Pushkin. Jake, when we started reporting this series, I set out to speak with one of Santos' donors because I thought it would be interesting to talk to someone who chose to support Santos.

Yeah, and I totally didn't think you were going to get anyone to talk to you on the record.

Me But also, I mean, Santos' donors play a significant role in the indictments against him. So I was hopeful I would get someone on the record. And now, with George Santos pleading guilty in federal court, we won't have a trial. And so there's many people we won't hear from. But today, you're going to hear from someone who was subpoenaed, someone who was expecting to have to testify about George Santos, and who, once upon a time, was his ally.

I met George at an event in Matatuck, out east on Long Island, probably in 2021, it was hot, so it must have been the summer.

This is Kathy Soaref.

It was an event that was held by someone I didn't know, but I had been invited to this probably because of my history of supporting conservative candidates.

She's a Republican donor who lives on Long Island on the North Shore.

The North shore, like Gatsby country.

Yes, exactly. Kathy has voted for every Republican presidential candidate since Gerald Ford. When I interviewed Cathy at her house, there was a lot going on. I got the sense that Cathy's house is always buzzing with activity. Also, just me calling it a house is really underselling it because this place was massive. Outside, there are these colorful sculptures of animals all over the property. Think pink, blue, purple. The house is at the end of a private road. When I parked outside, I noticed there was room to park, I guess, at least 10 cars outside the front door. What do you call the house?

The Villa Guerrilla.

Where did that name come from?

Well, it's disputed. My nephews take credit for it, but I think that Douglas named it that after a Warren's Avon song.

Douglas is her husband. So all of this to say she's got a great house for parties. Anyway, back to the moment when Cathy first met George Santos. She told me that before she actually met him in person at that Republican fundraising fundraiser out east on Long Island, she got a phone call.

I don't know how much of a coincidence it was, but I received a phone call from George asking for money because he was announcing his candidate to see.

Before they'd even met, he just cold-called her.

Yes. Out of the blue.

Like he just got in a whiff of what she might do for him.

Yeah, exactly. Then when she arrives at the fundraiser, Guess who she's sitting with?

We were seated at the same table. George described himself as being independently well-to-do and felt that it was his civic duty to participate in public service.

Kathy told me that she liked him, even from that first meeting, even if he wasn't her perfect candidate.

George is not your average type, and certainly not my ideal political candidate. But for a Republican running in Democrat New York, I thought he would win. I said that I would support him and give him a couple of events, which I did to help him introduce him to other people. I expended a lot of my own personal political capital, meaning my friends and connections who participate in conservative politics, and they supported George for the same reason that I did.

What does she mean by that?

What is her reason I think she meant that he was the candidate who could maybe win in New York and in that district. She found him quite charming.

Well, he's a weird guy, but he's oddly charismatic. He's to whip it smart, a very, very quick thinking. He has a lot of social references, and he's very palsy.

And Cathy isn't the only one who saw something promising in this new young candidate. She was just one of many donors who contributed to the Santos campaign. Donors who were deceived, and in some cases defrauded. And these donors have played a huge in his unraveling. The man who flew under the radar for so long and seemingly got away with a lot of lies and half-truths and deceit has finally had to face some real consequences. This is Deep Cover, George Santos. Episode 4, The Donor. So as you are aware, Santos was indicted twice. But I want to talk for a moment about that first indictment that came down in May of 2023. We were shocked. My phone is literally blowing up in the worst way possible. In about saying, Is George going to jail? What's going on? And it's just I thought, My reputation is so screwed. That's Nesa Wumer. She was Santosh' communications director. So this indictment is for 13 counts. The charges range from money laundering to stealing public money, wire fraud, and making false statements to Congress. It's in that moment that everyone can see for the first time, really, what criminal allegations George Santos is facing.

These are things that go beyond the stories that he told about his personal life or some fabrications on his resume. A lot had been speculated, but things come into sharp focus when the charges come out. I'm disgusted. I'm thoroughly disgusted, I thought. Okay, now we're in wire fraud and money laundering. Respect is gone. It was too much, and it became too toxic. Directly following that indictment, Santos faces a vote from the House. Someone introduces a resolution to expel him, essentially to oust him from Congress.

I personally in favor of this individual's expulsion from this house. Regrettably, however, I'm in the understanding that we currently do not have the two-thirds support from members of this house to expel that individual.

So just to break down what's happening here, We're hearing from a Republican, also from New York, who is not happy with Santos. But at this moment in time, the Republicans have the majority in the House, and it seems like politically, there are quite a few Republicans who don't want that into jeopardy.

Just to be clear here, this is a district that could swing back to blue.

In theory, yes. So the house votes to keep Santos in office for now. But in this moment, Nesa is done. She's asked around for advice, and they've all basically told her the same thing. They just said, If I were you or if I was advising a client, I would resign. The longer you stay, the longer it's going to hurt you. Nesa resigns right after that unsuccessful vote to oust Santos from Congress.

I'm curious. Back in 2021, 2022, the donors that George Santos was courting, people like Cathy, do you get the sense that she had any idea what this guy was really up to?

Cathy has said to me that she had no clue about what George Santos was up to. I believe her on that. I mean, she had no reason not to trust him in that moment. I do get the sense that Cathy and George Santos formed a friendship in the time that they knew each other.

He came to my house several times. He claimed to live near here. He told me that his mother died of cancer. He told me that his mother went to Harvard.

He told you that his mother went to Harvard?

Yes, he did. He also told me that he had survived cancer.

That George had survived cancer?

Right. He did tell me that. Did he give- I didn't go into it because when someone says, Oh, yes, I'm a cancer survivor, I didn't say, Well, what kind did you have? I just was stunned. I said, Oh, I'm sorry. That added to his story and appeal that he's a survivor, you see.

It's like a jazz musician. He's just improvising. I haven't heard these Santos stories yet. This Wow.

Yeah. This was the first time I had heard a lot of this, too. I think that maybe some of these stories were cherry-picked for Cathy.

What do you mean that you think that some of these stories might have been cherry-picked for Cathy?

These are things that George Santos thought would impress Cathy. I should say, Cathy would later tell me it was actually Yale that his mother attended, not Harvard, and that she actually isn't all that impressed by an Ivy League education. But regardless, I see this as George Santos trying to play the role, trying to impress Cathy. I see. And George needs someone like Cathy to like him, right? Because Cathy is a door to connections to more money, which brings us back to this event that Cathy decides she's going to throw for George at the Villa Guerrilla. She couldn't remember the exact date, but thinks it was during the during the 2022 campaign. She told me she sent out printed invites, and of course, I wanted to hear every detail. Santos stood at the door. He was like the welcome wagon.

He was greeting everyone. We were standing in the front hall, and I would introduce him to everyone. It was casual. Then we were inside and outside, and then he gave his talk in the living room. George was very funny and engaging.

It's funny, the image of him standing at the door to this mansion as if he were welcoming guests to his own home. I mean, that seems so believable to me and so fitting for this guy's aspirations. Yeah. Who were the people at Villa Gorilla that evening?

My focus is next generation. We had quite a few young people here from the area. Maybe we had 30 people, but I'm sure he raised a fair amount of money. I had several of my local long-time friends who showed up for it. It was tremendously horrible for me of what happened.

What happened, meaning when she eventually learned what Santos was really up to when the New York Times story came out.

The guy hoodwinked everyone. For me, I'm furious because I spent... Some of my friends that I asked to support George, I mean, all of them, they know me, and they were hoodwinked to know that I was hoodwinked, but they were upset that they were dragged into this. It was my responsibility. I am mad at myself for not doing my own due diligence.

Does Cathy see herself as a victim?

Cathy told me that she considers herself that she was defrauded by George Santos, but she does not think that Santos stole from her. She does not think that her credit card information was misused in any way. The reason that's a relevant distinction is because Santos did steal from some of his donors by charging their credit cards without their consent for large sums of money.

He did not steal from me. I probably, in total, besides the, it probably cost me a few thousand to give him an event. I probably, in addition, maybe it was about $6,000.

I've seen Newsday did a review of federal election data, and I think they pegged you at $7,000.

Well, maybe so. I don't really keep track of it. I gave him a check. I think maybe one time I gave him a credit card. I don't remember. I don't know. I'd have to go through all of my papers again. But it was nominal, $1,000 at a time.

I have to ask the question, do you know if anyone who attended a fundraiser at your house may have had their credit card information?

I don't know for a fact any of that.

To be clear, Kathy does not know if anyone in her orbit that she had at the fundraiser was part of this credit card fraud scheme, whether they were targets for that. But I can say that the indictment lays out some other examples in detail. Santos goes on a spending spree with his donor's credit cards. More on that after the break.

Credit card fraud, it's a pretty big deal. How much are we talking about money-wise here?

There's one example in particular that's laid out in the indictment. To protect this person's identity, it's anonymized. They're only referred to as contributor number 12. This all begins when contributor number 12 sends their credit card info to the Santos campaign, and the Santos team charges it for more than they should on that day. This is an issue for two reasons. The first being that contributor number 12 did not authorize this overcharge, but also it's over the limit of what's allowed, which back in 2022 was $2,900 that you could give once for the primary and then again in the general election.

Okay. In theory, that's 5,800 for the two. Now, what's the deal with contributor number 12? How much over was this person charged?

Contributor number 12 was charged $15,800, so almost $16,000 in contributions, which is $10,000 over what is technically allowed.

Well, I mean, is that a mistake? I mean, you want to say like, right? Did this happen more than once?

It did. So Santos and his team attempted over $40,000 of contributions from Contributor 12 over the course of a few months. So They repeatedly charged his card. And then we see an even more brazen act when the indictment lays out that Santos just started sending money to his own personal account directly. Again, without any authorisation from contributor number 12. In one case, they used their credit card billing information to transfer more than $11,000 to Santos' personal bank account.

He's like a kid in the candy store with no one watching, it seems like.

This is also the first time in the indictment we hear about something the prosecutors call Company Number One. At a certain point during the 2022 campaign, Santos uses the credit card billing information of Contributor 12, charges $12,000, and it hits the account of Company Number One.

What is Company Number One?

The House Ethics Report, and other reporting, has identified Company Number One as Redstone Strategies. Redstone Strategies is all over this indictment as Company Number One.

Let me guess. It was formed just before the election.

It was formed in November 2021. So yes, around the time that Santos is mounting his campaign for the 2022 election. It was formed in Florida. Santos is a major stakeholder of Redstone strategies. He has tried to distance himself, but his fingerprints appear to be all over this company. Basically, going back to contributor number 12 for a moment, they are charged $12,000 to Redstone strategies. Then it seems like what prosecutors allege in the indictment is that most of that $12,000 goes from Redstone strategies directly to Santos's personal bank account, again.

Okay, so I have a question about contributor number 12. How did this person not notice that their credit card was being charged excessively by tens of thousands of dollars? At my house, when I see an Amazon charge for 999 that I don't recognize. I'm like, Huh. So what's going on here?

Yeah, it's a good question. I wish I had an answer for you.

Okay.

I should say that there are two other donors who each made contributions of $25,000 to Redstone Strategies. That is a problem for multiple reasons. Redstone Strategies was not set up to accept political contributions. It was not actually registered with the proper authorities.

Where does that money go?

They were told that money would go to pay for advertising. But it looks like that money, almost all of it, so $50,000 total, went directly to Santos' personal accounts. In the indictment, they say that that went to cash withdrawals, personal purchases of luxury designer clothing, credit card payments, a car payment, payments on personal debts. The house report gets even more specific. They claim that some of that $50,000 was actually spent at Hermès, the fancy designer store, over $4,000.

Right, which is a legitimate business expense if you're going to convince donors at the Villa Grilla that you are the man.

Yeah, maybe he thought that that was just So much of Santos's campaign was trying to keep up appearances and court the Cathy's of the world, and show them that he was on their level. Maybe he felt like he needed to engage in this spending to keep up this persona. By the time that that second indictment is out and the House Ethics Report has been published, a lot of people are just done with George Santos. For at least some Republicans in Congress, they've seen enough, and they have one more vote to oust him from Congress in December of 2023.

Two-thirds voting in the affirmative The resolution is adopted. The chair announces to the House that in light of the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, the whole number of the House is now 434. Hold up, Amy. So what does this mean for Republicans in the House? What's going to happen with Santos's seat?

So there was actually already a special election held for Santos's seat earlier this year, and the Democrat won. So ultimately, one less Republican in the House because of all of this.

He was working in his own self-interest, and he succeeded bizarrely in becoming a congressman.

You can still hear Cathy trying to make sense out of this, figuring out how this happened and who is to blame. More on that in a minute. I was struck by one thing that Cathy said in particular towards the end of our conversation.

He would never have won as himself, which is another commentary on society. I mean, George, in and of himself, he's a smart guy. I don't think he went to college, but in the future, I think that college is going to be passe. George, if he was left to what he could actually do, I mean, he's pretty smart and talented, but he didn't have the credentials. So he lied about his credentials, and he didn't have the money. So he stole, or I just shouldn't say he stole, he's accused of stealing to It's the old Machiavelian means to an end.

Wow. He never would have won as himself is what she says. It's interesting. I mean, if I'm hearing her right, she's almost saying maybe in some point in the future, the things that he needed, like going to college is going to become passe. It's not going to be this bar to entry. She's seeing this future where some of the old benchmarks for what makes a good congressman or whatever not there. It's almost like he was ahead of his time, and so he just had to lie to get around the bars to entry that existed, but that he actually was smart enough and charming enough that he had those core aspects of what it would take, but he just couldn't get in because he didn't meet these other thresholds that we still insist upon. I don't know. It's like she's I'm almost sympathetic to him in this moment.

Oh, completely. I found this fascinating because in this moment, she's very self-aware, I think. That's what I hear is just society wouldn't have accepted him as himself.

It's interesting Because she says it's a commentary on society, that society never would have accepted George for who he was. But what she's really saying is, I never would have accepted George for who he was. I mean, in this case, she is the gatekeeper. She is, yeah. She's the gatekeeper to this society. Completely. I am certain or I feel certain that George Santos understood that deep in his bones. If that is true, I wonder if he held a contempt that fueled his ability and his willingness to brazenly lie.

Yeah, you're still... See, so you're still fixated on the why George Santos did this.

Yeah. In the end, that's the question that I think is going to... Yeah, that's the question that stays with me, at least. I keep thinking that maybe there's deeper explanations to what he did than maybe at first blush, it seems.

Yeah, look, I think that it's interesting to parse that out, and we could spend the next 20 years arguing about the why. But for me, the more interesting question is, how does something like this happen? Because I don't think understanding the psychology of George Santos is going to prevent the next George Santos. I think understanding the forces that put him in this position and allowed him to get away with seemingly so many lies and crimes without consequence for quite some time, that is the bigger issue to be addressing here. And so how do you prevent that from happening again? I mean, it's interesting when Kathy first hears about the New Times reporting, she's furious, but not even with Santos as much as she's angry with the Republican Party in Nassau County. And one guy who is the head of the Republican Committee named Joe Kyro.

Well, what the hell? What about picking up the goddamn telephone and calling Barouk, calling NYU, calling Goldman Sachs? And this was not the first campaign. This was the second campaign. To me, I mean, Joe Kyro should be fired out. As far as I'm concerned, I mean, I am furious with him. I mean, George pulled the wool over his eyes. It's like Mr. Ripley meets Catch me if you can.

I asked Joe Kyro for comment about this. He conceded that there were some shortcomings in the vetting process. He once told a reporter, I guess, unfortunately, we rely on the person to be truthful to us. But I will also say that there's no real requirement for these committees to vet members of Congress. It really comes down to the parties and journalists and whoever else is paying attention to root out problems with these candidates who are running for office. I think that that's what this story lays bare, that this is potentially a weak point in this whole process.

There are some federal jobs where they do vet people. I know I have a buddy who was a Foreign Service officer, and they did all kinds of background check on him. They even called me. I mean, there's a lot of federal government jobs where they vet people, but I guess this is not one of them. It's interesting because Cathy, she's furious at Joe Kyro, the Republican operative who made the introduction because he didn't do this due diligence. I get that on some level. Cathy's job is to raise the money. It's not to vet the candidates. She did her job, right? She opened her house, she called her friends, all this and that.

Because I think it goes further than that, that this was a personal relationship that she had with George Santos. She feels angry with the party for not vetting this guy better, while also being shocked that she's been lied to so extensively by this person that she trusted, this guy that she let into her world.

I'd never had anyone lie to me so bald-facedly.

When the scandal breaks, does she hear from George? Does he call up to check in or anything?

George was fishing around to see if I was going to be on his side. I said, I never want to speak to him again.

Wait, did she tell him that to his face?

Cathy told me that one of Santos's staffers reached out to her to feel her out. But she says in that moment, I'm done. I'm never talking to you again. It was clear to her. She could see plainly that he had lied to her, to her face, and she wasn't willing to tolerate that. I think Cathy really feels burned twice because she was duped by this guy, but also because she opened up her doors and her network, and those people were also duped by George Santos, and she feels responsible. The moment for Cathy, where I think this becomes incredibly serious, is when the indictment comes down, and she has to relive this all over again.

Well, I was horrified. It was incredulous. I immediately wrote a letter of apology to my friends, saying it was my responsibility for not doing my independent due diligence.

You know, Kathy is clearly not happy with the Republican Party in New York. She made that extremely clear in our interview. But But I think she also feels how a lot of people have felt, how did we not see it? There are numerous places in the story where you can feel like this is a story of the system working, right? That you have journalists and you have watchdog groups and you have investigators, both within the house and within the Department of Justice, that all do their jobs. And that's why we know as much as we know at this point about George Santos and the extent of his schemes. I'm still stuck on the question of how did this go on for so long undetected.

I mean, because look, and this is not to diminish, this is not to take away from any of the investigations that went on. But at the end of the day, the unraveling of this occurs by doing some very simple things. Calling up Barouk College and saying, Hey, did this guy go here? Calling up Goldman Sachs and saying, Did this guy work here? Or looking at his campaign finance records online, which are publicly available, right? All of which is to say this isn't Watergate. This isn't Deep Throat, where there's some guy on a bench who's revealing some secrets that otherwise would be totally inaccessible. This is information that is relatively relatively accessible and just for whatever reason, folks had not been picking up the phone and looking over the reports. I'm not pointing a finger to anyone saying, Oh, anyone fell in there. But I'm just noting that, that that's the thing that's so striking about this story. It's not that the information was inaccessible or contained by one impossible to access source. It was just that no one bothered to pick up the phone, and that's crazy.

This might surprise you because it was surprising to me. Someone did pick up the phone, his own campaign, and a report was commissioned. Wait. And when- Whoa.

Sorry, this is crazy. Who commissioned this?

In 2021, the Santos campaign commissioned a vulnerability report on their candidate. It's quite common in politics these days. You would do opposition research where you're trying to learn about the other candidate, but there's also what they call a vulnerability study or a vulnerability report, which is how can I best prepare for attacks that my opponent might make? Sure. The report cost nearly $17,000. The results come back, and they find a lot of the same things that had been laid out that would later come to light in the New York Times report. What? Like that he had faced multiple and that there was no record of his college degrees. So again, a lot of the things that the public would learn about in December of 2022 were known to his campaign over a year prior. There's reporting to indicate that members of his team left after that report came through. Santos maintained to his team at that time that he had diplomas that he could show them. It's the same familiar Santos refrain of, I I have answers, I have receipts, but that never materializes. And so throughout this story, there are so many moments of when this whole thing could have collapsed.

Because there were people who knew and walked away and washed their hands of it and for whatever reason did not come forward to out this guy.

I mean, if you thought, I mean, now I understand why Cathy gets so mad for not vetting him. Also, $17,000. Amy? Yes. We should call out to listeners. We here at Deep Cover will do it for one quarter of that price.

We will call Barouk College for a fraction of that.

You give me 500 bucks, and I will call all the places the guy claimed to work and tell you if that's not true, and you'll have it back in six hours.

I know. I really want to talk to somebody who worked on that report. I still have questions here, right? Yeah. I was really hoping that this would go to trial so we could air out all of the specifics. Who is contributor number 12? I don't know that I'll get an answer that.

I'm wondering, you said you talked to Cathy after this. What's her feeling? Because she said she was expecting to testify. How did she feel about the plea?

I Actually, I wasn't sure if Cathy was going to speak with me again, but I got her on the phone this morning.

It was good news for me that George pleaded guilty on Monday because now I don't have to go and testify to justify. Good thing that George went ahead and wasn't so arrogant as to continue this and that at least he's fessing up. Hopefully, he will serve his sentence Be repentant, and hopefully he'll learn his lesson and we'll stop lying, cheating, and stealing.

If he apologized to you, would you forgive him?

Not now. Again, you don't believe him until it's like you want to see what he actually does.

This series was produced by Amy Gaines-McQuade, Izzy Carter, and Joey Fishground. Our editor is Karen Shakergy. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Mastering by Jake Gorsky. Fact-checking by Anika Robbins. Our show art was designed by Sean Carny. Music in this series is from Louise Guerra, Jake Gorsky, and Epidemic Sound. Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Sarah Brugget, Kerry Brodie, Jake Flanigan, Lydia Jean-Cott, Jordan McMillan, Ben Nadaf-Hafri, Mullen, Ben Nadef Hafri, Kyra Posi, Owen Miller, Christina Sullivan, Sophie Crane, Farida Grunge, and Greta Cohen. Additional thanks to Switchin' Board Studio, Janel Forzith, Britta Galanis, Jason McQuade, and Karen Gaines. I'm Jake Halpern.