D’Esposito first claimed that “there was nothing done incorrectly,” but upon further scrutiny, resorted to lying
After the groundbreaking report in The New York Times exposed that Anthony D’Esposito gave his fiancée’s daughter and the woman he was having an affair with jobs on his congressional payroll – a potential violation of multiple House ethics rules – the vulnerable New York Republican is now “the GOP’s new Long Island headache.”
How is Anthony D’Esposito responding, you might ask? D’Esposito’s answer is changing by the hour.
Here are the five stages of Anthony D’Esposito’s media meltdown:
First, D’Esposito and his spokesperson choose not to deny the allegations and refuse to comment to The New York Times: “Matt Capp, a spokesman for Mr. D’Esposito, did not deny that the congressman had a relationship with Ms. Faas and declined to comment on his employment of either woman.”
Second, in the halls of Congress, D’Esposito again declines to deny the allegations against him, and adds that “there was nothing done incorrectly.”
Third, D’Esposito pretends to ignore a swarm of reporters on a brutal walk out of the Capitol.
DCCC Spokesperson Ellie Dougherty:
“Anthony D’Esposito first declined to deny the allegations, but after light was shed that he broke the rules, resorted to lying. Whatever spin he takes next, it remains true that D’Esposito has abused every position of power he’s ever held.”
As a proud son of Nassau County’s vaunted Republican machine, Representative Anthony D’Esposito of New York knows well the power of political patronage. Every member of his immediate family has held a town or county job, and as a local official, he routinely helped friends find spots on the government payroll.
Yet even by those standards, Mr. D’Esposito’s hiring decisions since he won a seat in Congress in 2022 have been audacious — and in two cases may have transgressed ethics rules designed to combat nepotism and corruption.
Shortly after taking the oath of office, the first-term congressman hired his longtime fiancée’s daughter to work as a special assistant in his district office, eventually bumping her salary to about $3,800 a month, payroll records show.
In April, Mr. D’Esposito added someone even closer to him to his payroll: a woman with whom he was having an affair, according to four people familiar with the relationship. The woman, Devin Faas, collected $2,000 a month for a part-time job in the same district office.
Payments to both women stopped abruptly several months later, in July 2023, records show, around the time that Mr. D’Esposito’s fiancée found out about his relationship with Ms. Faas and briefly broke up with him, according to the four people.
Mr. D’Esposito has not been publicly accused of wrongdoing, but his employment of the two women, which resulted in the payment of about $29,000 in taxpayer funds, could expose him to discipline in the House of Representatives.
The House code of conduct prohibits members of Congress from employing spouses or relatives, including stepchildren. Though Mr. D’Esposito has never married, congressional ethics experts said that employing a woman akin to his stepdaughter, who shared a home with him, could breach the requirement that members of Congress “adhere to the spirit and the letter of the rules.”
“There are lots of shades of gray in ethics stuff. This is something that is obvious,” said Donald Sherman, a former lawyer for the House Ethics Committee who serves as chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
“The House is trying to prevent members from using government funds to enrich their family or close associates,” he added.
Matt Capp, a spokesman for Mr. D’Esposito, did not deny that the congressman had a relationship with Ms. Faas and declined to comment on his employment of either woman.
Asked to speak about the relationship by phone on Monday, Ms. Faas said “no thank you” and hung up.
Knowledge of Mr. D’Esposito’s tangled personal and professional lives passed through Republican circles on Long Island for years, though none of it has ever been reported.
Mr. D’Esposito, 42, has built his government career with the help of Nassau County’s Republican power brokers, famous for stocking town, village and county offices with friends, supporters and relatives.
Mr. Sherman said that he believed her employment ran afoul of Mr. D’Esposito’s sworn oath to uphold the spirit of the House code of conduct.
