George Santos Took Donation From Migrant-Smuggler [View all]

Embattled Rep. George Santos took an almost certainly illegal donation from an Italian national and confessed smuggler of undocumented immigrants—who also happens to be the blood relative of some of his closest local supporters and campaign vendors.

The gift from Rocco Oppedisano—expelled from the U.S. in January 2019, and who was subsequently intercepted piloting a yacht packed with unauthorized migrants and $200,000 in cash toward Florida—was just one facet of the support the freshman Republican and immigration hardliner received from the Queens-based clan that controls upscale eatery Il Bacco. Santos has been unabashed about his affection for the restaurant and his affinity for its owners, Rocco Oppedisano’s brother Joseph and niece Tina.

As a truth-challenged candidate, Santos appointed the father-daughter pair, plus her fiancé, to his “Small Businesses for Santos Coalition,” and made Tina its chair. The campaign, already known for its suspect money maneuvers, also spent $25,443.64 at Il Bacco since the Republican launched his first run for his Long Island-Queens seat in 2020, according to federal campaign finance records. The campaign further reported owing Il Bacco $18,773.54 for its election night party in November.

Especially striking to legal experts is that more than half a dozen of those expenses, marked “Food and Beverage” in the filing, came in at exactly $199.99—one penny short of the threshold that would have required the campaign to retain receipts of the transaction.

"You can’t structure transfers of money in a way to intentionally get around the law,” said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the good government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “If someone was trying to structure and kind of lazy about it… this is kind of what it would look like.”





https://www.thedailybeast.com/george-santos-took-donation-from-migrant-smuggler-rocco-oppedisano?via=twitter_page&utm_campaign=owned_social&utm_source=twitter_owned_tdb&utm_medium=socialflow