Pushkin. Okay, so how are we gonna start this?

Well, I'm really excited. This is kind of new for us.

Absolutely. A little role reversal. Amy Gaines McQuaid is my producer. She's worked on the past four seasons of deep cover. You may not have heard Amy's voice, but in effect you did. Because when we do a season of deep cover, Amy's the one that reads through all thousand pages of the court transcript and knows every last detail. She's the one who helps me track down sources and weed through hours of interviews to make the episodes that you've heard. So while we're hard at work on the next season of deep cover, we have a special mini series for you in a brand new format. About a year ago, Amy comes to me and says, look, there's this story I really want to report, a story that took place, in fact, where Amy had grown up. A story about a man who may just be one of the greatest liars of all time, which got my attention because it sounded an awful lot like a deep cover story unfolding in real time.

George Anthony Devolder Santos.

Oh, good morning. Shabbat Shalom to everybody.

This is him speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2022.

I'm a first generation born american. Like many in our great nation, my parents came to this country in search of the american dream. Today I.

He ran for Congress to represent New York's third district on Long island, which is where I grew up.

And a huge part of his message was this, that he was the embodiment of the american dream. And that message worked because he won.

Only in this country can the little boy, born in a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens, in New York City, become a United States congressman at 34.

Okay, interesting. So I know there's a lot more that he said on the campaign trail, but can you just give me the recap?

So the version of George Santos that he sold on the campaign trail was that George Santos was a successful businessman working in the financial industry. He claimed that he'd worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He claimed that he had gone to college at Baruch and NYU. He had also told some stories about his personal life.

I'm very proud of my jewish heritage. I'm very proud of my grandparents story.

Claiming jewish heritage, and said that some of his family members had survived the Holocaust.

Here he is speaking to a reporter for a jewish news service.

I'm so proud to be able to keep our family going forward and showing that not only did we survive, but now I'm able to go advocate and fight for other jewish people all across my district, but also all across this country.

So the story that he told was an inspiring one. Here he was, the son of brazilian immigrants who had built this impressive life for himself, living in New York City as an openly gay man, working on Wall street, getting into politics. And it seemed like this moment when he won would just be the cherry on top.

He was going to be a congressman.

I mean, it's inspiring. I'm kind of inspired hearing it.

But in the coming weeks and months, another narrative would start to emerge. A different version of George Santos, one that was far more alarming. And if it were true, then this was A ManDeV who lied, cheated, and stole from people who trusted him. Basically one man with two faces. And it left a lot of people, including myself, wondering, who was the real George Santos? I think the thing that a lot of people might remember is the New York Times story that broke in December of 2022, because it was pretty explosive.

Yeah, I remember that headline.

The story revealed that Santos had ascended, fabricated a lot of information on his resume. But through my reporting, I've been finding that that story was really just the beginning. So George Santos is actually scheduled to go to trial in just a few weeks, in September.

He's facing a whole bunch of charges. Wire fraud, money laundering, falsifying records, identity theft. A whole bunch.

I've been talking with lots of people to essentially try and figure out how did George Santos go from lies about where he went to school and where.

He worked to allegations of serious federal.

Crimes, crimes that could land him in prison for roughly two decades? And just how deep do his lies go?

This is deep cover George Santos episode one, the campaign. Jake, I want to go back in.

Time to that moment when the New York Times story broke, because that's when the cracks in Santos facade really start to show.

Okay, so two journalists at the New York Times, their names are Grace Ashford and Michael Gold. They come out with this massive story. It's called, who is Rep. Elect George Santos? His resume may be largely fiction. The headline from this story is really maybe this guy isn't who he claimed to be.

And that, for me, was a moment where I heard from basically everyone in my life who knew I was from Long island and knew that I worked on stories like this and just asking me, what the fuck? What happened here? Who is this guy? And how did he get elected? He's living this double life, essentially, who he says he is in public, but who he actually is in private.

And one person who was in the center of this mess was George Santos, communications director.

Her name is Nesa Woomer.

Do you remember where you were when the New York Times story broke? Oh, I do.

I know exactly where it was. I was actually coming out of Starbucks and it broke. And I was heading into our office right by the state house.

And the timing here is really interesting because she actually accepted the job right before the New York Times story broke.

Everyone is sending like, nisa, have you seen this? Oh my God, is this the guy you're working for? My stomach had dropped and I thought, what the. Well, I don't want to say the f bomb, but that's what I'm thinking at this point.

Like, how many days on the job is she, by the way?

So Neysa hasn't actually started working for Santos in that moment. She's still working in Boston for the republican administration there. So she's not actually even in touch with George Santos. But she did hear through the grapevine, through some staffer that a story about Santos would be coming.

I already knew there was going to be a hit piece, but my understanding was that this was just going to be. We THought it was just gonna be a traditional hit piece of conservative republican flip's democrat seat.

But of course, that was not the new york times story at all. The New York Times story made clear that a lot of the stories that GeorgE Santos had told on the campaign trail were at best inaccurate, at worst entirely fabricated. And so after the story publishes, Santos comes out with a statement through his attorney that says, quote, it's no surprise that Congressman elect Santos has enemies at the New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations.

I even spoke with the chief of staff and he said he's speaking with his lawyers. They're going to handle it. And I just said, okay, well, like, they need to handle it immediately BEcaUSe, you know, this is REallY bad.

And is SanTos freaking out at this point?

So I can't vouch for how Santos was feeling. Cause I have not spoken with him directly.

We've tried.

Yes, yes, we've reached out to him for comment. So far he's declined those requests.

But Santos appears to have been attempting some damage control.

He's not giving a ton of interviews, but he does grant one to Fox News, and it's a guest anchor. So it is Tulsi Gabbard conducting the interview.

First question I really want to ask you now that all of this has been revealed is what does the word integrity mean to you?

Well, Tulsi thank you for having me. You know, to answer your question, integrity is very important. And embellishment.

What does it mean though?

What does it mean? Because the meaning of the word actually matters in practice, of course.

It means to carry yourself in an honorable way. And I made a mistake and I think humans are flawed and we all make mistakes till, see, this is Fox.

News and he's a Republican and he's getting very hostile treatment here. So I mean, Lord knows what would happen if he had gone on MSNBC or even CNN. I'm wondering, how is this playing out with his constituents?

Yeah, I mean, I remember the reaction was pretty swift. George Santos campaign last year was a.

Campaign of deceit, lies, fabrication. He deceived the voters of the third congressional district.

That's Joe Cairo, the head of the.

Republican Party in Nassau county. This is from a press conference they held where he, along with other New York Republicans, actually asked for Santos resignation. There's absolutely no way Mister Santos can be an effective member of Congress and represent the people who elected him.

One of the questions I have is like, talk to me about this district that elects him.

Yeah, so Santos ran in New York's third congressional district, which if you've ever looked at a political map, you know, these districts get drawn in a kind of crazy nonsensical way. When you look at the district itself, it holds part of Nassau county, which is where I grew up and specifically in my neighborhood. I can say it's a lot of working class folks. So people who commute into New York City every day, cops, firefighters, teachers. It also includes the north shore of Long island, which is like Gatsby country. There's lots of big houses and old money. And over the years the district has changed. The lines have been redrawn. But by the time that Santos was running, the district included a little sliver of queens, which is actually where Santos grew up.

It's funny because when you describe it, I totally almost get why he would have to be a guy that would be a chameleon, that would have to be able to play a lot of different parts because his constituents is just like a crazy cross section of America.

Yeah. And I think when George Santos is running for office, he is building the narrative around himself that he started from nothing and built himself into a successful businessman in the financial industry. So he claims that he was working for Goldman Sachs. He claims that he was working for Citigroup.

None of these things are true. None of that is a crime.

That's true. But it's around the same moment in time that new reports are emerging that Santos is being investigated for actual crimes he may have committed.

The republican district attorney of Nassau county says she's looking into whether any of those fabrications amounted to crimes. And federal prosecutors are also looking into Santos financial disclosures.

Stunning revelations and questions about his personal and professional life continue to come to light, including new questions about the money he spent on his campaign.

We'll be right back. So when the New York Times story comes out, there are a number of things that are exposed, but there are also a lot of questions remaining. And so I think, you know, reporters, especially reporters who are working in DC, can kind of smell blood in the water, right? And they're like, what else can I find out about this guy?

I was trying to cover the New York area because I. I'm a New Yorker and I understood that there was this buzz that there were some members that might actually overcome some of the democratic nominees that were running for Congress.

Okay, Jake, so this is Khadiya Goba, and she's a political reporter for Semaphore, which is this sort of newer journalism outlet.

So I set out in October to interview a bunch of them. George Santos did not give me access after he won, he was like. He became a challenge to me. I needed to talk to this man.

Khadiyah actually worked at Buzzfeed before she was with semaphore, but she hasn't always been a journalist.

This is the second career I was in the clothing industry for a little over two decades as a sales rep. So this is sort of a midlife crisis that worked out.

Anyway, so near the end of 2022, Khadiyah is working as a reporter on Capitol Hill, and she meets George Santos in person. She gave him her card. You know, I'm a reporter working on the Hill. Would love to be in touch, but he doesn't give her his. But she gets his phone number anyways and she wants to talk to him. So she's calling a lot.

Even though he would never pick up.

Until this one time, I remember very.

Distinctly he either called me back or picked up the phone this one time and said, I remember not giving you my phone number, which I thought was very funny because he understood who had been calling him, but just was intentionally ignoring me, which, whatever, fine. He eventually picked up the phone and he told me that at that time he was going on Fox, that I shouldn't tell anyone, but maybe he could talk to me afterwards.

Wait, this is the same interview that we heard at the top with Tulsi Gabbard.

Yep.

So I watched the interview, and it went terribly.

My question is, do you have no shame?

Look, I understand everybody wants a nitpick at me. I'm gonna reassure this once and for all. I'm not a facade. I'm not a Persona.

You could tell he was uncomfortable. It wasn't what he had expected. I think he thought this was gonna be a good opportunity for him to talk about what happened or explain his situation. And none of that happened. So, of course, I kinda just texted him after the interview was over and kind of said, like, are you free or do you want to talk? And he texted back, like, something like, get your pen and paper ready.

Wow. That kind of surprises me, given how badly it went. You think maybe he would be a little gun shy?

Oh, I think Khadiya's view was the opposite that, you know, he. He thought that the Fox interview would be a good opportunity. And then when it went so poorly, he's just kind of panicking and he's. He's open to talking to people because he wants to clear the air. Right. He's in crisis mode.

I see. So, yeah, just get back up to the plate again kind of thing.

And sure enough, like, maybe 15 minutes later, he called me, and I think I talked to him as he drove from the Fox studio home.

So what is your goal in that interview? What is the big question you want to ask?

Clearly, I want to ask where he got his money from. Cause that was like, the big discrepancy, right.

He had presented himself on the campaign trail as this wealthy, successful individual. How much money does he have, really? And what is the source of that money?

So this is what Khadiyah is talking about, the discrepancy and where did the money come from?

Yeah.

And Khadiya is following this. And I think it would be fair to say that a lot of reporters were fixated on this question at the time of, you know, okay, George Santos has been exposed as a potential liardeh. What else could he be lying about? It appears on paper, like, George Santos has a lot of money. But is that actually the case? And it's around this time that many people start looking at his campaign finance filings.

And one of those people is a guy named Sarav Ghosh.

I'm the director of federal campaign finance reform at campaign Legal center. And what I work on every day are the laws that governed how people raise and spend money when they're trying to convince others to vote for them.

He was a lawyer at the FEC, which is the Federal election commission. And it's basically Sarov's job to find people violating campaign finance laws.

I see. So he's like a nonprofit do good or private detective.

Exactly.

So Sarov and his team would eventually file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, and some of the things that they flag actually show up later on in the federal indictment against Santos.

Interesting. I see.

You know that week between Christmas and New Year's when basically no one wants to work?

Yeah, definitely.

That week, Sarav and his team were actually surprisingly busy. They started reviewing Santos campaign finance filings, and a few things stick out to Sarov.

Right away, there was this glaring disconnect between his personal finances, as he had reported on a financial disclosure form that every House candidate is required to file, and his campaign reports which indicated he had loaned his own campaign a ton of money, a six figure sum north of $700,000.

Wow.

So it's very. I won't say common. It's not unheard of for a candidate to loan his own campaign that kind of money or even to just give it to the campaign outright. But you typically expect to see backing that up, a financial disclosure that shows, well, this person is wealthy. Right. They have the assets. They have the income. With Santos, it was the exact opposite.

So one thing quickly that I should just mention to you, Jake Santos actually ran for Congress twice. He ran first in 2020, and he lost. Sarov looked through those records, too.

He claimed to have loaned his unsuccessful 2020 campaign something like $80,000. That didn't really make sense because in 2020, he had personal assets and income of just $55,000, according to his self reporting. So it was just $55,000. 55,000, yeah.

Wow.

So it made no sense how somebody with $55,000 could even afford to loan his campaign $80,000.

So what Sarov is outlining here is that alongside those campaign filings, he's supposed to also be reporting what kind of income he's making, what kind of assets he has. And Sarav's looking at this and just truly saying the math isn't adding up.

Wow.

And then when you get to 2022, when he's running the second time, he's loaning his campaign even more money. There's one loan in particular of $500,000. In March of 2022, Santos files a disclosure form that lists his assets and income. In this document, you can see he lists an apartment in Brazil that he values somewhere between half a million and a million dollars. He says he has somewhere between $100 and $250,000 in a checking account. And then there's this business called the Devolder organization. And he values the devolder organization as somewhere between a million and $5 million.

That's one of his surnames, is Devolder. And he claimed that this organization, which was founded within months of losing in the 2020 election, he claimed that this company was basically an overnight success story. And he was very ambiguous and sketchy, quite honestly, about what the company did and how it made so much money overnight.

So he's filing these disclosures with the house, is that correct?

Correct.

Basically saying, like, look, I've got this apartment in Brazil. I've got this company over here. Yeah, I'm a wealthy man. Like, I am more than capable of loaning my campaign this money. And my question is, was that true? Did he actually have any of these assets, or was this also part of his fabulous tale?

So Sarov is looking at this. And to be very clear, Sarov does not believe the financial disclosure form. I think also because he's looking at the previous forms and just saying, how did this materialize overnight?

Right.

And he's also suspicious of, like, what's driving this income?

And that is a question that Khadiya, the reporter you heard from earlier, is also very interested in getting an answer to. You know, what is going on with George Santos and his money. Where is this alleged income coming from? And just to say, if it's not already clear, all of this is happening at the same time. So we have Saurav, who, who's our watchdog. Him and his team are digging into these campaign finance reports in the week between Christmas and New Year's. And that same week, Khadiya, the clothing sales rep turned journalist, is trying to get that interview with George Santos, and she's gonna finally get it in the moment after his disastrous interview on Fox. And so he's actually calling her on the drive home from the Fox studio.

It's also 08:00 at night. So I'm like, in my apartment. You know, Congress has been out for weeks now. And I was like, I can't believe this is happening. I'm actually interviewing this guy that everyone is talking about. So I was working with, like, a blank canvas and kind of was just like, so how'd you get all of this money? That was like, my first question. He gave this scenario where, like, okay, let's say someone buys a boat and they don't want to go through, like, the normal chain. They want a smaller brokerage free. I come in and I kind of negotiate the deal and, you know, introduce them to potential sellers. And he called this thing capital intro. He kept saying, capital intro. And I was like, well, what is that? And he explained that capital introduction, you basically just connect hedge fund people with investors, essentially.

What? That doesn't even really make sense to me. But, okay, so he's like a connector. I mean, had the guy ever actually sold a boat?

The New York Times would later report that the FBI was curious about this question too. And in fact, there was at least one yacht sale that Santos brokered while he was running for Congress that there are a lot of questions about. But that's about all we know.

Okay.

But jumping back to December 2022, Khadia just had that interview with George Santos and he told her that he works in capital introduction. This is what Khadiya reports attributing to George Santos, of course. And that brings us back to Sarav, who reads Khadiyah's reporting.

And for Sarov, it's just not really checking out. And I think even if what Santos told Kadiya is true, maybe he did sell a boat or two. But from Sarov's perspective, this still doesn't really account for the massive cash windfall that he appears to have almost overnight.

I see.

And so Sarov's question and what he's trying to piece together through the reporting that's emerging is what is the full picture of devolder? What kind of business is devolder doing? What kind of money is devolder bringing in?

Right. And is it enough business that it could explain these massive contributions of the campaign? What, half a million dollars?

Right, exactly. And so Sarov is just trying to connect these dots. And there's two things that Sarov is fairly suspicious of. The first is that Santos is not listing any clients on these disclosure forms and Sarov and multiple others flag that. Because if you're in this so called capital introduction industry, you should have clients. That's basically the whole business model. So that's concerning. The second is that Sirav is also suspicious about the timing of all of this. He notices that Santos declares his candidacy one month, and then he incorporates Devolder the next month, and then he's making loans to his campaign the month after that.

That's fucking crazy.

Like, how many votes do you have.

To sell in a month to make that happen?

Totally. I mean, that's like the greatest success story of all time. If it's true. Dude sold some yachts mighty quick.

And there's something about that that's just not sitting right with Sarov. And that leads him to wonder, okay, where is Santos actually getting this money from? And he has a couple theories about that.

So in our mind, this was a possible straw donor scheme. A straw donor scheme is basically a scheme in which someone is making a contribution to a candidate or a pack through someone else. So Santos, in our mind, was getting money from some external source. And that could be a corporation. It could be a billionaire, it could be a foreign national. So any of these possibilities struck us as deeply problematic. In our mind, it wasn't his money. It was someone else. And not knowing is part of the problem. Maybe the biggest problem.

It's interesting to me because to me, I get why Sarov thinks that it's a straw donor, because that's like. That's his purview. That's his job. He's looking at people who are skirting campaign finance law. Right. He doesn't realize that he's actually going after, like, a hustler. Is there a paper trail that shows, like, a deposit to his campaign coffers?

That's not required. Okay, so he can say, I loaned this amount to my campaign, but he doesn't actually have to back that up with a wire transfer or a bank account showing that money hits.

Right.

And so it's a requirement for transparency, but it's limited. And so he's able to say, on paper, yes, I am a wealthy businessman and I was able to loan my campaign this six figure sum.

I see. Okay. Because where I thought this was going was that the loan was bullshit and this was just a way for him to make money.

Well, you might be right about that.

So, Jake, what the government has alleged is that Santos lied in these campaign finance reports, in a sense, inflating his fundraising numbers. So prosecutors allege that at least some of these loans that Santos said he made to his campaign did not happen. And they also allege that he fudged these numbers for a very specific reason.

Santos, he understood that his campaign had to report earning a certain amount or a report raising a certain amount of money to get support from the party. And so that was something that the investigations revealed is that he had emails where he was making it clear that he was trying to establish that he'd hit those benchmarks and so qualified for the kind of support from the republican party that only folks with a. That amount of financial viability would be able to receive.

If I'm understanding this correctly, and this guy is coming in and selling a whole story about how much money he made and how much money he's loaned his campaign. And it smells like bullshit. The question is, like, to what end? And if I'm understanding this correctly, he was actually trying to hustle the republican party basically just to convince them that he was healthier and stronger and a bigger baller than he really was.

Yeah.

And I think that there's a clear goal here. And this is supported by what the government outlines in the indictment. I mean, what they allege is that.

Santos and his campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, did this in order to gain support from the Republican Party. And Nancy is the person on his staff that is responsible for those filings. Now, I should tell you, Nancy Marks took a plea deal last year for her role in some of this. And I expect to hear a lot more about all of this at trial.

I mean, this program that Santos receives by hitting these fundraising benchmarks, right?

Yeah.

He gets support with ads. He gets support splitting the cost of polls, focus groups, what they call coordinated expenditures, which is basically like, we're gonna spend money with you and for you.

Right.

And so if he's trying to get into office, he understandably wants this support from the Republican Party.

Does Serav think that any money actually even existed? Like this $500,000? Was it ever real or was it just all on paper, just like a full on, like, charade?

So this is something that I've dug into a lot. And the story is actually really complicated. What the government alleges is that at a certain point in time related to that 2022 campaign, George Santos claimed to have loaned his own campaign $500,000. What the government alleges is that that loan never happened. No money changed hands in that moment. Now, some reporting has indicated that maybe later on, some money might have gotten moved around to try and potentially make.

The books look better.

But what the government is charging in their indictment is that this loan did not happen when the campaign said it happened and that it happened for a specific reason, and that was to hit these campaign benchmarks, these fundraising benchmarks, in order to get this support at a critical moment in his campaign.

I get it. You know, he using his personal charm and potentially his lies is like getting popular support. But it's one thing to claim you're a successful businessman, but then by loaning yourself this money or appearing to, you're passing the second test, which is he has the war chest. To make this work, we're gonna supplement that money, we being the republican party, and really help push him over the line.

And it actually goes a step further. What the government is alleging is that Santos and Nancy Marx also conspired to put fake donations on the books in the names of people who either never gave or didn't give in that amount. What it looks like is that they were really manipulating these reports to present a version of Santos campaign that was much healthier than the reality. We've spent this episode talking about. This moment in December of 2022 when the New York Times reporting kind of blows the story open, and then everyone is trying to figure out what else they could find out in the wake of that. Right?

I might quibble with your phrasing of that. It doesn't seem like the times blows the story open. It's more like they find a crack in the facade, maybe a fairly big one, but a crack in the facade that he has created about this super successful businessman that he is. And it's like then all these other people are kind of, like, peering into the crack and being like, what else is in there?

Yeah. No, you're right. And I will say that this is really just the beginning of what will be uncovered about George Santos.

And ultimately, this is a story of personal betrayal.

Coming up on the next episode of Deep Cover.

George Santos, his mom was pretty central to his campaign.

He called her a Wall street executive. He said that she escaped the south tower during 911. He said that she was a big political actor.

There are a few people in this world you should not lie to. Your lawyer, your doctor, and your communications director.

This series is produced by Amy Gaines McQuade and Joey Fishground. Our editor is Karen Shakurji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Mastering by Jake Gorski. Fact checking by Annika Robbins. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney. Music in this episode is from Luis Guerra and Epidemic sound. Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Eric Samuel, and Greta Cohn. I'm Jake Halperna.