Breaking news: Justice Dept. asks FEC to hold off on investigating George Santos campaign as prosecutors conduct criminal inquiry. The request is the clearest sign to date of an active probe examining the New York congressman’s campaign finances.
in The Washington Post describing how Santos solicited an investment in Harbor City at an Italian restaurant in Queens in late 2020.
The FEC ordinarily complies with DOJ requests to hold off on enforcement. Those requests arise from a 1977 memorandum of understanding between the agencies that addresses their overlapping law enforcement responsibilities.“Basically they don’t want two sets of investigators tripping over each other,” said David M. Mason, a former FEC commissioner. “And they don’t want anything that the FEC, which is a civil agency, does to potentially complicate their criminal case.
The request “indicates there’s an active criminal investigation” examining issues that overlap with complaints against Santos before the FEC, said Brett Kappel, a campaign finance lawyer at D.C.-based Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg., direct particular attention to more than $700,000 that Santos claims to have loaned his 2022 campaign.
On Thursday, the FEC sought more information about the disputed filing. “It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to include the true, correct, or complete treasurer information,” the regulator wrote to Datwyler in aDatwyler’s lawyer told The Post on Friday that he plans to tell the FEC that his client did not submit the filing and that it should be withdrawn.
Late last year, the offices of New York Attorney General Letitia James , Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly and Queens County District Attorney Melinda Katz all said they were looking into whether Santos broke any laws in their jurisdictions. Spokespeople for each office told The Post this week that they had no further updates.At the SEC, regulators alleged in federal court in 2021 that Harbor City was running a Ponzi scheme that raised $17.1 million from more than 100 victims.
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