Our show art was designed by
Speaker 3: Sean Carney. Music in this series is from Luis Gara
Speaker 3: Jake Gorsky An Epidemic Sound Special thanks to Sarah Nix,
Speaker 3: Eric Sandler, Sarah Bruger, Carrie Brody, Jake Flanagan, Lydia Gene Kott,
Speaker 3: Jordan McMillan, Ben Nat f Haffrey, Kira Posey, Owen Miller,
Speaker 3: Christina Sullivan, Sophie Crane, Fara Day Grunge and Greta Cohen.
Speaker 3: Additional thanks to Switch and Board Studio, Janelle Forsyth, Britta Glanis,
Speaker 3: Jason McQuaid and Karen Gaine. I'm Jake Halpern