Republican Representative and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Sunday that George Santos will lose his seat in Congress if he is found to have violated campaign finance laws. The body over which the parliamentarian chairs is responsible for investigating matters of public administration and, therefore, is one of the main committees of the House.
“He’s a bad guy,” said Comer in reference to Santos on a CNN show. “It is not for me or any other member of Congress to determine whether he can be expelled for lying. Now, if he has broken campaign finance laws, he will be removed from Congress,” he added.
In recent weeks, several inconsistencies in Santos’ trajectory have been revealed, from lies about his resume and incomplete or inaccurate financial statements to false claims about his religion – he, a Catholic, claimed to be Jewish and descended from Holocaust survivors. The deputy is the son of Brazilians, and the series of accusations against him even includes an embezzlement in Niterói, where he allegedly stole checks to go shopping.
The alleged violation of campaign finance laws, in turn, involves the discovery that Santos’ campaign would have been financed by a mysterious fund. In addition, on the last day 9, a supervisory body linked to the US government filed a lawsuit with accusations involving the republican’s campaign accounts. The agency points out that Santos would have hidden donors and used part of the money collected to pay the rent of his residence.
Comer’s statement this Sunday reinforces the turn against Santos within his own party. On Thursday (10), members of the Republican Party asked him to resign from the House seat. The action was led by party members from Nassau County, on Long Island, a New York suburb that includes the district for which the politician was elected.
At the head of the group that called for Santos to leave, Joseph G. Cairo Jr. said the politician lost the trust of Republicans in his district and that the entire campaign was based on lies. “He has embarrassed the House, and we don’t consider him one of us,” he said before demanding the congressman’s immediate resignation.
Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy followed suit and said on Wednesday that he would not allow Santos to serve on any important committees in the House. He had been avoiding commenting on the controversy — even after US media outlets reported that one of Santos’ campaign members pretended to be working with McCarthy to raise funds from donors.
Despite the fry, Santos has already said several times that he will not resign. On Thursday (12), he stated that he would vacate his seat in the New York City area only if he lost the next election. He, incidentally, was elected last year with about 52% of the vote, against 45% for Democrat Robert Zimmerman. His victory caused the Republicans to capture an area of the traditionally Democratic city.
Under federal and New York law, if Santos resigned, his district would have the right to call a new election. The deputy’s seat would remain empty for a period of approximately three months, the time necessary for the holding of extraordinary elections.
On Saturday (14), The Wall Street Journal published an article that says that Santos would have convinced at least one person to make a six-figure investment in a company headquartered in Florida that the US Securities and Exchange Commission considered to be a scheme. of financial pyramid.
Santos, who has been facing pressure from Republicans and Democrats to resign from Congress, was reportedly hired in 2020 to raise funds for the company Harbor City Capital. According to informants and documents that the newspaper had access to, he would have obtained at least a significant sum from a wealthy investor.
However, when the investment did not bring the promised return, Santos would have tried to reassure the investor by saying that he had personally raised almost US$ 100 million and invested his own family’s money in the company.
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