comment: >
  
  I thought that was the adrenochrome?
context: He'd also spend exactly $199.99 at a time there, just below the level requiring preservation of receipts.  
  
  Santos, it should be said, is really good at spending just $199.99 almost everywhere he goes—his financial disclosure forms show him spending that exact amount at a Hyatt Orlando (in July 2021), on Delta Airlines and at BJ’s Wholesale (August 2021), at Target and on “Uber” (October 2021), and at many other establishments or services including W Hotel South Beach, JFK Parking, Best Buy, Walgreens, and the TSA line-skipping company Clear.
  
  I ate at the Italian restaurant where Santos is often, for some reason, spending exactly $199.99.
  The improbability of George Santos’ $199 expenses >
  
  The $199 expenses only total about $7,400 (out of $2.6 million) - but I bet if they looked closer they'd find a ton of sub$200 expenses (more than normal).  I'm sure they padded the hell out of it and stole a hell of a lot more than $7,400 - they were just stupid enough to list 37 of them right at the limit. >
  
  Yeah I read they compared it to like 5,000 other campaign finance reports, and barely any other campaigns had any transactions below the threshold. The ones who did only had one or two, and always differing amounts. Not $199.99 37 times. You have to be a special kind of dumb to do that and think it won't get noticed eventually. >
  
  I don't know...would anyone have gone through Santos's filings if he lost?
  I'm starting to think that his campaign was really just a big money laundering operation and he won by mistake.
  Like The Producers, he could have gotten away with the con if he hadn't succeeded. >
  
  I 100% believe that. I don't think he thought he would ever win, and decided to take a play out of old Donny's playbook and commit to the grift as long as possible. 
  But the million question is where did the money come from. Dude didn't have a penny to his name before like 2 years ago, and there's no way in hell I believe he raised it. Someone (or someplace) backed him. >
  
  Here’s what I consider the Occam’s razor of the situation:
  Santos did the small-time grift of losing candidate in a race heavily favoured for the other party. He’d done this before- and lost. Lots of people do this. You get to have the clout of an official candidate and maybe can make a little money off the whole thing.
  However, someone saw the potential for him to win this time. They invested heavily in him through backdoor means, and essentially bought him. It was most likely the Russians. 
  Meanwhile, George either didn’t realise he actually might win thus causing much more attention on his campaign and finances or, more likely, he decided he liked the idea of winning too and thought he was smart enough to know how to properly hide all the bad stuff. 
  Whoever funded/bought him did NOT do a good job of exposing to him how to launder the money and stuff like that properly. So he’s over there thinking he’s being super clever at all this while making terribly elementary mistakes. 
  He won, causing attention for defying odds. But then, what his backers couldn’t have expected is that he would get not only that attention but much more extreme attention for being exposed as a pathological liar. 
  If things in the house hadn’t been so close, republicans may have forced him to resign because he’s even too much even for them. But McCarthy needed him so George got extremely lucky (or unlucky as this all happening is what led to the rest coming to light). This made the already extreme attention on him ridiculously, incredibly extreme, with everyone wanting to find new lies and check into every aspect of him, especially and including things like his campaign finances. 
  Thus, he’s getting caught now because of these very unlikely sequences of events. If all this hadn’t happened, he still may have got away with it as people would’ve never investigated him in the first place if he’d lost, and would’ve bored of investigating him if he’d resigned fairly quickly. >
  
  While I agree that this is a plausible explanation, I think you need to reread about Occam's Razor.  It's the idea of preferring the explanation with the fewest assumptions. >
  
  So what's the explanation requiring the fewest amount of assumptions? He went from broke to millionaire in 2 years by sucking dick in an Olive Garden bathroom? >
  
  Grifting and bribing are certainly reasonable.
  'Conman runs fake campaign and launders money through it' involves very few assumptions.  Saying that the money is of Russian origin introduces another element that requires proof.  When we go in that direction we move away from wanting to be certain and move towards wanting a story.  And after all, can we really ask for more than a story when our political leaders are just stage actors?
  Edit:  this is not to say that there isn't proof that Russia gave money to Santos.  Just that it wasn't included in this context.  That comment was meant to point out any of the specifics that were added to the story, not to say that it is unlikely. >
  
  
  Saying that the money is of Russian origin introduces another element that requires proof.
  
  I don't think the Russian connection is as big of a assumption as you do. >
  
  What’s the point of fraud if you can’t give your friends some kickbacks along the way? >
  
  Whoa there.  How do we know he didn’t distribute 1,131 orders of rigatoni to a soup kitchen?  Would be just like his father, Jose Andres. >
  
  Because he was on his second tour of Vietnam saving orphans from communists at the time >
  
  Ah, the years he spent as Henry Kissinger’s muse >
  
  He must be the one providing the monthly blood transfusions that allows Kissinger to keep that healthy glow!