Lies and omissions complicate George Santos and increase pressure on the Republican Party

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By confessing to having lied about his resume and professional training during the campaign for the midterms in November, US Representative-elect George Santos left a series of omissions that offer more legends to be investigated about him.

Hidden since the publication of a report in The New York Times before Christmas, the Trumpist son of Brazilian immigrants and the first openly gay Republican to be elected to the House, gave interviews to the friendly conservative media of New York in an effort possibly orchestrated by his broken. But what he didn’t do in them is what got the most attention.

Asking about some of the allegations, Santos referred to the false curriculum as “embellished”, not as a series of lies, and spoke a lot —failing to follow the norm that lying requires consistency, since false facts sometimes need to be revisited in a same version.

The politician was unable, for example, to explain in detail the origin of the donation of at least US$ 600,000 that he made to his own campaign. He said only vaguely that the money came from the company he opened in Florida, where the law requires business owners to be domiciled in the state. The financial data analysis firm Dun & Bradstreet, however, estimates that until July this year the Santos company, whose client list remains a mystery, had revenues of just US$43,688.

The unknown is likely to become the main flank of pressure from Democrats for the Justice Department to investigate Santos. Although the US Constitution makes it very difficult to impeach and even expel congressmen, falsifying campaign finances is a federal crime.

New York State Attorney Letitia James, affiliated with the Democratic Party, is already dedicated to investigating another invention of the fabulist politician: an animal protection NGO that he used to raise funds and that was not registered with the Revenue, as required by law. .

Santos denied the dirty past in the Brazilian Justice: “I am not a criminal here [EUA]in Brazil or in any jurisdiction in the world”. The fact is that he escaped after being indicted for embezzlement, for having stolen a checkbook that he used to make purchases in Niterói (RJ), in 2008 —the checks of R $2,144 was unfunded.

But he confessed to having invented that he went to college and that he worked on Wall Street. After weaving a far-fetched narrative about Jewish grandparents who emigrated from Ukraine to Brazil fleeing Nazism (both were actually born in Rio before the rise of Adolf Hitler), he now claims that he heard stories of the Jewish grandmother later converted to Catholicism and that is clearly Catholic.

He repeated to the tabloid New York Post that he is “jew-ish”, a pun meaning “more or less Jewish”. Then on WABC radio he insisted on the story that his grandparents were immigrants. There is no evidence that he has Jewish ancestry or was exposed to the religion — but, as he himself told a Jewish outlet earlier, he was pleased to be able to represent a district of New York that was especially “rich in Jewish voters.”

Another lie confessed was that he owned numerous properties, despite having been evicted twice in recent years for late rent and living with his sister. He further admitted, referring to himself in the third person, that “George Santos does not own any property”.

If the elected deputy was in his second campaign – he ran, telling variations on the lies, and lost to a Democrat in 2020 – why didn’t the Republican Party opt for a more solid candidate to represent a wealthy district that includes part of a neighborhood in New York City?

“It’s hard to recruit Republicans to run in areas with a high chance of defeat,” he tells the Sheet Grant Lally, a member of the party that lost to a Democrat in 2014. The issue, according to him, is that a lawsuit determined, in June, the redesign of the district for which Santos was launched. His candidacy, once considered futile, suddenly became competitive, but it was too late to articulate an alternative name.

Statements to the New York press, on the protection of anonymity, suggest that the party leadership was aware that it had a bet whose curriculum was a swiss cheese of holes. “Any Republican who had contact with Santos or paid any attention to him knew the man was a fraud,” says Lally, who had a long lunch with the then-candidate and left in bewilderment.

A member of the editorial committee of Long Island’s main newspaper, where the district that the elected representative will represent is located, raised suspicions about him already in the 2020 campaign. Mark Chiusano, of Newsday, told Sheet who at the time called Santos when the vote counting that confirmed the expected victory of the Democrat Tom Suozzi was closed.

The politician was in Washington, participating in the traditional orientation day for deputies and senators who are going to start a first term. He knew that the lead he had over Suozzi days earlier was temporary and artificial, as Covid had led to an increase in mail-in votes and a slower count. Even so, he presented himself to the Capitol as an elected representative, copying Donald Trump’s denialist playbook.

The issue is that now the Republican Party needs Santos to take office, on the next 3rd, guaranteeing a tight majority of the party in the House. And it doesn’t take the elected representative’s imagination to speculate that he might writhe lonely in the wind after casting his precious vote to elect Kevin McCarthy Speaker of the House — at a time when the Republican faces a small rebellion on his right.

The wear, however, is given. The Republican Jewish Coalition said this Tuesday (27) that Santos will no longer be welcome at the group’s events. Democrat Robert Zimmerman, defeated by him, asked again that his rival not take office and run again in a special election. Joe Biden’s party leaders have thickened the criticism, while Republicans have mostly remained silent so far.

Two of the deputies who will take up seats in other districts of New York, however, have already shown signs of dissatisfaction with the position of their future colleague —Nick LaLota even suggested an investigation by the party’s ethics committee. Jason Miller, a close ally and informal spokesman for Trump, also reacted curtly to Santos’ interviews by posting on Truth Social: “Get rid of that loser.”

In addition to his term in the House, George Santos’ legal problems are just beginning.

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