Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Texas has not received the cash she helped raise through a joint fundraising committee with embattled Rep. George Santos in 2022, according to a report from The Dallas Morning News.
As a pair, the group raised $11,600 in August 2022, a few months before the midterm elections, Federal Election Commission records show. A month later after paying the venue and other fees, the joint fundraising committee — whose finances were overseen by Santos' treasurer — reported that it sent $4,783.33 each to Santos' and Van Duyne's campaign committees.
Despite the moderate amount of cash brought in by Santos and Van Duyne, it's unlikely the two will fundraise together once again using the joint fundraising committee, Van Duyne's campaign spokesman Chris Homan told The Dallas Morning News.
"The Beth Van Duyne campaign did not receive a distribution of funds following the New York trip," Homan told the northern Texas news outlet.
A background in question
Shortly after taking office at the beginning of 2023, news reports began to surface revealing that Santos had lied about much of his background while on the campaign.
Santos, who's Catholic, said on several occasions he was Jewish and lied about the circumstances of his mother's death. He also falsely stated he attended Baruch College and New York University, but both institutions said they didn't have records of a student with his name.
Santos said on the campaign trail that he previously worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Similar to his fib about his education, both groups said he's never worked for them.
He's since apologized for the lies, referring to them as an "embellishment."
"If I disappointed anyone by my résumé embellishment, I'm sorry," Santos previously told WABC radio.
Santos 2024
Amidst the turmoil, Santos announced to Twitter on Monday that he's running for a second term in office.
For Santos, running a campaign for office in 2023-24 will be a much bigger hurdle than before, as seen by his recent financial filings, which showed his campaign refunded more than it actually brought in in the first quarter of 2023.
Santos also has faced calls to resign from many members of Congress — including some Republicans — since his previous campaign lies were unearthed.
One additional factor making it more difficult for Santos to run this go-around is his lack of committee assignments. While he was initially placed on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and House Small Business Committee, he formally asked Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to temporarily remove him from the assignments.
"With the ongoing attention surrounding both my personal and campaign financial investigations, I have submitted a request to Speaker McCarthy that I be temporarily recused from my committee assignments until I am cleared," Santos said in a statement at the time.
And since being taken off his committee assignments, the House Ethics Committee has announced that it's investigating Santos because of sexual misconduct allegations, campaign activity, and his financial disclosures.
