Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy appeared to casually brush off that a campaign aide to freshman U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-NY), a proven serial liar, reportedly impersonated McCarthy’s chief of staff in fundraising efforts over a period of several years.
“Wealthy donors received calls and emails from a man who said he was Dan Meyer, McCarthy’s chief of staff, during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, according to people familiar with the matter. His name was actually Sam Miele, and he worked for Santos raising money for his campaign, according to one GOP donor who contributed to Santos’ campaign,” CNBC reported last week.
“One board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition said he supported Santos in part because of the congressman’s false claim that he was Jewish.”
Quoting ethics and legal experts, CNBC reports, “the impersonation of McCarthy’s chief of staff could have broken the law.”
But CNBC also notes that “McCarthy’s spokesman did not respond to repeated requests for comment.”
What could prove to be problematic for the Speaker is, in fact, the timing of when he knew and why he presumably did not contact authorities when he found out.
“I never knew all about his resume or not but I always had a few questions,” McCarthy admitted Monday. That ties into reports that suggest McCarthy may have known illicit acts were being performed, in his name.
“You know, I didn’t know about that, it happened. They corrected but I was not notified about that until a later date,” McCarthy insisted, in what could be seen as an especially evasive response. “I didn’t know about it until a later date though, unfortunately,” he said, repeating himself.
The reporter in the clip below did not appear to ask McCarthy when he knew, but if he knew.
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MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin notes that The New York Times, “reported that Dan Conston, the head of the main House GOP super PAC and a close McCarthy ally, expressed private concerns that George Santos could be exposed as a fraud. It seems reasonable to ask, what did Kevin McCarthy know about George Santos and when did he know it?”
That New York Times article appears to be this one published Friday, but CNBC points to a Washington Times report from last month that reads: “McCarthy’s team first learned about a Santos staffer impersonating the speaker’s chief of staff in August 2021, the Times wrote. The publication said the staffer would call donors pretending to be Meyer and send follow-up emails from a fake address.”
Conservative Bill Kristol observes, “McCarthy seems to have known in 2021 a Santos staffer was impersonating McCarthy’s chief of staff, and he did nothing to inform those who were duped or the public. Nor did he stop Santos from running in 2022. The Santos scandal is also a McCarthy scandal.”
Law professor, political commentator, former U.S. Attorney, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman also suggests McCarthy may have known.
“Turns out many in the George Santos sphere knew that he was a fraud. Campaign staffers quit because of it. And one person who was worried Santos would be exposed as a fraud was known to an ally of an important DC personnage: Kevin McCarthy. Odds that he never told his ally?”
U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) on Sunday tweeted he and fellow New York Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman are sending “a letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republican Leadership, asking who knew what when about the web of lies surrounding George Santos. The public has a right to know what House Republican leaders knew about Mr. Santos.”
“In light of recent public reporting indicating that each of you had at least some knowledge of the web of lies used by Congressman George Santos to deceive his voters long before they became public,” Torres and Goldman say, “we write to request that you proactively and forthrightly cooperate with all current and future investigations into Mr. Santos, including the investigation by the House Committee on Ethics that Speaker McCarthy confirmed this week. In addition, we urge you to inform the American people about your knowledge of Mr. Santos’s web of deceit prior to the election so that the public understands whether and to what extent you were complicit in Mr. Santos’s fraud on his voters,” the letter reads.
The two Democrats last week filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee against Santos.
Watch McCarthy below or at this link.