Rep. George Santos claims financial firm made millions, but it is located in a Florida mailbox store
The financial-management firm that Rep. George Santos claims funded his campaign and manages tens of millions in assets is headquartered in a Florida mailbox store.
The Devolder Organization, which the GOP congressman now says is the source of his newfound wealth and campaign spending, lists its address as a Fast Mail N More shop in Melbourne.
It’s located in a strip mall next to a Dollar Tree discount store and a Chinese takeout joint.
Santos originally claimed on campaignfinance forms that he loaned his own campaign $700,000, using money he says was paid by Devolder.
Now, in an amended form filed this week, the newly elected lawmaker suggests the loan came from some other undisclosed source, not his personal funds.
The campaign-finance issue is considered one of the most likely of Santos’ myriad issues to result in criminal or ethics charges that could eventually force him from office.
Up until 2020, he claimed to be making just $55,000 as a call-center employee and lives with his sister in her Long Island home.
But in recent filings for his 2022 race, he reported a vastly different story, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from the Devolder Organization. Devolder is
Santos’ middle name.
It’s unclear how or if the privately held company makes money, and Santos has made only opaque and vague claims about its supposedly lucrative dealmaking business.
He also brought in big donations from the real estate mogul cousin of a Russian oligarch who was accused of being a gobetween in the Stormy Daniels hush-money scandal.
Santos, 34, flipped a Democratic-leaning Long Island congressional seat
in one of the bigger upsets of the midterm elections.
Before he was even sworn in, the self-styled conservative gay immigrant was accused of lying about virtually every aspect of his background.
He admitted some of the lies but denied others, such as an open criminal probe in Brazil for allegedly passing bad checks and the claim that he scammed a homeless New Jersey veteran out of $3,000 in donations for his dying dog.
Santos has already lost the support of most New York Republicans, including the entire Nassau County GOP committee.
But he still has the backing of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who only holds a narrow edge in the 118th Congress.