Former Rep. Lee Zeldin announced on Monday that he is starting a new political action committee without Nancy Marks, the longtime treasurer he shared with disgraced Rep. George Santos.
“We will be announcing a new federal PAC that is being stood up right now utilizing a different treasurer,” Zeldin (R-NY) said at the New York State Conservative Party Political Action Conference in Albany, New York.
Marks notified the Federal Election Commission last week that she had resigned from Santos’ (R-NY) campaign and his affiliated political committees. Her announcement came a week after the Santos campaign named a replacement who claims he didn’t agree to take the job amid the discovery of numerous campaign finance irregularities that appear to have caught the eye of federal investigators.
“The treasurer has something like close to 200 different accounts,” Zeldin said, according to Politico, distancing himself from Marks.
“Our interaction has been through Marks’ daughters,” Zeldin added, acknowledging that his children attend the same Long Island school as Marks.
Marks has served as Zeldin’s campaign treasurer since his 2010 election to represent parts of Suffolk County in the New York state Senate. She was recently listed as the treasurer for his failed 2022 campaign for governor of New York.
Marks did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Santos’ campaign finance disclosures have come under scrutiny since he admitted to The Post in December that he lied about almost his entire resume while on the campaign trail.
One watchdog group called the campaign’s numerous expenditures recorded as costing $199.99 — a penny below the $200 threshold for FEC itemization — “statistically implausible” and a sign of “deliberately falsified” reporting.
A Queens-based relative of the Long Island Republican was “dumbfounded” when told by Mother Jones last week that they were listed as having made two $2,900 donations to the Santos campaign, denying they had made the donations.
Santos’ team amended several campaign finance documents last month to show that a $500,000 loan he made to his 2022 congressional campaign didn’t come from “personal funds of the candidate.” It is unknown where those funds he lent his campaign came from.
The flurry of activity by the campaign came as a lawyer for Thomas Datwyler, the man whom the Santos campaign listed as its new treasurer last month, said that Santos’ team named him treasurer without his authorization.
The Justice Department has reportedly asked the FEC not to pursue enforcement action against Santos as it continues its criminal investigation into the disgraced lawmaker.
The guidance sent by the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section signals that federal prosecutors may be centering their probe into Santos on his campaign finances.
