David Corn's Blog, page 23

Another Santos Money Mystery: He Struck a Curious Business Deal With a Veteran GOP Operative

This past weekend, George Santos, the Republican fabulist from New York, was sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives, even as serious questions remained about his personal and political finances, particularly the source of the millions of dollars in income he claimed on financial disclosure forms and of the $705,000 he loaned to his campaign. As multiple investigations—federal, state, and local—envelope Santos and local Republicans demand he resign, one person who might be able to provide answers about his puzzling money trail is a veteran GOP operative named Nancy Marks, who was the the treasurer of Santos’ two congressional campaigns. Not only was she a key part of his political machine—and deeply tied into Republican politics locally and nationally—she was a business partner of Santos. Her story, which has yet to draw much public examination, is an important component of the Santos tale. 

On Monday, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit watchdog group, filed a civil complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging Santos’ campaign possibly violated numerous laws. The named respondents were Santos, his campaign, his company, and Marks. The complaint cited highly unusual items on Santos’ campaign finance reports, such as a long list of $199.99 disbursements—one penny under the amount that would have required itemization. One such payment was for a “hotel stay” at the W South Beach Hotel in Miami, Florida, where the going-rate for the least-expensive room is roughly $700 a night. 

Campaign treasurers are generally not liable for campaign finance violations, but it is illegal for them to knowingly submit false reports, according to Adav Noti, senior vice president and legal director at the Campaign Legal Center. Marks’ consulting company, Campaigns Unlimited, was paid more than $100,000 by the Santos campaign for accounting and fundraising services, according to FEC records. “It is awfully hard to believe that whoever compiled and formally submitted Santos’ FEC reports believed that they were true,” Noti says. “They are just, on their face, obviously false.”

Marks, who lives on Long Island, has for years worked in Republican politics, operating different businesses that provide services to campaigns. Her Campaigns Unlimited assists candidates, political action committees, and super PACs with accounting, fundraising, and campaign finance matters. She’s been a treasurer for dozens of GOP campaigns, including Lee Zeldin’s congressional campaigns and his recent gubernatorial bid in New York. In the 2022 election cycle, Campaigns Unlimited worked for more than 30 PACs and candidate committees, according to FEC records. These entities included the 1776 Project PAC, a group that attacks progressive school curricula, numerous Republican House campaigns, and Santos’ GADS PAC. At the state level, Marks and her companies received at least $10,000 from Rise NY, a PAC that was run by Santos’ sister, Tiffany, and that paid her more than $21,000 in wages. 

Campaigns Unlimited maintains a low public profile; it apparently has no website. Its address is Marks’ home in Shirley, New York. Also listed at her home address is a company called GMG Print and Marketing Resources LLC, which has printed lawn signs for Santos and other candidates. In the past two years, GMG made more than $38,000 from printing Santos signs. (The Nassau County Republican Committee paid for most of that.)

Marks was more than just a Santos campaign aide and vendor. She and several relatives contributed more than $30,000 to the Santos campaign. (The relatives each gave the legal maximum of $5,800.) These donors did not give to any other federal candidates this election cycle. The group includes Marks’ two children who were, respectively, 19 and 22 years old when they started donating to Santos, according to public records. 

Marks also became one of Santos’ business partners while serving as the treasurer for his most recent congressional bid. In May 2021, her GMG joined with a company Santos was about to incorporate called the Devolder Organization LLC and with four other Florida corporations to form in that state a political consulting firm named Red Strategies USA.

The Devolder Organization is the mystery firm that Santos claims was the source of between $3.5 million and $11.5 million in income and dividends he supposedly pocketed in 2021 and 2022. He established the company in Florida in May 2021 shortly after Harbor City Capital, a Florida investment firm where he had worked for the previous 10 months, was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of running a Ponzi scheme. (Santos was not implicated in the alleged scam.)

Santos has given vague and contradictory explanations of what Devolder did and how he earned millions from it. Devolder is at the heart of the Santos controversy and seems tied to the massive amount of personal money he poured into his campaign. (His financial disclosure forms show he made $55,000 in 2020 working for a different company that hosted conferences for investors, and these filings report no income from Harbor City Capital—though on Wednesday the Washington Post reported that Santos had received a payment in 2021 from Harbor City Capital after he had left the firm.) 

A few weeks after Santos and Marks set up Red Strategies USA in 2021, GMG Print and Marketing Resources was replaced as a partner in this enterprise by another company registered at Marks’ Long Island address: RIA Concepts Holding. According to a LinkedIn page, Marks is the owner of RIA Concepts. The page does not describe RIA Concepts, and no website for the company appeared in an internet search. According to FEC records, Santos’ 2022 campaign paid RIA Concepts nearly $17,000 for fundraising and printing services. 

All four of the other firms that were partners with Santos and Marks in their Red Strategies USA venture were each affiliated with a different former Harbor City employee, including the firm’s onetime chief financial officer DeVaughn Dames. Dames served as the registered agent for Santos’ Devolder Organization and three of the other companies that created Red Strategies USA. (An online biography for Dames describes him as a “seasoned executive with investment experience and more than $1.5 billion in transactions between the Bahamas and the USA.”)

One of the Florida companies in this group that organized Red Strategies USA was Jayson Benoit & Associates. Benoit, who had worked at Harbor City Capital, soon after became a partner with Santos’ Devolder Organization in a firm called RedStone Strategies, another mysterious outfit that, according to the New York Times, raised hundreds of thousands of dollar for Santos’ recent congressional campaign without disclosing its activities and that appears to have skirted campaign finance law. Benoit did not respond to a request for comment. 

The bottom line: Red Strategies USA was controlled by Santos, four other Harbor City Capital alums, and Marks. With the exception of RIA, the firms that created Red Strategies USA—including the Devolder Organization—shared an address at a small office building in the Melbourne, Florida, neighborhood where Dames ran his business. 

A New York Republican strategist who knows Marks and who is familiar with Red Strategies USA says that Marks considered Santos “her favorite client” and that she went on multiple business trips to Florida with him. 

Soon after Santos and his colleagues set up Red Strategies USA, it began providing digital consulting and fundraising services to Tina Forte, a New York Republican running against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Forte was a QAnon-supporting MAGA activist—a self-described “deplorable”—who had attended the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

Forte announced her campaign against AOC in June 2021. At this time, Dames was her campaign treasurer, and the address for Forte’s campaign for the House seat representing New York’s 14th congressional district was the Melbourne address used by Dames, the Devolder Organization, and the other Florida companies that formed Red Strategies USA

This was an unusual arrangement. Santos and four former colleagues from a Florida company that went belly up because of an alleged Ponzi scheme each had their own companies in the Sunshine State. Those Florida enterprises and Marks’ consulting company then launched a political consulting firm that immediately hooked up with a QAnon-ish Trumpist as she initiated a long-shot campaign to bounce Ocasio-Cortez.  

Forte told local New York Republicans that she had been encouraged by Dames to enter the race, according to the New York GOP strategist, who says he concluded that Santos, Marks, Dames, and their colleagues hoped to profit from Forte raising tremendous amounts of money as a challenger to AOC. Dames did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Though Dames was listed as Forte’s treasurer when Forte first filed her declaration of candidacy with the FEC, Marks subsequently signed Forte’s first campaign finance filing as the treasurer for Forte’s campaign. At that point, according to these filings, the Forte campaign was based at the address for Marks’ Campaigns Unlimited and her home. Yet Marks was also serving as treasurer for another Republican in the race, Michael Rendino, the GOP Bronx chair, according to FEC filings.  The New York Republican strategist recalls that he told Marks that it was a bad idea for her to be the treasurer for two GOP candidates running against each other. “What the fuck are you doing?” he recounts asking her. 

From June through December 2021, Red Strategies USA earned about $110,000 from the Forte campaign. Then, according to FEC records, it did no more work for Forte. According to the GOP strategist, New York Republican Party officials leaned on Forte to cut ties with Red Strategies USA. When a Mother Jones reporter contacted Forte by phone, she said she was too busy making marinara sauce to talk. She did not respond to subsequent requests for comment.

Rendino dropped out of the race, and after Red Strategies USA ceased working for Forte, Marks went on to become the treasurer for a third candidate in the contest for AOC’s seat, Desi Cuellar, who was also running in the GOP primary. His campaign paid Marks’ Campaigns Unlimited $10,000 for accounting and compliance services. Forte won the Republican primary against Cuellar, who would remain a candidate on the Conservative Party line. In November, Ocasio-Cortez soundly defeated Forte and Cuellar. 

Red Strategies USA did not provide services to any other federal candidates or PACs beyond the Forte campaign. It is unclear what it did, if anything, after working for the Forte campaign. (Earlier in 2021, the firm had done ad and robo-call work for two GOP New York city council candidates, earning $26,000.) There appears to be no website for Red Strategies USA.

Marks had history with AOC’s congressional district. Two years earlier, she had been treasurer for John Cummings, a high school teacher and former cop, who was then challenging Ocasio-Cortez. Cummings, a Republican, raised a whopping $11 million for this race, in which he was eventually wiped out 72 to 27 percent. During that contest, Marks banked more than $170,000 from the Cummings campaign. When the election was done, Cummings was left with nearly $200,000 in campaign cash. 

Though Cummings, who now lives near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, opted to not again challenge Ocasio-Cortez in 2022 and has not publicly pursued any other political campaigns, he has continued to spend his 2020 campaign funds. From the end of 2020 until this past fall, he paid Marks $170,000 of the $193,000 leftover from his race against AOC, according to FEC filings. As recently as September, the Cummings campaign, with Marks still the treasurer, was paying her RIA Concepts $10,000 a month for “strategic political consulting services.” The Campaign Legal Center’s Noti calls these payments an “awful lot of money” for a “dormant campaign that’s not raising or spending any meaningful amount.”

The same FEC filings show that Cummings’ campaign last year paid $10,000 for “social media, web consulting services” to an entity called J Charles Consulting that is based in the Bronx within the same zip code as Cummings’ residence during his congressional campaign. (Cummings’ middle name is Charles.) The Cummings campaign also paid J Charles Consulting $1,540 on March 8, 2022, to cover “CPAC expenses.” This is presumably a reference to the Conservative Political Action Conference that Cummings attended, according to posts on his Facebook page. Cummings did not respond to questions sent to him via an associate. 

Mother Jones sent Santos’ lawyer a list of questions regarding the Devolder Organization, Red Strategies USA, his campaign and personal finances, and his relationship with Marks. The attorney replied that the list should be forwarded to Santos’ congressional office. Santos’ office did not respond.

Mother Jones emailed a similar list of queries to Marks and repeatedly contacted her office requesting an interview. She, too, did not respond.

Marks has long been involved in the sometimes rough world of GOP politics in Long Island. In 2016, Newsday reported that Marks had set up a meeting at her house where a Republican candidate for a local judgeship (for whose campaign Marks was the treasurer) met with a consultant with a felony criminal record. This consultant allegedly suggested that if the candidate paid him $10,000 and made a $2,000 donation to the Conservative Party, she would have a better shot at securing the Conservative Party line on the ballot. A text message cited by the newspaper indicated the consultant would be paid through Marks’ Campaigns Unlimited. But, the newspaper reported, the candidate did not make these payments. Marks told the newspaper there had been no such explicit offer, but Newsday said that she declined to answer questions about the money discussed at the meeting. 

As the treasurer for Santos’ campaign and as a close business partner of Santos’ Devolder Organization, Marks, an experienced campaign hand quite familiar with the intricacies of campaign finance, may well have knowledge about the money that supposedly came from Devolder and helped Santos win a congressional seat and about how his campaign raised and spent roughly $3 million. She is, no doubt, a key source for unraveling and explaining the mystery of Santos’ millions.

House Speaker Fight Shows Election Deniers Who Tried to Overthrow Democracy Still Control GOP

On the first day of the new Congress, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) delivered one of the nominating speeches for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who was seeking the House speakership. Jordan bemoaned a “government that has been weaponized” against the American people and called for greater accountability. The next day, during a second round of failed votes for McCarthy, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the leader of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, voiced a similar sentiment but in opposing McCarthy: “Washington is broken… We have an administration that has contempt for the American people.” Though the two men were on different sides in this battle royal, they were united in hypocrisy, for each of these decriers of abusive power had been collaborators in Donald Trump’s public crusade to promote the lies about the 2020 election that led to the January 6 insurrectionist attack on the Capitol and in Trump’s devious plotting to overturn the election and upend American democracy.

Their roles in the House GOP’s crapshow illustrated a profound fact largely overlooked in this hullabaloo: The political chaos that brought the House of Representatives to a standstill was being perpetuated by a party that two years earlier had tried to sabotage the republic and had championed falsehoods and conspiracy theories that led to seditious violence in the very chamber where the speakership fight was now occurring. Of the 222 Republicans currently in the House GOP caucus, 119 had on January 6, 2021, after the Trump-incited riot, affirmed the false charge of a stolen election by voting to block certification of Joe Biden’s victory. This group included most of the anti-McCarthy bloc, among them Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Ralph Norman, who in January 2021 texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that Trump should consider “Marshall Law” to remain in office. And this group included McCarthy.

The GOP civil war in the House was being fought over whether to elevate an election denier who had helped spread the Big Lie that spurred violence to a position that is second in the line of presidential succession. Yet McCarthy’s participation in that assault on democracy was not an issue. For Republicans, it was a prerequisite.

Though most Republicans elected to the new Congress share culpability for January 6 and the failed effort to blow up the 2020 election, Perry and Jordan stand out for their significant participation in Trump’s anti-constitutional and arguably criminal caper.

The House January 6 committee’s report details Perry as a key conspirator in one of Trump’s plots to reverse the election. After the 2020 election was called, Perry was a prominent cheerleader of Trump’s fraudulent claim the election had been stolen from him. He was one of 27 Republican House members who signed a letter requesting that Trump “direct Attorney General Barr to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate irregularities in the 2020 election.” He attended a December 21 Oval Office meeting with at least 10 other congressional Republicans to discuss a strategy for objecting to the electoral college votes on January 6. And with 125 other House Republicans, he supported Texas’ lawsuit that called for throwing out the votes of Pennsylvania and three other states.

But Perry outdid other GOP election deniers with his behind-the-scenes scheming to corrupt the Justice Department.

In late December 2020, after Barr resigned (having told Trump privately and stated publicly there was no evidence of any significant electoral fraud), Trump relentlessly leaned on the Justice Department—mainly, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue—to affirm his baseless assertion that the election had been rigged. They resisted and repeatedly told Trump the allegations of fraud were untrue. Trump was not getting what he wanted from the department.

McCarthy’s participation in that assault on democracy was not an issue. For Republicans, it was a prerequisite.

This is where Perry came in. He found a Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark who was running the Environment and Natural Resources Division. Clark had nothing to do with investigating the allegations of election fraud, but he was willing to echo and legitimize Trump’s false charges. Perry introduced Clark to Trump, arranging a meeting between the two in the Oval Office on December 22. As the January 6 committee noted, “Clark’s contact with President Trump violated both Justice Department and White House policies designed to prevent political pressure on the Department.”

Perry also sent numerous text messages to Meadows urging that Clark be promoted within the department, presumably to a position in which he could compel the Justice Department to assist Trump’s bid to retain power. In one message, Perry referred to the upcoming certification of the electoral vote and declared, “11 days to 1/6… We gotta get going!”

Though Rosen and Donoghue ordered Clark to have no further contact with Trump, Clark continued to meet with Trump and Perry. Perry also directly confronted the Justice Department about its refusal to back up Trump’s false allegations. He called Donoghue on December 27 and assailed the FBI and the department for not finding evidence of election fraud. He added that “Clark would do something about this.”

That night, Perry emailed Donoghue material alleging that election authorities in Pennsylvania had counted 200,000 or so more votes than had been cast—a claim that he and Trump raised publicly. No such thing had happened. Perry was spreading disinformation in an attempt to disenfranchise the voters of his own state.

Meanwhile, Clark—Perry’s man at the Justice Department—was pushing an underhanded plan to keep Trump in power. This included proposing to send a letter to the state legislature of Georgia—and those of other swing states—that falsely declared that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.” The letter recommended that the state legislature call a special session to evaluate potential election fraud. The draft of this letter referred to the fake electors that Trump and his campaign had organized.

When Rosen and Donoghue refused to sign this letter, Trump moved to boot Rosen and replace him with Clark. At a combative Oval Office meeting on January 3, Rosen, Donoghue, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and others strenuously opposed Clark’s appointment and told Trump it would lead to massive resignations at the department. Only then did Trump retreat on appointing Clark acting attorney general. This attempt to enlist the Justice Department for a coup was over.

The Trump-Clark scheme, in which Perry was a major plotter, was cited by the House January 6 committee in its final report as one basis for its criminal referral of Trump and others. And apparently Perry had some concerns for his own legal safety. According to the committee, after January 6, he reached out to White House staff and asked to receive a presidential pardon. (He did not receive one.)

In August, the FBI seized Perry’s cell phone, presumably as part of its investigation of the Trump-Clark operation. Perry claimed he was told he was not the subject of an investigation. The January 6 committee subpoenaed Perry, but he refused to show up for a deposition, and the committee subsequently referred him to the House Ethics Committee for sanction for failing to comply with the subpoena.

As for Jim Jordan, the January 6 committee declared he was “a significant player in President Trump’s efforts.” It noted:

He participated in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudolph Giuliani, and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud. On January 2, 2021, Representative Jordan led a conference call in which he, President Trump, and other Members of Congress discussed strategies for delaying the January 6th joint session. During that call, the group also discussed issuing social media posts encouraging President Trump’s supporters to “march to the Capitol” on the 6th.

The committee’s report points out that Jordan was in touch with Meadows and Trump in the days before the January 6 riot. On January 5, he texted Meadows that Vice President Mike Pence should “call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.” That is, Jordan was urging an unconstitutional action to achieve a Trump power-grab that would thwart the peaceful transfer of power.

On January 6, Jordan spoke with Trump at least twice, and, according to the committee, “he has provided inconsistent public statements about how many times they spoke and what they discussed.” He also spoke to Rudy Giuliani at least twice in the hours after the riot, as Giuliani continued to encourage members of Congress to block the certification of the election. In the following days, the committee noted, Jordan discussed with White House staffers the prospect of presidential pardons for members of Congress.

Like Perry, Jordan was subpoenaed by the January 6 committee and refused to cooperate, earning a referral to the House Ethics Committee—as did McCarthy. The committee wanted information from McCarthy regarding his conversations with Trump and Pence on and about January 6. He, too, would not cooperate.

As the McCarthy drama has played out, critical participants have been election deniers who not long ago sought to undermine democracy and whose actions led to the domestic terrorism of January 6. McCarthy’s foes, his defenders, and McCarthy himself all were part of the efforts to subvert the Constitution following Biden’s victory. Moreover, whatever happens with McCarthy, these enemies of democracy will end up with important positions in the House. Jordan is expected to become chair of the Judiciary Committee. Perry will likely remain chair of the House Freedom Caucus, which will continue as a band of extremists and plague whichever Republican becomes speaker. This absurd speakership fight is a reminder that Republicans who tried to annihilate the constitutional order and who bolstered conspiracy theories and lies that ignited violence have attained power and influence. The guilty have been rewarded.

George Santos Keeps Giving Inconsistent Stories About His Mystery Millions

George Santos, the New York Republican who was elected to the House in November, has drawn much attention for his audacious lying. As a candidate, he said he had attended Baruch College. He said he worked for Goldman Sachs. He said he worked for Citigroup. Those were all lies. He claimed Jewish heritage and maintained that his ancestors had fled antisemitic persecution in Europe prior to World War II. It seems this was also a fabrication. (Santos told the New York Post he had made some things up but always has been clear that he was “Jew-ish.”)

There were other prevarications. But what’s most intriguing is the story he has told about his personal finances: how we went from making $55,000 a year in 2020 to scoring between $3.5 million and $11.5 million in 2021 and 2022 and being able to funnel $700,000 into his recent campaign. Santos tried to explain this in an interview this week with Semafor—but he only compounded the mystery with a story that contradicts his earlier accounts. 

What’s most intriguing are Santos’ finances: how we went from making $55,000 a year in 2020 to scoring between $3.5 million and $11.5 million in 2021 and 2022.

As Noah Lanard and I previously noted in an investigation of his finances, Santos declared on financial disclosure statements that he made his millions through a company called Devolder Organization LLC, formed in May 2021. (His full name is George Devolder Santos.) This was weeks after the Florida investment firm called Harbor City Capital where he was working had been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of running a Ponzi scheme. (Santos was not implicated in that purported con.)

Devolder had no public-facing operations, not even a website. On Santos’ campaign website in 2021, he described Devolder as his family’s company and said he was a managing member who oversaw “asset allocations” of $80 million. This made it seem he was managing an investment fund. Yet there is nothing in the public record that explains how he and his family supposedly came to oversee such a large fortune. Santos has said that he came from “abject” poverty. And the financial disclosure form Santos filed in 2020 during a losing House campaign recorded no signs of any personal wealth. 

In April 2022, Santos provided a different description of Devolder to the Daily Beast. He reported that he had created Devolder to help “all the people who were left adrift” after Harbor City was charged by the SEC. He also said that Devolder had by then been dissolved. The Daily Beast also reported that Devolder was one of several stakeholders in Red Strategies USA, a consulting firm that did work for Tina Forte, a QAnon-ish challenger to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). 

So, what was Devolder? An assets management firm handling his family’s supposed wealth? Or something else connected to political campaigning? 

On the financial disclosure form Santos filed in September 2022, he characterized Devolder in yet another way. He termed it a “Capital intro consulting company.” The form stated that he had earned a hefty $750,000 in salary and between $1 million and $5 million in dividend income from Devolder in 2021 and the same amounts in 2022. This is a lot of money from a company that Santos said had been dissolved less than a year after it was created. It’s also just a lot of money, period—especially for someone who was pulling in $55,000 the year before this windfall. 

As the Santos story moves forward, it’s the money that may matter the most.

Santos’ transition from a mid-income earner at a company that held investor conferences to a multi-million-dollar macher is puzzling. That’s quite a transformation, but one he apparently (and suspiciously) did not note or boast about when presenting his biography during the campaign. 

As part of his recent PR offensive to counter the widespread criticism of his brazen lying, Santos spoke with Semafor, and he addressed—vaguely and briefly—Devolder:

Santos said that Devolder was also in the capital introduction business, including “deal building” and “specialty consulting” for “high net worth individuals.”

As an example of his work, he said a client might want to sell a plane or a boat. “I’m not going to go list it and broker it,” he said. “What I will do is I will go look out there within my Rolodex and be like: ‘Hey, are you looking for a plane?’ ‘Are you looking for a boat?’ I just put that feeler out there.” He said he had a network of wealthy investors, family offices, “institutions” and endowments that included about 15,000 people. Within the first six months of starting Devolder, he said he “landed a couple of million-dollar contracts.”

“If you’re looking at a $20 million yacht, my referral fee there can be anywhere between $200,000 and $400,000,” he said.

Santos did not respond to follow-up questions asking what the million-dollar contracts entailed, or if he could share the names of previous clients from his business.

This does not square with his initial description of Devolder as an $80 million fund that he managed—nor with his earlier statement that the firm was dissolved prior to April 2022.

And the numbers don’t add up.

If he actually landed a couple of million dollar contracts in the second half of 2021—and he made commissions between 1 and 2 percent—that would not bring in the millions of dollars he claimed to pocket.

Why the shifting explanations? What’s actually going on?

As the Santos story moves forward, it’s the money that may matter the most. It shouldn’t be hard for him to demonstrate what Devolder did, what he earned, and how he was able to pour $700,000 in his own money into his 2022 campaign. He could—and probably should—release his tax returns. That’s not a common practice for members of Congress. But Santos warrants such scrutiny. And after Congress convenes next week, the House Ethics Committee ought to initiate an investigation to determine if Santos filed accurate financial disclosure forms. Under the Ethics in Government Act, it is a federal crime to knowingly file false information; doing so can lead to a fine of up to $50,000 and imprisonment of up to 5 years.

Obviously, whatever Santos says about Devolder and his personal finances should not be taken at face value. The public needs to see his receipts.

Scandal-Struck George Santos Just Revived the Firm That Netted Him Mystery Millions

On Monday, the New York Times published an explosive story revealing that George Santos, a New York Republican elected last month to the House of Representatives, had made what appeared to be brazenly false statements about his background, including assorted claims about his business career. He had boasted of being an accomplished investor and financier who had worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Yet each firm noted it had no record of his employment there. He had said he graduated from Baruch College. The school said he had not. His personal finances seemed odd as well, and he had worked at a Florida company called Harbor City Capital that was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2021 of running a $17 million Ponzi scheme. Subsequently, he supposedly made at least $3.5 million from a mysterious company, called Devolder Organization LLC, that he started, that had no public profile, and that was dissolved soon after it was created. This marked a dramatic shift from his first run for Congress in 2020, when he reported earning $55,000 per year.

The day after the Times story appeared, Santos took a curious step: He revived that mystery firm that he had claimed as the source of millions of dollars of income, and he listed as its address a Florida property associated with a former top official of the company that allegedly mounted that Ponzi scheme. Devolder’s resurrection was first reported by Talking Points Memo. The story of this firm is a key component of the Santos scandal.

The Times article cast Santos as a modern-day Mr. Ripley who seemingly had manufactured a rags-to-riches public persona based on audacious lies. He was once arrested in Brazil for forging checks. He boasted he founded an animal rescue charity, but the outfit barely existed and was not registered with the IRS as a nonprofit. (The intended beneficiary of one of its events reported never receiving the funds from a fundraiser Santos’ group helped to organize.) Before the election, Santos said he owned a “Hamptons mansion” worth $10 million, but according to his financial disclosure filings he owned no real estate at the time. (He was then renting an apartment in Queens.) All the unsubstantiated claims have prompted questions about his financial and business dealings, including Devolder and his interactions with Harbor City and its principals.

After working at a firm that ran conferences for investors—and earning a $55,000 salary there—Santos in July 2020 was hired as a New York regional director for Harbor City, which sought investors for a business generating digital customer leads to sell. In a press release announcing this move, JP Maroney, Harbor City’s CEO, said he had known Santos for years and called him a “perfect fit.” At the time, Santos was mounting his first bid for Congress in Long Island, which he would lose that November.

When Santos joined Harbor City, the company was already in trouble. Weeks earlier, the Alabama Securities Commission had prohibited Harbor City from doing business in the state. It alleged that the company was run by “fraudsters” who were “out to deceive Alabamians and profit off unsuspecting investors by using dazzling marketing tactics to sell unregistered bonds.”

In April 2021, the SEC filed its complaint charging that the firm and Maroney had mounted an extensive Ponzi scheme. The agency maintained that Maroney pocketed more than $4.8 million of the $17.1 million he raised from investors and used that money to pay $1.35 million in personal credit card bills, buy a $90,000 Mercedes-Benz, and purchase a waterfront home. The only other person named in the complaint was Maroney’s wife. No other Harbor City employees were implicated. In October, Maroney, who is representing himself, requested a stay in the SEC action against him and Harbor City, noting that he “is currently the target in a related criminal investigation.” Maroney did not respond to messages requesting comment.

Santos has said he was unaware of the alleged Ponzi operation.

Scott Silver, a Florida attorney who has represented Harbor City investors allegedly bilked, said there should have been many red flags for Santos and other employees. “Any person from the financial services industry, who went to work for a company like Harbor City, should immediately have recognized that Harbor City wasn’t properly registered as a financial services company,” Silver told Mother Jones. “Even if you didn’t know the company was operating as a fraud or a Ponzi scheme, a sophisticated person affiliated with the company should have known they weren’t licensed to do what they claimed to be doing.”

Weeks after the SEC leveled its accusation against Maroney and Harbor City, Santos formed Devolder Organization LLC and incorporated it in Florida. (His full name is George Devolder-Santos.) The registered agent for Devolder was D&D International Investment Services. That company is run by DeVaughn Dames, who served as Harbor City’s chief financial officer. Around the same time, Dames also formed a company for another Harbor City exec, Paul Nicolini.

When Mother Jones called a number associated with Nicolini, the person who answered immediately hung up after hearing Santos’ name.

What Devolder did is unclear. On a campaign website in 2021, Santos described it as his family’s firm and said he was a managing member who oversaw “asset allocations” of $80 million. There is nothing in the public record that explains how he and his family supposedly came to oversee such a large fortune. The Times reported that Santos was evicted from apartments in Queens in 2015 and 2017. (He later claimed to be a landlord impacted by a New York eviction moratorium, though his financial disclosure filings contained no information indicating he owned property in the United States.)

In April 2022, Santos provided a different description of Devolder to the Daily Beast. He said he had started Devolder to help “all the people who were left adrift [by Harbor City].” He also said that the firm had by then been dissolved.

On the financial disclosure form Santos filed in September 2022, he characterized Devolder in yet another way, calling it a “Capital intro consulting company.” He stated that he had earned $750,000 in salary and between $1 million $5 million in dividend income from Devolder in 2021 and the same amounts in 2022. This means he claimed he pulled in between $3.5 million and $11.5 million from a firm that existed less than a year, that produced no public signs of any work, not even a website, and that he has not described consistently. Santos also stated on his 2022 form that he had a checking account worth between $100,000 and $250,000 and a savings account worth between $1 million and $5 million. His 2020 financial disclosure form listed no such accounts and no such assets.

As the Times noted:

The Devolder Organization has no public-facing assets or other property that The Times could locate. Mr. Santos’s disclosure form did not provide information about clients that would have contributed to such a haul—a seeming violation of the requirement to disclose any compensation in excess of $5,000 from a single source.

Kedric Payne, the vice president of the watchdog Campaign Legal Center, and a former deputy chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, was one of three election law experts consulted by The Times who took issue with the lack of detail.

An online biography for Dames, whose company served as the registered agent for Devolder, described Dames as a “seasoned executive with investment experience and more than $1.5 billion in transactions between the Bahamas and the USA.” Dames did not respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones.

Whatever the source of the money Santos received from Devolder, he used his newfound wealth to lend his winning 2022 campaign $700,000.

Santos did not respond to multiple requests from the Times for information about his background and career. His lawyer, Joe Murray, posted a statement on Twitter saying that the Times was attempting to “smear [Santos’] good name” with “defamatory allegations.” But Murray provided no support for any of his client’s implausible claims. 

Right after the Times‘ story hit, Santos resurrected Devolder.

According to Florida corporate records, he reinstated the firm on Tuesday. On the he submitted, he reported that the company was based at a Merritt Island, Florida, address that corresponds to a property owned by Jayson Benoit, who was the former chief technology officer of Harbor City. 

Benoit runs a firm called Jayson Benoit and Associates that has provided website services to a pro-Trump political action committee called Republican Reset PAC. (The main strategic consultant for this PAC is Resilient Patriot, a firm headed by Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump.) Benoit did not respond to an interview request.

According to Florida business records, Santos and Benoit have also both been managers of a political consulting firm called Red Strategies USA, another Florida-based company set up by Dames in the weeks after the SEC exposed the alleged Ponzi scam at Harbor City. Two other Harbor City alumni were listed as authorized managers of Red Strategies: Dames and Nicolini.

Red Strategies worked on the campaign of Tina Forte, a Republican who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in the recent election. Forte’s campaign paid Red Strategies USA $110,000 between June 2021 and December 2021 for “digital consulting and fundraising,” according to campaign finance records. The firm was dissolved in September before the election was over.

Mother Jones sent a list of questions to Santos and Murray, his attorney, regarding Devolder, the firm’s reinstatement, and Santos’ personal finances. “I’m not going to be able to respond,” Murray replied.