George Santos Calls Out NY Democrat on Campaign Cash, Gets Leveled in Response: ‘My Future is in Congress; Yours is in Federal Prison’
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
New York City-area Congressmen Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and George Santos (R-NY) pulled no punches on Thursday going after one another on Twitter.
The spat began with Santos retweeting a clip of Torres being pushed in a question-and-answer session on his support for Ukraine fighting off the Russian invasion. During the Q&A, in which the questioner insists “NATO and the U.S. started” the war in Ukraine, a woman shouts out a question about Torres taking corporate donations.
Santos shared the clip and wrote, “Hey @RitchieTorres answer your constituents question. ‘Will you stop taking MONEY from corporations’?”
“Your constituents demand to know who bought you!” Santos demands.
Torres, who has been a fierce critic of the fabulist Republican replied, “George/Anthony/Kitara, you illegally received more than $700k in loans to your campaign. The US Attorney is wondering: Where did the money come from?”
“My future is in Congress; yours is in federal prison, where you will have free time to invent new life stories,” Torres concluded.
Torres joined forces with fellow New York Democrat, Rep. Dan Goldman, in January to file an ethic complaint regarding Santos. The complaint noted Santos “misled voters in his District about his ethnicity, his religion, his education, and his employment and professional history, among other things.”
“Mr. Santos’ financial disclosure reports in 2020 and 2022 are sparse and perplexing,” the complaint adds. “At a minimum, it is apparent that he did not file timely disclosure reports for his most recent campaign. Moreover, his own public statements have contradicted some information included in the 2022 financial disclosure and confirmed that the 2022 financial disclosure failed to disclose other required information.”
Torres has also introduced the SANTOS Act, a bill aimed at preventing candidates seeking elected office from lying about their resumes. Additionally, he has joined other members of Congress in introducing a resolution to expel Santos from the House.
“There’s something sick about a man who not only lies pathologically, but violates almost every law imaginable,” Torres commented as the resolution was introduced in early February.
Santos has been accused of lying about everything from his employment and educational history to his heritage, and even the cause of his mother’s death. He is also under investigation by the Justice Department over questions about his campaign’s finances, including loaning the campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars after declaring no assets and a $55,000 salary just two years before.
