August 28, 2024 • 36 mins
Amy Gaines McQuade sits down with GOP donor and former Santos supporter Cathy Soref. Then Amy and Jake Halpern discuss some of the most serious charges that George Santos faced, and pled guilty to in federal court.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin so Jake.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
When we started reporting this series, I set out to
speak with one of Santos's donors because I thought it
would be interesting to talk to someone who chose to
support Santos.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yeah, and I totally didn't think you're gonna get anyone
to talk to you on the record.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Me too, But also, I mean, Santos's 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 gonna hear from someone who
(01:03):
was subpoenaed, someone who was expecting to have to testify
about George Santos, who once upon a time was his ally.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I met George at an event in Maddictuck, out east
on Long Island, probably in twenty twenty one. It was hot,
so it must have been the summer.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
This is Kathy Soref.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
She's a Republican donor who lives on Long Island on
the north.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Shore, the North Shore like Gatsby Country.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Kathy has voted for every Republican presidential candidate since Gerald Ford.
When I interviewed Kathy at her house, there was a
lot going on. I got the sense that Kathy's house
is always buzzing with activity. And also just me calling
it a house is really underselling it, because this place
(02:15):
was massive.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Outside.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
There are these colorful sculptures of animals all over the property,
like think pink, blue, purple. The house is at the
end of a private road, and when I parked outside,
I noticed there was room to park. I guess at
least ten cars outside the front door.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
What do you call the house the Villa Gorilla?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Where did that name come from?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Well, it's disputed. My nephews take credit for it, but
I think that Douglas named it that after a Warren
Zevon saw.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Douglas is her husband. So all this to say, she's
got a great house for parties. Anyway, back to the
moment when Kathy first met George Santos. She told me
that before she actually met him in person, at that
Republican fundrase r out east on the Island, she got
a phone call.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
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 candidacy.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Before that even met. He just like cold called.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Her, yes, well, out of the blue.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Like he'd just gotten a whiff of what she might
do for him.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And then when she arrives at the fundraiser, guess who
she's sitting with.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
We were seated at the same table. George described himself
as being independently well to do and felt that he
it was his civic duty to participate in public service.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And Kathy told me that she liked him even from
that first meeting, even if he wasn't her perfect candidate.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
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 be he would win. So,
(04:23):
you know, I said that I would support him and
give him, you know, a couple of events which I
did to help him introduce him to other people. So
I expended a lot of my own personal political capital,
meaning my friends and connections who participate in conservative politics,
(04:47):
and they supported George for the same reason that I did.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
What does she mean by that? What is her reason?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think she meant that he was a candidate who
could maybe win in New York and in that district.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You know, she found him quite charming.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Well, he's kind of a weird guy, but he's kind
of oddly charismatics, whip it smart, a very very quick thinking,
he has a lot of social references, and he's very palsy.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
And Kathy 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 role in his unraveling.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
The man who flew under the radar for so long and.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
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 four, The Donor. So,
(06:05):
as you're aware, Santos was indicted twice, but I want
to talk for a moment about that first indictment that
came down in May of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
We were shocked.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
My phone is literally blowing up in the worst way possible.
Inquiries about saying, is George going to jail? What's going on?
And it's just I thought, my reputation is so screwed.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
That's Nesa Woomer. She was Santos's communications director. So this
indictment is for thirteen counts. The charges range from money
laundering to stealing public money, wire fraud, and making false
statements to Congress. And it's in that moment that everyone
(06:51):
can see for the first time, really what sort of
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. Things come into sharp focus when the charges
(07:12):
come out.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
I'm disgusted. I'm thoroughly disgusted. I thought, okay, now we're
in you know, wire fraud and money laundering. You know,
respect is gone. It became it was too much and
it became too toxic.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And directly following that indictment, Santos faces a vote from
the House. Someone introduces a resolution to expel him. Essentially
to oust him from Congress, and I'm.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
Personally in favor of this individual's expulsion from this House. Regretably, 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.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So, just to break down what's happening here, you'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 to put that into jeopardy.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Just to be clear here, this is a district that
could swing back to blue in theory.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yes, so the House votes to keep Santos in office
for now. But in this moment, Nesa is done. You know,
she's asked around for advice and they've all basically told
her the same thing.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
They just said.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
NASA resigns right after that unsuccessful vote to oust Santos
from Congress.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So I'm curious back in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two,
the donors that George Santos was courting people like Kathy.
Do you get the sense that she had any idea
what this guy was really up to.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Kathy has said to me that she had no clue
about what George Santos was up to, and I believe
her on that. I mean, she had no reason not
to trust him in that moment. I do get the
sense that Kathy and George Santos formed a friendship in
the time that they knew each other.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
He came to my house several times. He would drop.
He claimed to live near here. He told me that
his mother died of cancer. He told me that his
mother went to Harvard.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
He told you that his mother went to Harvard.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yes, he did. And he also told me that he
had survived cancer.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
That George had survived cancer.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
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 kind of stunned. I said, oh,
I'm sorry. That added to his story and appeal that
he's a survivor.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
You see It's like it's like a jazz musician. He's
just improvising. I haven't heard these these Santos stories yet.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
This is yes, wow, yeah, this is the first time
I had heard a lot of this too. And I
think that maybe some of these stories were cherry picked
for Kathy.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
What do you mean that you think that some of
these stories might have been cherry picked for Kathy?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Like these are things that George Santos thought would impress Kathy,
and I should say. Kathy 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
(10:45):
trying to play the role trying to impress Kathy. I see,
And George needs someone like Kathy to like him, right,
because Kathy is a door to connections to more money,
Which brings us back to this event that Kathy decides
she's going to throw for George at the Villa Gorilla.
(11:05):
She couldn't remember the exact date, but thinks it was
ing the twenty twenty two campaign. She told me she
sent out printed invites, and of course I wanted to
hear every detail.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Santos stood at the door. He was like the welcome wagon.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
He was greeting everyone, and 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 this talk in the living room. George was
very funny and engaging.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
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 it just that seems so
believable to me and so kind of fitting for this
guy's aspirations.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, and who.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Were the people at Villa Gorilla that evening?
Speaker 4 (11:54):
My focus is next generation, So we had quite a
few young people here from the area. Maybe we had
thirty people. But I'm sure he raised a fair amount
of money. I had several of my local, longtime friends
who showed up for it. It was tremendously horrible for
(12:17):
me of what happened.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
What happened, meaning when she eventually learned what Santos was
really up to. When the New York Times story came out.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
The guy hood winked 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,
so they're you know, and they were hoodwinked and know
that I was hoodwinked. But they were upset that they
were dragged into this and it was my responsibility.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
I am mad at myself for not doing my own
due diligence.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Does Kathy see herself as a victim?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Kathy told me that she considers herself that she was
defrauded by George Santos, but she does not think that Santos,
you know, stole from her. She does not think that
her credit card information was misused in any way. And
the reason that's irrelevant distinction is because Santo's did steal
(13:22):
from some of his donors by charging their credit cards
without their consent for large sums of money.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
He did not steal from me. I probably in total,
besides the and it probably cost me a few thousand
dollars to give him an event. I probably in addition,
maybe it was about six thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I've seen Newsday did like a review of federal election data,
and I think they pegged you at like seven thousand.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Well maybe some you know, 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 I'd have to go through all of my
right papers again. But it was, you know, nominal, like
one thousand dollars at a time.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I have to ask the question, do you know of
anyone who attended a fundraiser at your house may have
had their credit card information?
Speaker 4 (14:14):
I don't know for a fact any of that.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So 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, and Santos goes
(14:40):
on a spending spree with his donor's credit cards. More
on that after the break.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So credit card fraud, it's a pretty big deal. How
much are we talking about money wise here?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
So there's one example in particular that's laid out in
the indictment, And to protect this person's ident, it's anonymized,
so they're only referred to as contributor number twelve. So
this all begins when contributor number twelve sends their credit
card info to the Santos campaign and the Santos team
(15:25):
charges it for more than they should on that day.
And this is an issue for two reasons, the first
being that contributor number twelve did not authorize this overcharge,
but also it's over the limit of what's allowed, which
back in twenty twenty two was twenty nine hundred dollars
(15:47):
that you could give once for the primary and then
again in the general election.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Okay, so in theory, that's fifty eight hundred for the two.
Now what's the deal with contributor number twelve? How much
over was this person charged?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
So Contributor number twelve was charged fifteen thousand, eight hundred dollars,
so almost sixteen thousand in contributions, which is ten thousand
over what is technically allowed.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Well, I mean, is that is that a mistake? You
want to say, like, right, did this happen more than once?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
It did?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
So Santos and his team attempted over forty thousand dollars
of contributions from Contributor twelve 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
(16:51):
own personal account directly, again without any authorization from Contributor
number twelve. So in one case, they used their credit
card billing information to transfer more than eleven thousand dollars
to Santos's personal bank account.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
He's like a kid in a candy store with no
one watching, it seems like.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And this is also the first time in the indictment
we hear about something that prosecutors call company number one.
At a certain point during the twenty twenty two campaign,
Santos uses the credit card billing information of Contributor twelve,
charges twelve thousand dollars and it hits the account of
(17:37):
Company number one.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
What is company number one?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So the House Ethics Report and other reporting has identified
Company number one as red Stone Strategies. Red Stone Strategies
is all over this indictment as company number one.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And let me guess it was formed just before the election.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It was formed in November twenty twenty one, so yes,
around the time that Santos is mounting his campaign for
the twenty twenty two election.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It was formed in Florida.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Santos is a major stakeholder of Redstone Strategies gets tried
to distance himself, but his fingerprints appear to be all
over this company. And so, basically, going back to contributor
number twelve for a moment, they are charged twelve thousand
dollars to Redstone Strategies, and then it seems like what
prosecutors allegend the indictment is that most of that twelve
(18:29):
thousand dollars goes from Redstone Strategies directly to Santos's personal
bank account.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Again, okay, so I have a question about contributor number twelve.
How did this person not notice that their credit card
was being charged excessively by tens of thousands of dollars?
Like at my house when I see like an Amazon
charge for nine ninety nine that I don't recognize, I'm like, huh, so,
(18:57):
what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
I wish I had an answer for you, okay, And
I should say that there are two other donors who
each made contributions of twenty five one thousand dollars to
Redstone Strategies. That is a problem for multiple reasons, and
Redstone Strategies was not set up to accept political contributions,
it was not actually registered with the proper authorities.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Where does that money go?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So they were told that money would go to pay
for advertising, but it looks like that money almost all
of it, So fifty thousand dollars total went directly to
Santosi's 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.
(19:51):
The House report gets even more specific. They claimed that
some of that fifty thousand dollars was actually spent at
or Mez, the fancy designer store, over four thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Right, which is a legitimate business expense if you're going
to convinced owners at the Villa Gorilla that you are
the man.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, maybe he thought that that was just you know,
so much of Santos's campaign was trying to keep up
appearances and court the Kathyes of the world right and
show them that he was on their level, and so
maybe he felt like he needed to engage in this
kind of spending to keep up this persona By the
(20:30):
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 twenty twenty.
Speaker 7 (20:50):
Three, two thirds voting in the affirmative, the resolution is adopted.
The cheer announces to the House that in light of
the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, mister Santos,
the whole number of the House is now four hundred
and thirty four.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Hold up, Amy, So what does this mean for Republicans
in the House, Like, what's going to happen with Santos's seat?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
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.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
He was working in his own self interest and he
succeeded bizarrely and becoming a congressman.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You can still hear Kathy 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
(21:57):
struck by one thing that Kathy said in particular, towards
the end of our conversation.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
He would never have won as himself, which is another
commentary on societ. I mean, George none of himself. He's
a smart guy. I don't think he went to college,
but I mean it's I mean, in the future, I
think that college is going to be passe. And George,
if he was left to what he could actually do.
(22:24):
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 stalled. Or I
just shouldn't say he stole. He's accused of stealing to
to you know, it's the old Machiavellian means to an end.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Well, he never would have won as himself, is what
she says. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, if I'm hearing
her right, she's almost saying like maybe, like at 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 kind of bar to entry. She's
(23:08):
kind of seeing future where some of the old benchmarks
for what makes a good congressman or whatever or not there.
And it's almost like she's saying he was ahead of
his time and so he just had to lie to
get around the kind of bars to entry that existed,
but that he actually was smart enough and charming enough
to that he had those kind of core aspects of
(23:30):
what it would take, but he just couldn't get in
because he didn't meet these other thresholds that are we
still insist upon. I don't know. It's like she's almost
like sympathetic to him in this moment.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh, completely.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
And I found this fascinating because in this moment she's
very self aware, I think, and that's what I hear
is just you know, society wouldn't have accepted him as himself.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
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 she in
this case, she is the gatekeeper. Yeah, she's the gatekeeper
of this society completely. And I am certain, or I
feel certain, that George Santos understood that deep in his bones.
(24:17):
And if that is true, I wonder if he held
a contempt that fueled his ability and his willingness to
brazenly lie.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, you're still see, so you're still fixated on the
why George Santos did this?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, in the end, that's the question that I think
is gonna Yeah, that's the question that stays with me.
At least I keep thinking that, like, maybe there's kind
of deeper explanations to what he did then maybe at
first blush it.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Seems Yeah, Look, I think that it's interesting to parse
that out, and we could we could spend the next
twenty years arguing about the why. But for me, the
more interesting question is how does something like this happen?
Because I don't think under standing the psychology of George
Santos is going to prevent the next George Santos. I
(25:15):
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 York
(25:39):
Times reporting, she's furious, but not even with Santos as
much as she's angry with the Republican Party in Nasa
County and one guy who is the head of the
Republican committee named Joe Cairo.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Well, what the hell? What about picking up the goddamn
telephone and calling Brooke, calling NYU, calling Goldman Sachs. And
this was not the first campaign, this was the second campaign.
And so to me, I mean, Joe Cairo should be
fired out, you know, as far as I'm concerned. I mean,
(26:18):
I am furious with him. I mean, George pulled the
wool over his eyes. It's like, uh, you know, mister
Ripley meets catch me if you can.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I asked Joe Cairo for comment about this. He conceded
that there were some shortcomings in the vetting process. He
once told a reporter quote, 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. So it really comes
(26:51):
down to the parties and journalists and whoever else is
paying attention to root out problems with these candidates who
are running for office. And I think that that's what
this story lays bare, that this is potentially a weak
point in this whole process.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
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 call me. I mean, there's a
lot of federal government jobs where they vet people, but
I guess this is not one of them. And it's
interesting because Kathy she's furious at Joe Cairo, the Republican
(27:30):
operative who kind of made the introduction, because he didn't
do this due diligence. And I get that on some level,
like Kathy's job is to raise the money, it's not
to vet the candidates. So she did her job right,
She opened her house, she called her friends, all this
and that.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Right, because I think it goes further than that that
this was a personal relationship that she had with George Santos.
So she feels angry with the party for not vetting
this guy better, while also being sort of shocked that
she's been lied to so extensively by this person, that
she trusted, this guy that she let into her world.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
I'd never had anyone lie to me so bald facedly.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
When the scandal breaks, does she hear from George, does
he like call up to check in or anything.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
George was fishing around to see if I was going
to be on his side, and I said, I never
want to speak to him again.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Wait, did she tell him that to his face?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Kathy told me that one of Santos's staffers reached out
to her to kind of feel her out, but she
says in that moment, I'm done.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
I'm never talking to you again.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
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 Kathy 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
(29:02):
she feels responsible. The moment for Kathy where I think
this becomes incredibly serious is when the indictment comes down
and she has to relive this all over again.
Speaker 8 (29:12):
Well.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
You know, Kathy is clearly not happy with the Republican
Party in New York. She made that extremely clear in
our interview, but I think she also feels how a
lot of people have felt, how did.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
We not see it?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
There are numerous places in this 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
(30:08):
point about Santos and the extent of his schemes. Right,
I'm still stuck on the question of how did this
go on for so long undetected?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
I mean, because like, 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 Baroke College and saying, hey,
(30:41):
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 like some guy in a bench
who's like revealing some secrets that otherwise would be totally inaccessible.
(31:06):
This is information that is relative accessible and just for
whatever reason, folks had not been picking up the phone
and looking over the reports. And I'm not pointing a
finger to anyone saying, oh, anyone fell out there, but
I'm just I'm just noting that that's that's the thing
that's so striking about this story. It's not that the
(31:27):
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 kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So, and this might surprise you, because it was surprising
to me. Someone did pick up the phone his own campaign,
and a report was commissioned.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Wait and when WHOA sorry, this is crazy? Who commissioned this?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
In twenty twenty one, the Santos campaign commissioned a vulnerability
report on their candidate. It's quite common in politics these days. Yeah,
you know, 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
(32:20):
opponent might work, and so the report costs nearly seventeen
thousand dollars. 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 evictions
and that there was no record of his college degrees.
(32:42):
So again, like a lot of the things that we
the public would learn about in December of twenty twenty
two 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, and Santos maintained to his
team at that time that he had diplomas that he
(33:04):
could show them. It's the same familiar Santo's refrain of
I have answers, I have receipts, but that never materializes.
And so you know, throughout this story there are so
many moments of when this whole thing could have collapsed. Yeah,
because there were people who knew and walked away and
washed their hands of it and for whatever reason did
(33:26):
not come forward to out this guy.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I mean, if you thought, I mean, and now I
understand why Kathy gets so mad for not vetting him. Also,
seventeen thousand dollars, Amy does we should have said call
out to listeners. We hear deep Cover will do it
for one quarter of that price.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
We will call Beroke College for a fraction of that.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Give me five hundred 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.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
I know, I really want to talk to somebody who
worked on that report.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
So these are still like I still have.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Questions here, right, Yeah, I mean I was really hoping
that this would go to trial so we could air
out all of the specifics, like who is contributed number twelve?
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Right, I don't know that I'll get an answer to that.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
I'm wondering. You said you talked to Kathy after this.
What's her feeling because she said she was expecting to testify,
So how does she feel about how did she feel
about the plea?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
So, actually wasn't sure if Kathy was going to speak
with me again, but I got her on the phone
this morning.
Speaker 8 (34:30):
It was good news for me that George pleaded guilty
on Monday, because now I don't.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Have to go and testify.
Speaker 8 (34:40):
Good thing that George went ahead and wasn't so arrogant
as to continue this and that at least he's passing
up and you know, hopefully he will serve his sentence,
be repentant, and hopefully he'll learn his lesson and will
stop lying to eating and feeling.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
If he apologized to you, would you forgive him?
Speaker 8 (35:03):
Not now?
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Not now?
Speaker 8 (35:07):
You know you don't again you we believe him until
it's like you want to see what he actually does.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
This series was produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid, Izzy Carter
and Joey fish Ground. Our editor is Karen shakergi Our
executive producer is Jacob Smith. Mastering by Jake Gorsky, fact
checking by Anica Robbins. Our show art was designed by
Sean Carney. Music in this series is from Luis Gara
(35:41):
Jake Gorsky An Epidemic Sound Special thanks to Sarah Nix,
Eric Sandler, Sarah Bruger, Carrie Brody, Jake Flanagan, Lydia Gene Kott,
Jordan McMillan, Ben Nat f Haffrey, Kira Posey, Owen Miller,
Christina Sullivan, Sophie Crane, Fara Day Grunge and Greta Cohen.
(36:01):
Additional thanks to Switch and Board Studio, Janelle Forsyth, Britta Glanis,
Jason McQuaid and Karen Gaine. I'm Jake Halpern
Pushkin so Jake.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
When we started reporting this series, I set out to
speak with one of Santos's donors because I thought it
would be interesting to talk to someone who chose to
support Santos.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yeah, and I totally didn't think you're gonna get anyone
to talk to you on the record.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Me too, But also, I mean, Santos's 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 gonna hear from someone who
(01:03):
was subpoenaed, someone who was expecting to have to testify
about George Santos, who once upon a time was his ally.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I met George at an event in Maddictuck, out east
on Long Island, probably in twenty twenty one. It was hot,
so it must have been the summer.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
This is Kathy Soref.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
She's a Republican donor who lives on Long Island on
the north.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Shore, the North Shore like Gatsby Country.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Kathy has voted for every Republican presidential candidate since Gerald Ford.
When I interviewed Kathy at her house, there was a
lot going on. I got the sense that Kathy's house
is always buzzing with activity. And also just me calling
it a house is really underselling it, because this place
(02:15):
was massive.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Outside.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
There are these colorful sculptures of animals all over the property,
like think pink, blue, purple. The house is at the
end of a private road, and when I parked outside,
I noticed there was room to park. I guess at
least ten cars outside the front door.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
What do you call the house the Villa Gorilla?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Where did that name come from?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Well, it's disputed. My nephews take credit for it, but
I think that Douglas named it that after a Warren
Zevon saw.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Douglas is her husband. So all this to say, she's
got a great house for parties. Anyway, back to the
moment when Kathy first met George Santos. She told me
that before she actually met him in person, at that
Republican fundrase r out east on the Island, she got
a phone call.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
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 candidacy.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Before that even met. He just like cold called.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Her, yes, well, out of the blue.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Like he'd just gotten a whiff of what she might
do for him.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And then when she arrives at the fundraiser, guess who
she's sitting with.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
We were seated at the same table. George described himself
as being independently well to do and felt that he
it was his civic duty to participate in public service.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And Kathy told me that she liked him even from
that first meeting, even if he wasn't her perfect candidate.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
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 be he would win. So,
(04:23):
you know, I said that I would support him and
give him, you know, a couple of events which I
did to help him introduce him to other people. So
I expended a lot of my own personal political capital,
meaning my friends and connections who participate in conservative politics,
(04:47):
and they supported George for the same reason that I did.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
What does she mean by that? What is her reason?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think she meant that he was a candidate who
could maybe win in New York and in that district.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You know, she found him quite charming.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Well, he's kind of a weird guy, but he's kind
of oddly charismatics, whip it smart, a very very quick thinking,
he has a lot of social references, and he's very palsy.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
And Kathy 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 role in his unraveling.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
The man who flew under the radar for so long and.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
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 four, The Donor. So,
(06:05):
as you're aware, Santos was indicted twice, but I want
to talk for a moment about that first indictment that
came down in May of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
We were shocked.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
My phone is literally blowing up in the worst way possible.
Inquiries about saying, is George going to jail? What's going on?
And it's just I thought, my reputation is so screwed.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
That's Nesa Woomer. She was Santos's communications director. So this
indictment is for thirteen counts. The charges range from money
laundering to stealing public money, wire fraud, and making false
statements to Congress. And it's in that moment that everyone
(06:51):
can see for the first time, really what sort of
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. Things come into sharp focus when the charges
(07:12):
come out.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
I'm disgusted. I'm thoroughly disgusted. I thought, okay, now we're
in you know, wire fraud and money laundering. You know,
respect is gone. It became it was too much and
it became too toxic.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And directly following that indictment, Santos faces a vote from
the House. Someone introduces a resolution to expel him. Essentially
to oust him from Congress, and I'm.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
Personally in favor of this individual's expulsion from this House. Regretably, 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.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So, just to break down what's happening here, you'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 to put that into jeopardy.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Just to be clear here, this is a district that
could swing back to blue in theory.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yes, so the House votes to keep Santos in office
for now. But in this moment, Nesa is done. You know,
she's asked around for advice and they've all basically told
her the same thing.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
They just said.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
NASA resigns right after that unsuccessful vote to oust Santos
from Congress.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So I'm curious back in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two,
the donors that George Santos was courting people like Kathy.
Do you get the sense that she had any idea
what this guy was really up to.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Kathy has said to me that she had no clue
about what George Santos was up to, and I believe
her on that. I mean, she had no reason not
to trust him in that moment. I do get the
sense that Kathy and George Santos formed a friendship in
the time that they knew each other.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
He came to my house several times. He would drop.
He claimed to live near here. He told me that
his mother died of cancer. He told me that his
mother went to Harvard.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
He told you that his mother went to Harvard.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yes, he did. And he also told me that he
had survived cancer.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
That George had survived cancer.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
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 kind of stunned. I said, oh,
I'm sorry. That added to his story and appeal that
he's a survivor.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
You see It's like it's like a jazz musician. He's
just improvising. I haven't heard these these Santos stories yet.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
This is yes, wow, yeah, this is the first time
I had heard a lot of this too. And I
think that maybe some of these stories were cherry picked
for Kathy.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
What do you mean that you think that some of
these stories might have been cherry picked for Kathy?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Like these are things that George Santos thought would impress Kathy,
and I should say. Kathy 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
(10:45):
trying to play the role trying to impress Kathy. I see,
And George needs someone like Kathy to like him, right,
because Kathy is a door to connections to more money,
Which brings us back to this event that Kathy decides
she's going to throw for George at the Villa Gorilla.
(11:05):
She couldn't remember the exact date, but thinks it was
ing the twenty twenty two campaign. She told me she
sent out printed invites, and of course I wanted to
hear every detail.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Santos stood at the door. He was like the welcome wagon.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
He was greeting everyone, and 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 this talk in the living room. George was
very funny and engaging.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
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 it just that seems so
believable to me and so kind of fitting for this
guy's aspirations.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, and who.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Were the people at Villa Gorilla that evening?
Speaker 4 (11:54):
My focus is next generation, So we had quite a
few young people here from the area. Maybe we had
thirty people. But I'm sure he raised a fair amount
of money. I had several of my local, longtime friends
who showed up for it. It was tremendously horrible for
(12:17):
me of what happened.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
What happened, meaning when she eventually learned what Santos was
really up to. When the New York Times story came out.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
The guy hood winked 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,
so they're you know, and they were hoodwinked and know
that I was hoodwinked. But they were upset that they
were dragged into this and it was my responsibility.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
I am mad at myself for not doing my own
due diligence.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Does Kathy see herself as a victim?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Kathy told me that she considers herself that she was
defrauded by George Santos, but she does not think that Santos,
you know, stole from her. She does not think that
her credit card information was misused in any way. And
the reason that's irrelevant distinction is because Santo's did steal
(13:22):
from some of his donors by charging their credit cards
without their consent for large sums of money.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
He did not steal from me. I probably in total,
besides the and it probably cost me a few thousand
dollars to give him an event. I probably in addition,
maybe it was about six thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I've seen Newsday did like a review of federal election data,
and I think they pegged you at like seven thousand.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Well maybe some you know, 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 I'd have to go through all of my
right papers again. But it was, you know, nominal, like
one thousand dollars at a time.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I have to ask the question, do you know of
anyone who attended a fundraiser at your house may have
had their credit card information?
Speaker 4 (14:14):
I don't know for a fact any of that.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So 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, and Santos goes
(14:40):
on a spending spree with his donor's credit cards. More
on that after the break.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So credit card fraud, it's a pretty big deal. How
much are we talking about money wise here?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
So there's one example in particular that's laid out in
the indictment, And to protect this person's ident, it's anonymized,
so they're only referred to as contributor number twelve. So
this all begins when contributor number twelve sends their credit
card info to the Santos campaign and the Santos team
(15:25):
charges it for more than they should on that day.
And this is an issue for two reasons, the first
being that contributor number twelve did not authorize this overcharge,
but also it's over the limit of what's allowed, which
back in twenty twenty two was twenty nine hundred dollars
(15:47):
that you could give once for the primary and then
again in the general election.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Okay, so in theory, that's fifty eight hundred for the two.
Now what's the deal with contributor number twelve? How much
over was this person charged?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
So Contributor number twelve was charged fifteen thousand, eight hundred dollars,
so almost sixteen thousand in contributions, which is ten thousand
over what is technically allowed.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Well, I mean, is that is that a mistake? You
want to say, like, right, did this happen more than once?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
It did?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
So Santos and his team attempted over forty thousand dollars
of contributions from Contributor twelve 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
(16:51):
own personal account directly, again without any authorization from Contributor
number twelve. So in one case, they used their credit
card billing information to transfer more than eleven thousand dollars
to Santos's personal bank account.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
He's like a kid in a candy store with no
one watching, it seems like.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And this is also the first time in the indictment
we hear about something that prosecutors call company number one.
At a certain point during the twenty twenty two campaign,
Santos uses the credit card billing information of Contributor twelve,
charges twelve thousand dollars and it hits the account of
(17:37):
Company number one.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
What is company number one?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So the House Ethics Report and other reporting has identified
Company number one as red Stone Strategies. Red Stone Strategies
is all over this indictment as company number one.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And let me guess it was formed just before the election.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It was formed in November twenty twenty one, so yes,
around the time that Santos is mounting his campaign for
the twenty twenty two election.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It was formed in Florida.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Santos is a major stakeholder of Redstone Strategies gets tried
to distance himself, but his fingerprints appear to be all
over this company. And so, basically, going back to contributor
number twelve for a moment, they are charged twelve thousand
dollars to Redstone Strategies, and then it seems like what
prosecutors allegend the indictment is that most of that twelve
(18:29):
thousand dollars goes from Redstone Strategies directly to Santos's personal
bank account.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Again, okay, so I have a question about contributor number twelve.
How did this person not notice that their credit card
was being charged excessively by tens of thousands of dollars?
Like at my house when I see like an Amazon
charge for nine ninety nine that I don't recognize, I'm like, huh, so,
(18:57):
what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
I wish I had an answer for you, okay, And
I should say that there are two other donors who
each made contributions of twenty five one thousand dollars to
Redstone Strategies. That is a problem for multiple reasons, and
Redstone Strategies was not set up to accept political contributions,
it was not actually registered with the proper authorities.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Where does that money go?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So they were told that money would go to pay
for advertising, but it looks like that money almost all
of it, So fifty thousand dollars total went directly to
Santosi's 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.
(19:51):
The House report gets even more specific. They claimed that
some of that fifty thousand dollars was actually spent at
or Mez, the fancy designer store, over four thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Right, which is a legitimate business expense if you're going
to convinced owners at the Villa Gorilla that you are
the man.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, maybe he thought that that was just you know,
so much of Santos's campaign was trying to keep up
appearances and court the Kathyes of the world right and
show them that he was on their level, and so
maybe he felt like he needed to engage in this
kind of spending to keep up this persona By the
(20:30):
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 twenty twenty.
Speaker 7 (20:50):
Three, two thirds voting in the affirmative, the resolution is adopted.
The cheer announces to the House that in light of
the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, mister Santos,
the whole number of the House is now four hundred
and thirty four.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Hold up, Amy, So what does this mean for Republicans
in the House, Like, what's going to happen with Santos's seat?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
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.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
He was working in his own self interest and he
succeeded bizarrely and becoming a congressman.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You can still hear Kathy 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
(21:57):
struck by one thing that Kathy said in particular, towards
the end of our conversation.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
He would never have won as himself, which is another
commentary on societ. I mean, George none of himself. He's
a smart guy. I don't think he went to college,
but I mean it's I mean, in the future, I
think that college is going to be passe. And George,
if he was left to what he could actually do.
(22:24):
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 stalled. Or I
just shouldn't say he stole. He's accused of stealing to
to you know, it's the old Machiavellian means to an end.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Well, he never would have won as himself, is what
she says. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, if I'm hearing
her right, she's almost saying like maybe, like at 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 kind of bar to entry. She's
(23:08):
kind of seeing future where some of the old benchmarks
for what makes a good congressman or whatever or not there.
And it's almost like she's saying he was ahead of
his time and so he just had to lie to
get around the kind of bars to entry that existed,
but that he actually was smart enough and charming enough
to that he had those kind of core aspects of
(23:30):
what it would take, but he just couldn't get in
because he didn't meet these other thresholds that are we
still insist upon. I don't know. It's like she's almost
like sympathetic to him in this moment.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh, completely.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
And I found this fascinating because in this moment she's
very self aware, I think, and that's what I hear
is just you know, society wouldn't have accepted him as himself.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
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 she in
this case, she is the gatekeeper. Yeah, she's the gatekeeper
of this society completely. And I am certain, or I
feel certain, that George Santos understood that deep in his bones.
(24:17):
And if that is true, I wonder if he held
a contempt that fueled his ability and his willingness to
brazenly lie.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, you're still see, so you're still fixated on the
why George Santos did this?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, in the end, that's the question that I think
is gonna Yeah, that's the question that stays with me.
At least I keep thinking that, like, maybe there's kind
of deeper explanations to what he did then maybe at
first blush it.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Seems Yeah, Look, I think that it's interesting to parse
that out, and we could we could spend the next
twenty years arguing about the why. But for me, the
more interesting question is how does something like this happen?
Because I don't think under standing the psychology of George
Santos is going to prevent the next George Santos. I
(25:15):
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 York
(25:39):
Times reporting, she's furious, but not even with Santos as
much as she's angry with the Republican Party in Nasa
County and one guy who is the head of the
Republican committee named Joe Cairo.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Well, what the hell? What about picking up the goddamn
telephone and calling Brooke, calling NYU, calling Goldman Sachs. And
this was not the first campaign, this was the second campaign.
And so to me, I mean, Joe Cairo should be
fired out, you know, as far as I'm concerned. I mean,
(26:18):
I am furious with him. I mean, George pulled the
wool over his eyes. It's like, uh, you know, mister
Ripley meets catch me if you can.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I asked Joe Cairo for comment about this. He conceded
that there were some shortcomings in the vetting process. He
once told a reporter quote, 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. So it really comes
(26:51):
down to the parties and journalists and whoever else is
paying attention to root out problems with these candidates who
are running for office. And I think that that's what
this story lays bare, that this is potentially a weak
point in this whole process.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
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 call me. I mean, there's a
lot of federal government jobs where they vet people, but
I guess this is not one of them. And it's
interesting because Kathy she's furious at Joe Cairo, the Republican
(27:30):
operative who kind of made the introduction, because he didn't
do this due diligence. And I get that on some level,
like Kathy's job is to raise the money, it's not
to vet the candidates. So she did her job right,
She opened her house, she called her friends, all this
and that.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Right, because I think it goes further than that that
this was a personal relationship that she had with George Santos.
So she feels angry with the party for not vetting
this guy better, while also being sort of shocked that
she's been lied to so extensively by this person, that
she trusted, this guy that she let into her world.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
I'd never had anyone lie to me so bald facedly.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
When the scandal breaks, does she hear from George, does
he like call up to check in or anything.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
George was fishing around to see if I was going
to be on his side, and I said, I never
want to speak to him again.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Wait, did she tell him that to his face?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Kathy told me that one of Santos's staffers reached out
to her to kind of feel her out, but she
says in that moment, I'm done.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
I'm never talking to you again.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
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 Kathy 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
(29:02):
she feels responsible. The moment for Kathy where I think
this becomes incredibly serious is when the indictment comes down
and she has to relive this all over again.
Speaker 8 (29:12):
Well.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
You know, Kathy is clearly not happy with the Republican
Party in New York. She made that extremely clear in
our interview, but I think she also feels how a
lot of people have felt, how did.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
We not see it?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
There are numerous places in this 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
(30:08):
point about Santos and the extent of his schemes. Right,
I'm still stuck on the question of how did this
go on for so long undetected?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
I mean, because like, 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 Baroke College and saying, hey,
(30:41):
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 like some guy in a bench
who's like revealing some secrets that otherwise would be totally inaccessible.
(31:06):
This is information that is relative accessible and just for
whatever reason, folks had not been picking up the phone
and looking over the reports. And I'm not pointing a
finger to anyone saying, oh, anyone fell out there, but
I'm just I'm just noting that that's that's the thing
that's so striking about this story. It's not that the
(31:27):
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 kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So, and this might surprise you, because it was surprising
to me. Someone did pick up the phone his own campaign,
and a report was commissioned.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Wait and when WHOA sorry, this is crazy? Who commissioned this?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
In twenty twenty one, the Santos campaign commissioned a vulnerability
report on their candidate. It's quite common in politics these days. Yeah,
you know, 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
(32:20):
opponent might work, and so the report costs nearly seventeen
thousand dollars. 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 evictions
and that there was no record of his college degrees.
(32:42):
So again, like a lot of the things that we
the public would learn about in December of twenty twenty
two 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, and Santos maintained to his
team at that time that he had diplomas that he
(33:04):
could show them. It's the same familiar Santo's refrain of
I have answers, I have receipts, but that never materializes.
And so you know, throughout this story there are so
many moments of when this whole thing could have collapsed. Yeah,
because there were people who knew and walked away and
washed their hands of it and for whatever reason did
(33:26):
not come forward to out this guy.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I mean, if you thought, I mean, and now I
understand why Kathy gets so mad for not vetting him. Also,
seventeen thousand dollars, Amy does we should have said call
out to listeners. We hear deep Cover will do it
for one quarter of that price.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
We will call Beroke College for a fraction of that.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Give me five hundred 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.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
I know, I really want to talk to somebody who
worked on that report.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
So these are still like I still have.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Questions here, right, Yeah, I mean I was really hoping
that this would go to trial so we could air
out all of the specifics, like who is contributed number twelve?
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Right, I don't know that I'll get an answer to that.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
I'm wondering. You said you talked to Kathy after this.
What's her feeling because she said she was expecting to testify,
So how does she feel about how did she feel
about the plea?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
So, actually wasn't sure if Kathy was going to speak
with me again, but I got her on the phone
this morning.
Speaker 8 (34:30):
It was good news for me that George pleaded guilty
on Monday, because now I don't.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Have to go and testify.
Speaker 8 (34:40):
Good thing that George went ahead and wasn't so arrogant
as to continue this and that at least he's passing
up and you know, hopefully he will serve his sentence,
be repentant, and hopefully he'll learn his lesson and will
stop lying to eating and feeling.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
If he apologized to you, would you forgive him?
Speaker 8 (35:03):
Not now?
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Not now?
Speaker 8 (35:07):
You know you don't again you we believe him until
it's like you want to see what he actually does.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
This series was produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid, Izzy Carter
and Joey fish Ground. Our editor is Karen shakergi Our
executive producer is Jacob Smith. Mastering by Jake Gorsky, fact
checking by Anica Robbins. Our show art was designed by
Sean Carney. Music in this series is from Luis Gara
(35:41):
Jake Gorsky An Epidemic Sound Special thanks to Sarah Nix,
Eric Sandler, Sarah Bruger, Carrie Brody, Jake Flanagan, Lydia Gene Kott,
Jordan McMillan, Ben Nat f Haffrey, Kira Posey, Owen Miller,
Christina Sullivan, Sophie Crane, Fara Day Grunge and Greta Cohen.
(36:01):
Additional thanks to Switch and Board Studio, Janelle Forsyth, Britta Glanis,
Jason McQuaid and Karen Gaine. I'm Jake Halpern
Host
Jake Halpern
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