George Santos’s Long Trail Of Lies, Deceptions, And Distortions
Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | January 5, 2023
“There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible, and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual, he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1785
House Republicans have been tied up in knots this week by a small, far-right minority opposing the election of Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker.
When they finally get their choice of Speaker resolved, the newly controlled Republican House will spend much of the next two years acting out their grievances, defending the indefensible Donald Trump, and conducting partisan attacks. A great deal of this will come in the form of investigations, a few legitimate, but most illegitimate, and designed to “get” President Biden.
But if phony investigations are the way House Republicans are going to spend the next two years, here is a real investigation that they should immediately join with Democrats to authorize for the bipartisan House Ethics Committee.
Newly elected Rep. George Santos (R-NY) ran for Congress and won as a fictional person. The person who the voters elected to represent New York’s 3rd congressional district does not exist and never did.
News stories over the past few weeks have revealed a long trail of lies, deceptions, and distortions that Santos, elected in November, presented to voters during his campaign. These lies were about his personal background, including his education, work experience, assets, religious background, and heritage.
This was no run-of-the-mill matter of a candidate exaggerating his résumé. Santos fabricated facts about nearly everything in his life. Last week, Santos said that many of the statements he made about his background were “embellish[ed].” Even this claim wasn’t true. The statements by Santos weren’t embellishments. They were pervasive, flat out lies.
(Santos’s 2022 campaign funding and expenses also have come under scrutiny, including serious questions surrounding a $700,000 loan Santos made to his campaign. Santos is currently being investigated by New York and federal law enforcement officials.)
On Tuesday, Democracy 21 requested that the House Ethics Committee expeditiously conduct an investigation into Representative-elect Santos.
Santos’s record of lies, documented by The New York Times, New York Post, Long Island’s North Shore Leader, CNN, and several other media outlets, makes clear that Santos engaged in pervasive and egregious misrepresentation of his background during the campaign and thereby was elected to the House under massive false pretenses.
Clause 1 of Rule XXIII of the “Code of Official Conduct” of the House of Representatives provides that a Representative “shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.” Santos’s serving in the House after the web of lies he told to voters clearly reflects negatively on the creditability of the House.
Former President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his presidency. Distorting the truth in politics is nothing new. But Trump’s compulsive lying licensed lying among his followers, including the many House Republicans who were and are election deniers of Biden’s victory, despite no evidence to back up their views and dozens of court decisions to the contrary.
George Santos, a habitual liar, is a next-generation Trump Mini-Me.
Article I of the U.S. Constitution provides the House with authority to “punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” Rule 24 of the House Ethics Committee Rules provides the sanctions the Committee may recommend for a Member, including “expulsion from the House.”
Democracy 21 believes that, based on the public record already in existence, an expeditious investigation by the House Ethics Committee will conclude that the Committee should recommend that George Santos be expelled and the House should then do so.
The citizens of New York’s 3rd congressional district are entitled to be represented by a real person, not by a figment of Santos’s imagination. Santos’s expulsion would allow the voters in New York’s 3rd congressional district the opportunity to elect a Representative who is a real person, not the fictional creation of a habitual liar.
________________________
Fred’s Weekly Note appears each Thursday in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and other recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
