New York Rep. George Santos has been engulfed in controversy since his 2022 election victory, with the latest chapter coming on Tuesday, when his campaign filed updated reports with federal regulators that raised renewed concerns about the source of the substantial personal loans he said he made to fund his campaign.

Santos's campaign previously reported that a pair of six-figure loans from the candidate — one for $500,000 that was made last March and another for $125,000 in October — came from his personal funds.

The initial filing from September included a checked box saying the hefty loans came from the "personal funds of the candidate." In the new filing, which was first reported by the Daily Beast, that box is unchecked.

The updated filing, however, doesn't provide any new information about the source of the funds, only stating the loan came from the candidate but wasn't Santos' personal money.

About $150,000 in loans is still marked as having come from his personal funds. A separate filing shows a new $125,000 loan that came from Santos in October, but was not from his personal funds.

Campaign finance experts say it was not immediately clear what those changes meant.

"I have no idea what's going on with the loans," Jordan Libowitz of the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told CNN on Wednesday. "It is without a doubt the most confusing FEC filing I've seen."

Federal election law allows candidates to loan personal funds for campaign purposes or take out bank loans to help fund their political operations. However, it is illegal for candidates to accept a six-figure contribution from another person. It also is against the law for a corporation to donate a sum of any size directly to a congressional candidate.

Questioned by Capitol Hill reporters Wednesday, the first-term congressman refused to answer questions and denied personal involvement in amending the campaign finance reports.

"Let's make it very clear. I don't amend anything. I don't touch any of my FEC stuff, so don't be disingenuous and report that I did," Santos said. "Every campaign hires fiduciaries, so I'm not aware of that answer, but we will have an answer for the press regarding the amendments from yesterday."

In previous filings with the FEC, Santos's campaign reported that he had personally loaned his campaign more than $700,000, but questions remain over where that money came from. In Santos' previous failed bid for Congress, his personal financial disclosure form listed no assets and a salary of $55,000. Two years later, Santos reported a $750,000 salary from a firm called the Devolder Organization.

In an interview with Semafor, Santos described Devolder as carrying out "deal building" and "specialty consulting" for "high net worth individuals" and said he had "landed a couple of million-dollar contracts" within the first six months of starting the firm.

There are also questions about a series of expenses for $199.99 made by Santos's campaign. That specific amount puts the expenses just one cent under the $200 threshold that would require the campaign to keep receipts or invoices.

On Wednesday, Santos's campaign filed updates with the FEC naming Thomas Datwyler, a longtime GOP operative, as its new treasurer, replacing previous treasurer Nancy Marks.

The appointment stalled, however, when Datwyler's attorney said that his client had informed Santos's campaign earlier this week that he would not be serving as treasurer.

Federal law requires every political committee to have a treasurer in order to spend or take in money.

In December, New York law enforcement sources told NBC News that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had opened an investigation into Santos and were examining his finances, including potential irregularities involving financial disclosures and the loans he made to his campaign.

Santos is also being investigated by the Nassau County district attorney's office, and the state attorney general's office has said it's "looking into a number of issues" regarding Santos.

The freshman congressman has faced intense scrutiny after a bombshell New York Times investigation showed much of his résumé to be manufactured, including claims that he owned numerous properties, was previously employed by Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and had attended and graduated from Baruch College near the top of his class.

Santos has acknowledged some of the fabrications while also trying to downplay them. In a December interview with the New York Post, he said "My sins here are embellishing my résumé. I'm sorry."

Congress New York U.S.