{"id":1822458,"date":"2023-01-24T16:20:42","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T21:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1822458"},"modified":"2023-01-24T16:27:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T21:27:42","slug":"why-didnt-the-major-mainstream-media-vet-santos-before-election-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-didnt-the-major-mainstream-media-vet-santos-before-election-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Didn\u2019t The Major Mainstream Media Vet Santos Before Election Day?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhy-didnt-the-major-mainstream-media-vet-santos-before-election-day%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1822458&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47-->\n<p>Rep. George Santos (R.NY) is a masterful liar. He has told baldfaced lies about nearly everything \u2014 from being Jewish to (for some reason) leading the Baruch College volleyball team to wins over Harvard and Yale.<\/p>\n<p>But as his world continues to unravel \u2014 with official investigations into his fundraising and campaign expenditures \u2014 one question remains: How did he <em>Even<\/em> win?<\/p>\n<p>Santos wasn\u2019t a complete unknown. He ran for the 2020 election but was defeated by the Democrat, 55.9% to 43.4%.\u00a0His opponent, incumbent Rep. Tom Suozzi dismissed Santos, and conducted no opposition to the New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/01\/13\/nyregion\/george-santos-republicans-lies.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> This was earlier in the month.<\/p>\n<p>The Times wrote in his campaign last spring, &#8220;Democrats!&#8221; \u201clabored unsuccessfully to convince the news media, which had been weakened by years of staff cuts and consumed by higher-profile races, to dig into the troubling leads they did unearth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But one newspaper, The North Shore Leader \u2014 a small weekly newspaper on Long Island that says it \u201ctypically won\u2019t endorse a Democratic candidate\u201d \u2014 was way ahead of the curve. The Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theleaderonline.com\/single-post\/the-leader-told-you-so-us-rep-elect-george-santos-is-a-fraud-and-wanted-criminal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a> Santos was a \u201cfake\u201d Months before Election Day<\/p>\n<p>The Leader, for instance, wrote in September about his Santos\u2019 \u201cinexplicable rise\u201d In reported net worth, it ranged from almost nothing in 2020 to $11 million two years later.<\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post published its last week of business, many years after Santos was elected. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/media\/2022\/12\/29\/north-shore-leader-santos-scoop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> Some campaign donations were made by Andrew Intrater who is the cousin of Viktor Vekselberg (a sanctioned Russian billionaire) and has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n<p>Santos was unaware of this little fact, and no one else did.<\/p>\n<p>Perusing a Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, the Post reported that a company linked to Intrater donated a $625,000 deposit to Santos\u2019 former employer, Harbor City, which regulators have accused of being nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n<p>The Leader reported that $6 million had been stolen from investors to buy luxury items like Mercedes cars, waterfront homes, and large credit card debts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSantos\u2019 campaign raises similar concerns. On paper Santos has raised over $2 million,\u201d The Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theleaderonline.com\/single-post\/endorsement-robert-zimmerman-for-us-congress-ny3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cBut the money seems to have vanished \u2013 or never been there. Huge sums are listed with the FEC for personal expenses \u2013 like Brooks Brothers, Florida beach resorts, lavish restaurants and limo services \u2013 but many hundreds of thousands more disappear into a black hole of dubious \u2018consulting fees.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dan Kennedy, a professor at Northeastern University\u2019s School of Journalism, has some interesting <a href=\"https:\/\/dankennedy.net\/2022\/12\/19\/why-the-times-didnt-expose-george-santos-before-election-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">theories<\/a> Why Santos was not under scrutiny by the mainstream media<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat most likely happened is something I\u2019ve seen during my own career: the media didn\u2019t bother to vet Santos before the election because they believed he had no chance of winning, even though he\u2019d run before,\u201d Kennedy wrote in an article.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe political press is also dependent on opposition research as well. If Zimmerman didn\u2019t think Santos warranted investigating then it\u2019s difficult for the media to know that, of all the people running for office, Santos deserved a closer look,\u201d He wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The Leader, which has just 5,000 circulation, celebrated the big win in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theleaderonline.com\/single-post\/the-leader-told-you-so-us-rep-elect-george-santos-is-a-fraud-and-wanted-criminal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">piece<\/a> Headline \u201cThe Leader Told You So: US Rep-Elect George Santos is a Fraud \u2014 and Wanted Criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Grant Lally, the owner of The Leader, stated that the Santos story never reached critical mass.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of phenomena here,\u201d He <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/campaign\/3817279-the-george-santos-debacle-and-the-local-newspaper-that-can-say-i-told-you-so\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a> The Hill. \u201cNumber one is that people are far more credulous than they used to be. Everything is filtered through electronic media. They\u2019ll believe something online but won\u2019t believe it if it happens right in front of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Joseph Curl is a 35-year veteran of politics, having served 12 years as White House correspondent in a national newspaper. For four years, he was the Drudge Report&#8217;s a.m. editor. Send tips to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection\" class=\"__cf_email__\" data-cfemail=\"22484d5147524a4157504e6246434b4e5b554b50470c414d4f\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/a> Follow him @josephcurl on Twitter<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is a world-class liar. He has told baldfaced lies about nearly everything \u2014 from being Jewish to (for some reason) leading the Baruch College volleyball team to wins over Harvard and Yale. But as his world continues to unravel \u2014 with official investigations into his fundraising and campaign expenditures \u2014 one &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":1803656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[7660,4352,3728,4996,3752,4188,12040,6866],"class_list":["post-1822458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-day","tag-didnt","tag-election","tag-mainstream","tag-major","tag-media","tag-santos","tag-vet"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1822458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1822458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1822458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1803656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1822458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1822458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1822458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}