Santos sponsored bill on COVID unemployment fraud, which is now one of the charges he is facing

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who was accused Wednesday of fraudulently receiving unemployment benefits during the pandemic, sponsored a bill surrounding COVID employment fraud that is set to be introduced on the House floor this week.

Santos co-sponsored the Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act, which was introduced last month and aims to incentive states to recover fraudulent unemployment payments made during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The freshman congressman was indicted on 13 federal charges Wednesday over accusations that he misled campaign donors and misrepresented his finances.

Three of those charges — theft of public money and two counts of wire fraud — are related to allegations that Santos fraudulently received more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits by falsely claiming he was unemployed during the early months of the pandemic.

When asked if Santos’ indictment was going to undermine the bill, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik — the highest-ranking New York Republican — reiterated that they will let the court process play out.

“He’s gonna have to face the charges that he has again, he’s got a presumption of innocence, but that court process is going to play itself out,” Scalise said. “But he’s already been removed from all of this committees.”

“As I’ve said from the very beginning on questions on this subject, this legal process is going to play itself out,” Stefanik added. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time a member of Congress from either party has been indicted. There are a set of rules and, as the majority leader stated, he voluntarily had stepped down from his committees.”

According to the unsealed indictment, Santos first applied for unemployment insurance benefits in New York in June 2020, when he falsely claimed that he was unemployed since the week of March 22, 2020.

He allegedly applied for the unemployment benefits on a weekly basis, claiming each time that he was open to work, unemployed and eligible for benefits through the week of April 15, 2021. However, the court documents state that Santos was actually employed as a regional director at an investment firm between February 2, 2020 and about April 15, 2021.

During this period, the indictment revealed, he was regularly being paid his salary of $120,000 besides an exception between July 5 and August 30, 2020.

Santos is accused of falsely receiving a total of $24,744 in unemployment insurance benefits.