Fredreka Schouten, Kara Scannell and Gregory Krieg
02/07/2023
(CNN) An FEC complaint lodged last week by End Citizens United alleges that the campaign established a recount committee after Santos’ failed 2020 congressional bid in a possible effort to skirt campaign contribution limits. The committee raised and spent more than $260,000 for a recount that never happened after Santos lost to Democrat Tom Suozzi by more than 12 percentage points, according to the complaint and federal records. The recount committee made payments to consultants and staffers – including people described in FEC filings as recount observers. And it notes that some expenditures overlapped with those reported by Santos’ campaign. The recount fund reported it bought a laptop for $2,026.25 from Best Buy on November 12, 2020. Twelve days later, the campaign spent the same amount with the same vendor for a “campaign computer.