George Santos' Disappearing Expenses Included Pricey Sushi, Uber Rides

Representative George Santos, a New York Republican, continues to face mounting scrutiny over odd spending and filing habits during his most recent congressional campaign, including amounts allegedly spent on sushi and Uber rides.

During his short time in Congress, Santos has achieved significant infamy, with report after report emerging since late December finding that he had lied about everything from his background to his professional history to his religious identity. The freshman representative's campaign finances have also been thoroughly investigated, turning up odd irregularities and sizeable sums of money that cannot be accounted for.

In a Monday report published by The New York Times, the newspaper combed through several months of Santos's campaign spending disclosures, turning up strange expenditures and amounts that shifted from month-to-month. Noting that the then-candidate spent "extravagantly," the report highlighted expenditures from late 2021 that were amended multiple times in the following months.

In a filing from January 2022, Santos's campaign disclosed $266.66 that had been spent the previous month on five different Uber and taxi rides in a single day, as well as $60.54 at Tokyo Sushi and Grill in Auburn Hills, Michigan, part of the nearly $90,000 he reportedly spent that month. However, in filings from the following April, the Republican's campaign amended those amounts, now claiming to have spent $445.22 on the rides and $199.99 on the meal. Then in May, new filings wiped the amount spent at the restaurant, as well as other line items paid out to "Anonymous."

The amount of $199.99 is significant and appeared frequently in Santos's filings, as it is two cents below the amount at which the law requires political campaigns to provide receipts for expenses.

The report also noted that, by April of last year, the campaign had racked up over $250,000 in spending from around 1,200 payments of $199.99 to anonymous sources. All of these individual items were wiped away in the May filing, though the $250,000 in unspecified spending remained.

By the latter months of his 2022 campaign, the congressman had racked up a total of $365,399.08 in non-itemized spending. This, the Times calculated, would have required transactions with around 1,800 entities. The filings overall list only around 270 entities in itemized reports.

Newsweek reached out to Santos's office for comment.

Santos's litany of lies and suspicious finances have prompted mass calls for his resignation, including from a group of his constituents who traveled from Long Island to Washington, D.C., to confront him in person, and from members of the Nassau County GOP. Santos has rebuffed those calls, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has also indicated that he is welcome as an elected member of the House GOP caucus.