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The Long Island Republican, age 42, hired the pair shortly after being elected to his 4th District seat in 2023 and paid them nearly $30,000 in taxpayer funds in a violation of House ethics rules, the outlet reports.
New York’s 4th congressional district covers central and southern Nassau County, including Elmont, Hempstead, and Valley Stream.
Asked whether the New York Times report was true, D’Esposito told CNN’s Manu Raju “absolutely not” outside the US Capitol building on Tuesday, Sept. 24.
“There was nothing done that was not ethical,” he said.
Asked whether he plans to stay in the race, D’Esposito told Raju, “Absolutely, and win.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, was also pressed about the scandal on Tuesday, Sept. 24. He acknowledged hearing about the report but said he didn’t yet know all the details.
“I’ve been very busy the last 48 hours or so. I haven’t had a chance yet to speak with Anthony,” Johnson said.
“He did, I’m told this morning, come out with a statement that the allegations are untrue, it’s a partisan hit piece. That would not surprise anyone in a tight election cycle in a seat that’s hotly contested.”
Indeed, D’Esposito is in a tight race with Democrat Laura Gillen, recent polling aggregated by FiveThirtyEight.com shows. The 4th District seat is considered a critical battleground for control of the House.
Prior to entering politics, D’Esposito was a police officer with the NYPD’s 73rd Precinct Detective Squad, Military and Extended Leave Desk. He worked for the department from 2006 until his retirement in 2020.
In 2016, he was appointed as a councilman on the Hempstead town council and won a full term the following year. He served on the council until his election to Congress in 2022.
D’Esposito defeated Gillen, a former Hempstead town supervisor, with 51.8 percent of the vote in the 2022 general election. Throughout his campaign, he focused on public safety and cost-of-living issues.
In January 2023, D’Esposito became the first sitting Republican representative to call on disgraced former Rep. George Santos to resign following revelations that Santos lied about much of his background to get elected.
D’Esposito later introduced the “No Fortune for Fraud Act,” inspired by Santos’ federal criminal indictment on charges of identity theft, wire fraud, money laundering, and lying to Congress.
If approved, the act would change House rules to prohibit members convicted of fraud from profiting off biographies, media appearances, or “expressive or creative works.”
Santos couldn’t resist taking a jab at D’Esposito, now embroiled in his own political scandal. In a post on X, Santos decried the Nassau County GOP for standing by D’Esposito and dismissing the New York Times reporting as “baseless mudslinging" in a statement to Politico.
“Oh so now it’s mudslinging????” Santos said. “I thought the New York Times was the Nassau County GOP’s bible? Or was it only to take out the openly gay Republican? The hypocrisy is jarring!”
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