George Santos reveals one truth: It’s easy to abuse campaign finance laws

In an April statement to The New York Times on a separate issue, FEC Chairman Dara Lindenbaum, a Democrat, and its vice chairman, Sean J. Cooksey, a Republican, said: “We are taking on the enforcement and transparency mission of this agency seriously. just like all our colleagues. Without commenting on a specific case, the Commissioners consider each enforcement issue on its merits, and we reach agreement on nearly 90 percent of them. Any claim that the Commission is ‘toothless’ or that its bipartisan structure prevents it from fulfilling its mission is misinformed.”

Even when the FEC attempted to respond to Mr. Santos’ actions with the usual enforcement mechanisms, these tools alone were unable to address the extent of the blatant misconduct of which he was accused. In the months before Mr. Santos’ election, the FEC sent his campaign a series of “requests for additional information” — mundane requests for details about transactions that are not fully accounted for in a committee’s regular filings with the commission.

The FEC does not have the power to look into bank accounts and must take campaign finance disclosure reports at face value. Unlike the Securities and Exchange Commission, it is not a regulatory agency; its primary mission, outlined in its most recent annual report, is to provide transparency and “promote compliance.”

Some questions about Mr. Santos’ campaign remain unanswered. His campaign’s filings are full of suspicious expenses — for example, some of the dozens of charges set at $199.99, cents below the federal threshold requiring receipts — and outright omissions, such as hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses that were never accounted for .

“Unfortunately, we don’t know what we don’t know,” said Paul S. Ryan, a campaign finance expert who previously worked at the Campaign Legal Center. “The bottom line is that in most cases, all the FEC sees at face value are the campaign finance disclosure reports,” he said. “And if someone is smart enough to simply lie about what they’re using it for,” then it can be overlooked, he said.