Santos Saga

George Santos is a freshman Republican congressman from New York's 3rd Congressional District. He was born on July 22, 1988, and according to his website, he was born in Queens, New York, although no other sources have confirmed a place of birth. Santos ran for congress in 2020 but lost by 12 points to Democrat incumbent Tom Suozzi. He refused to accept the election results and attended the January 6th Riot, according to Business Insider.

George Santos is under intense scrutiny for lying about his resume and having various scandals and legal problems. He inaccurately claimed to have attended Horace Mann School, but the school has no record of his enrollment. Similar to his lie about his high school enrollment, Santos also claimed to have graduated from Baruch College, but officials at Baruch could not find any records matching his name or date of birth. He claimed to have played on the Bruach College volleyball team, regardless of never attending the college in the first place. He also claimed two knee replacements from playing volleyball at Baruch College. Unsurprisingly, Santos has also falsely claimed to hold a Master's in Business Administration from NYU.

Santos has various scandals and cases of wrongdoing that have prompted bipartisan calls for his resignation. Court documents show that Santos moved to Brazil in 2008 and lived there until 2011. In 2011, he moved back to New York after he was accused of stealing a checkbook and forging it under a false name. As a result of these actions, he was prosecuted by the Brazilian government. Santos had falsely claimed to have run a pet charity known as Friends of Pets United, despite no record from the IRS. He had wrongly claimed to have worked for Citi Group and Goldman Sachs, who reported no record of his employment. He also claimed his mother was in the south tower on 9/11, although immigration records showed her in Brazil at this time. Santos worked at a Florida-based company known as Harbor City Capital, which the Securities and Exchange Commission said was a “classic Ponzi scheme’’ that defrauded investors of $17 million. Santos's website noted that he was a “proud American Jew” but he later admitted to being a Catholic and saying that his parents were Jewish he claimed to be “Jew-ish.”  Congressman Santos has been accused of fundraising to take care of a veteran’s service dog but later took the money himself, according to the accusation, which he denies. Mr. Santos had claimed his employees were victims of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub Shooting, despite no record of his employees being victims. He also claimed that his parents fled the Holocaust, but genealogists have no record of his parents being Holocaust victims.

Santos faces various concerns about campaign finances and faces bipartisan calls to resign. In 2022, according to Federal Election Commission, Santos personally lent his campaign $700,000, despite the Internal Revenue Service showing an income of only $55,000 in 2020. It is questionable how he could not pay his rent and made $55,000 in 2020 and later was able to lend his campaign $700,000 just two years later.  I was not the only individual to find this concerning. The Federal Election Commission is currently investigating him for possible campaign finance violations. Currently, there are calls for a house ethics investigation by Mr. Torres, Mr. Goldman, and Mr. LaLota over possible campaign finance violations. Ethics complaints are submitted to the Office of Congressional Ethics, which comprises former members of congress. The Office of Congressional Ethics decides whether a case needs to go to the House Ethics Committee for further review; however, disciplinary actions are rare. The last member expelled was Jim Traficant in 2002 after being convicted on ten counts. Only five members in history have been expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives, three of whom were expelled after supporting the Confederacy. In my opinion, Santos should be expelled; however, that is unlikely, and he said publicly that he would not resign. Santos should at least refund all of his campaign donations, in my opinion.