2020 video shows George Santos bragging about 'record returns' at accused 'Ponzi scheme' job — Transcript

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1. 0:00Breaking news tonight.
2. 0:00And George
3. 0:01Santos, the New York
4. 0:02Republican congressman who says,
5. 0:03I've lived an honest life
6. 0:05despite having lied about nearly
7. 0:06every piece of it,
8. 0:07including the statement
9. 0:08I've lived in on his life.
10. 0:09Here's
11. 0:09the lead just out in The New Yor
12. 0:11in late 20,
13. 0:1221 as he prepared to make a seco
14. 0:14for a suburban New York City Hou
15. 0:16Jorge Santos
16. 0:17gave permission
17. 0:18for his campaign
18. 0:19to commission
19. 0:20a routine background study on hi
20. 0:22The Times report,
21. 0:23citing three people
22. 0:24with knowledge of the study,
23. 0:24goes on to say, quote, Some of M
24. 0:26Sentences own vendors were so al
25. 0:29after seeing the study in late
26. 0:30November 20, 21
27. 0:32that they urged him
28. 0:32to drop
29. 0:33out of the race
30. 0:33and warned
31. 0:34that he could risk public humili
32. 0:36by continuing. And so here we ar
33. 0:38This comes
34. 0:39as we have an exclusive of our o
35. 0:41about the congressman's
36. 0:41time in a company
37. 0:42accused of running a Ponzi schem
38. 0:44and what he told
39. 0:45a suspicious customer at the tim
40. 0:47So, Andrew,
41. 0:47walk us through what you found Y
42. 0:49So Santos worked
43. 0:50at this
44. 0:51investment firm in 20, 20 and 20
45. 0:55It was called Harbor City Capita
46. 0:57He served as the
47. 0:58regional director
48. 1:00for the New York office.
49. 1:01And the SEC
50. 1:03basically shut this place down
51. 1:06in 20, 21 right around the
52. 1:08time that Santos left.
53. 1:10They called it a classic Ponzi
54. 1:12scheme in their complaint
55. 1:15against the company.
56. 1:16Now, what Santos has said
57. 1:18last year
58. 1:19The Daily Beast reported
59. 1:20on the Ponzi scheme
60. 1:21and he said, you know,
61. 1:24I don't know, didn't know about
62. 1:25I'm just as shocked as everyone
63. 1:28But what our reporting has found
64. 1:30has called it into question
65. 1:32in an exchange with a customer.
66. 1:35And let's take a look at that ex
67. 1:37So people can see what happened.
68. 1:40Now now you can see this custome
69. 1:42is raising concerns to Mr.
70. 1:44Santos about what is essentially
71. 1:47the company went out.
72. 1:48And they told people
73. 1:48that if they invested
74. 1:50with what the SEC says is now
75. 1:52a Ponzi scheme,
76. 1:53all of their investment
77. 1:54would basically be backed by thi
78. 1:56Of credit from banks.
79. 1:59And here we have this customer
80. 2:01telling Mr.
81. 2:02Santos, you know, I looked into
82. 2:04I called my bank.
83. 2:05They said it's fraudulent.
84. 2:07And most importantly, here is
85. 2:10this is April 20. 20.
86. 2:11The SEC doesn't
87. 2:13take action against them until A
88. 2:1520, 20. One.
89. 2:16So this is more than a year
90. 2:18before that that Santos was aler
91. 2:20to possible fraud at the company
92. 2:21And this isn't
93. 2:23all the investigation found.
94. 2:23What was Santos
95. 2:24saying at the time
96. 2:25about Harbor City Capital?
97. 2:27So when Santos was running for o
98. 2:29in 20, 20,
99. 2:30he said a number of things
100. 2:31about his time at Harbor City.
101. 2:34He called himself the head guy
102. 2:36in the New York office.
103. 2:37He said he was an executive.
104. 2:39And interesting.
105. 2:40He also claimed that he was post
106. 2:43for all of these customers,
107. 2:44these massive massive returns.
108. 2:46Let's take a listen
109. 2:47to this clip from 2020
110. 2:49and what he told one interviewer
111. 2:53Currently Harbor
112. 2:55City Capital
113. 2:55I manage a $1.5 billion fund rig
114. 2:59And I know how to manage it
115. 3:00while I give record returns
116. 3:03to anybody who watches this.
117. 3:04So understand I'm giving
118. 3:06a 12% fixed yield income return
119. 3:09which nobody in the market is gi
120. 3:11and we're giving 12
121. 3:13We're also giving up to 20 to 26
122. 3:17and IRR return on our investor's
123. 3:21So we reached out to Mr.
124. 3:24Mr. Santos, our Congressman Sant
125. 3:25Now a couple of times over text
126. 3:28we reached out to his, his spoke
127. 3:30We didn't hear back.
128. 3:31We did hear back
129. 3:32from his private attorney.
130. 3:34We asked him about the tweet.
131. 3:37He didn't directly respond to
132. 3:39our question, which is, you know
133. 3:40what did Mr.
134. 3:41Santos know about this Ponzi sch
135. 3:42When did he know it?
136. 3:43He gave us a statement basically
137. 3:45you know, in
138. 3:46light of the ongoing investigati
139. 3:48and for the benefit of the victi
140. 3:50it would be inappropriate to res
141. 3:52Other than to, say, Congressman
142. 3:53Santos was completely unaware
143. 3:55of any illegal activity at Harbo
144. 3:58All right.
145. 3:58Andrew Kozinski, fascinating. Th