Representative George Santos collected unemployment benefits while earning a huge annual salary, state and federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday in a 13-count indictment.
Santos faces charges of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and lying to the House of Representatives, prosecutors said. He was arrested on Wednesday morning in New York.
The New York Republican, already infamous for lying about almost every aspect of his life, allegedly funnelled campaign contributions to pay down personal debts and buy designer clothes.
House Republicans have complained nonstop about fraudsters stealing federal unemployment benefits that Congress created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic ― and apparently, that’s exactly what one of their own members did starting in 2020.
Santos told the New York Department of Labour that he was unemployed from March 2020 to April 2021 while he was actually working as a regional director for an investment firm earning a six-figure salary, according to the indictment. Santos collected nearly $25,000 (close to £20,000) in employment benefits during this time, constituting a felony in New York state.
“He used political contributions to line his pockets, unlawfully applied for unemployment benefits that should have gone to New Yorkers who had lost their jobs due to the pandemic and lied to the House of Representatives,” Breon Peace, a federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, said in a press release.
The indictment comes as House Republicans advance legislation that would scale back benefits for low-income households. Santos has been an outspoken advocate for stricter “work requirements” in programs that help poor people afford food and health care.
Last month, Santos proposed an amendment to Republicans’ debt ceiling legislation to establish a minimum work requirement of 30 hours per week for Medicaid recipients.
Republican leaders avoided blaming Santos for potentially abusing unemployment benefits. Instead, they criticised a system they say is too vulnerable to fraud.
“We’re going to continue to root out fraud, and there’s a lot of it,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (Republican, Louisiana) told HuffPost.
“We are committed to making sure that we root out any fraud when it comes to unemployment pandemic assistance. We’re working to have support from our conference. It’s good policy, and we urge the Democrats to vote in support of it,” said No. 3 House Republican Elise Stefanik (Republican, New York).
This week, Republicans have scheduled a vote on a bill that would crack down on unemployment insurance fraud, including giving states incentives to recover past overpayments and extending the statute of limitations for federal criminal charges related to unemployment insurance fraud.
President Joe Biden has already threatened to veto the bill, which would still have to pass the Senate before reaching his desk, because the proposal would rescind funds Congress allocated for state workforce agencies to upgrade their anti-fraud efforts.
Dylan Peachey — a spokesperson for Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees unemployment insurance policy — said a vote for the Republican bill would essentially be a vote to let people like Santos “steal from taxpayers.”
“Democrats’ investments in fighting fraud are working, so much so that our efforts have even made it to the halls of Congress, and not only did Republicans all vote against this funding, now they want to claw it all back,” Peachey said.
“Republicans only want to make it easier for the George Santoses of the world to steal from taxpayers, discouraging prosecutions and leaving our state UI [unemployment insurance] systems more vulnerable in the event of a major stressor.”
The federal indictment against Santos is the first of the multiple ongoing investigations into Santos’ background. After winning a House seat in a New York swing district last year, a series of damning reports revealed how Santos had lied about everything from where he went to school and worked to playing college volleyball and where his mother was on 9/11.
Members of New York’s congressional delegation and Republicans in his district have called on Santos to resign. Last month, Santos announced that he was running for reelection despite the chorus of voices asking him to leave Congress.
Jonathan Nicholson contributed reporting.