After Claiming to Have Made Over $174,000 on Cameo, George Santos Gets Into a Fight With Lawmakers

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) are at odds over the latter's recent triumph over Cameo. Santos moved to the video messaging app Cameo a week after he was expelled from Congress, and his fans may pay him up to $500 for a personalized voice and video greeting. Santos used the chance to help market his new side project by tweeting, "The People's 'Princess' is here to serve," after a video he created for a fan on X became popular recently. As reported by Radar Online, on social media, Goldman, one of the members who asked for Santos' expulsion from Congress due to his many criminal convictions and suspected wrongdoings from an Ethics Committee probe, called him out.

Goldman brought attention to Santos' allegations related to campaign financing and wire fraud as he tweeted, "Hey George Santos, friendly recommendation: make sure you pay your taxes on your cameo earnings." Santos answered the next morning, saying that because he is no longer on Capitol Hill, Goldman is searching for relevance. Recently, Santos said that the money he earned from his new Cameo account exceeded his $174,000 yearly income as a member of Congress. It's going far better than he thought, Santos said in an exclusive interview with CBS New York. When asked, "How much money have you made, and are you going to surpass the amount of money you could've made in Congress in a whole year?" Santos replied, "I can tell you that by the end of this week, that is actually factual. I will have made more money in seven days than I would've made in an entire year in Congress."

Rep. Santos was indicted, and the House voted overwhelmingly to remove him from office. This marked the end of a turbulent term in office marked by allegations that he had falsified portions of his resume, a harsh House ethics investigation, and a 23-count federal indictment accusing him of crimes like wire fraud and money laundering. Even before the vote total was revealed, Santos had put on his winter jacket, exited the room, and hurried via the speaker's passage. Just before Thanksgiving, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee released a devastating 56-page report that included accusations that he had fabricated campaign claims, misled donors, and used campaign funds to finance his opulent lifestyle. As a result, he started to lose a lot of support. As reported by NBC News, the report stated, "He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit. He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign—and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported 'repayments' of those fictitious loans."