Subscribe
Disabled Navy veteran Richard Osthoff has accused Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., of stealing $3,000 in 2016. The money was raised through a GoFundMe for Osthoff’s dying service dog. Osthoff’s dog — a pit bull mix named Sapphire — died Jan. 15, 2017.

Disabled Navy veteran Richard Osthoff has accused Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., of stealing $3,000 in 2016. The money was raised through a GoFundMe for Osthoff’s dying service dog. Osthoff’s dog — a pit bull mix named Sapphire — died Jan. 15, 2017. (Rich Osthoff/Facebook)

(Tribune News Service) — You won’t hear any more fibs from Rep. George Santos — he gave his word.

The GOP lawmaker told a far-right-wing news outlet that he will be strictly telling the truth from now on.

“I’ve learned my lesson, Santos said in an interview with One America News late Tuesday. “I can guarantee you that from now on anything, everything is always going to be aboveboard.”

After months of damaging disclosures that he lied about almost every aspect of his life, he asserted that he has been “largely aboveboard” all along.

“It’s largely always been aboveboard,” he said. “I’m just gonna go the extra step now to double-check, cross-reference everything.”

The new remarks came as federal prosecutors started investigating Santos for allegedly scamming a New Jersey veteran out of donations earmarked to save the life of his service dog.

Navy vet Richard Osthoff handed over text messages with Santos to FBI agents, who are probing the lawmaker’s involvement in an unregistered animal charity, Politico reported.

“I’m glad to get the ball rolling with the bigwigs,” Osthoff said. “I was worried that what happened to me was too long ago to be prosecuted.”

Santos also filed an amended campaign finance disclosure form that only raised new questions about his money matters.

The new form that was filed late Tuesday night says Santos personally lent his campaign $500,000, and an additional $125,000 was lent by an unnamed entity.

An original version of the form had claimed both loans came from himself and a second version claimed both came from some other entity.

Santos issued a statement that sought to distance himself from his report.

“The report is based on the limited information provided to the campaign from the previous treasurer Nancy Marks,” Santos said.

Marks has said she resigned at the request of the Federal Election Commission, a disclosure that raises questions about whether she is cooperating with state or federal investigations into Santos.

A previous disclosure form listed a replacement for Marks, but that person said he turned down the job. The latest supposed treasurer has not yet spoken publicly and appears to have no previous federal campaign finance experience.

Santos, whose district covers parts of Long Island and Queens, has become a headache for House Republicans and a late-night laughingstock after he was exposed for falsely claiming that he worked for big investment banks, went to Baruch College and NYU, and even had Jewish relatives who fled the Holocaust.

He is also facing potentially weightier questions about his finances, which are far more likely to lead to criminal exposure.

The self-styled conservative gay son of Brazilian immigrants claims to be a millionaire, but as recently as 2020 filed paperwork saying he was earning $55,000 a year as a call center worker.

©2023 New York Daily News.

Visit nydailynews.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Sign Up for Daily Headlines

Sign up to receive a daily email of today's top military news stories from Stars and Stripes and top news outlets from around the world.

Sign Up Now