Good riddance to George Santos, the biggest liar in Congress

Days after Santos was sworn in, Santos’ Democratic colleagues from New York, Reps. Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres, submitted a written request to the House Ethics Committee requesting an investigation “for violations of the Ethics in Government Act by failing to file timely, accurate, and complete financial disclosure reports as required by law.” The two congressmen would remain at the forefront of the battle to get Santos out, even as interest in the matter appeared to wane.

A combination of institutional factors allowed him to fall through the cracks and seize one of the country’s most prestigious jobs, but the damning House Ethics Committee report issued just before Thanksgiving was the last straw. Just as quickly as he ascended, he was brought back down to Earth with a thud, and with a criminal trial still awaiting him.

Before becoming a household name, Santos was a 34-year-old from Queens who’d unsuccessfully run for Congress in 2020. Because he was a Republican in the historically Democratic Queens and Long Island district, it didn’t seem like he’d be long for the politics world. But his fortunes changed when the New York congressional district maps were redrawn in 2021. Suddenly the seat was competitive, and Republicans needed a guy. So they tapped Santos, pretty much the only one they had waiting in the wings.

Before his improbable electoral win, Santos began planting seeds with far-right Republicans locally and nationally. After losing by 12 percentage points in 2020, he launched a campaign recount committee in the vein of his personal hero, fellow Queens native Donald Trump. He then attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, held in apparent violation of local Covid-19 restrictions (and claimed his then-fiance, a pharmacist, was fired from his job because of the publicity). And on Jan. 5, 2021, he attended and spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, the precursor to the Capitol insurrection.

Santos’ shocking 2022 victory was made possible by the improbably popular Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, who was on that ballot, as well as an ever-reddening Long Island and Queens district and the fact that Democrats let that district slip under their radar. Santos’ win helped Republicans retake control of the House by a razor-thin margin, but he quickly became a bomb that would not stop exploding.

After the initial batch of revelations, many more began pouring out. We learned that he lied about being a star on the volleyball team at a college he never attended; he allegedly defrauded a disabled veteran and his dog; he lied about his mom working in the World Trade Center and surviving 9/11; and perhaps most disturbing of all, as part of his bid to get elected in one of the most Jewish districts in the country, he lied about being Jewish and having Holocaust survivors in his family.

His lies, fabrications, exaggerations and chaotic past unfolded so quickly that I was able to write a near-daily newsletter during his first first few weeks in office for my Substack, The Handbasket. Suddenly my life was consumed by all things Santos, and I  appeared on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” to talk about it.

By March, he was officially under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. In April, he announced his plans to run for re-election in 2024. On May 10, he was federally charged with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives, and arraigned two days later. After a relatively quiet summer, he was hit with a superseding indictment in October. That’s when the clock really started ticking.

There would be two failed votes to expel Santos in the weeks preceding the release of the House Ethics Committee report. But once the 56-page ethics report detailing his conduct went public, the writing was on the wall. The ethics investigation, according to that report, “revealed a complex web of unlawful activity involving Representative Santos’ campaign, personal, and business finances.” According to the committee, “Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”

He reportedly used campaign funds for credit card payments, luxury items, payments to OnlyFans and for Botox treatments. There was no more convincing necessary: Santos’ peers had confirmed he was everything people have suspected him to be.

“For 11 months, House Republicans wrapped their arms around an admitted fraudster, liar, and thief. For the sole reason of protecting their narrow majority, Republican leadership abandoned the people of New York’s Third Congressional District, leaving them without real representation in Congress,” Rep. Goldman wrote in a statement released after Friday’s vote. “Despite their best efforts, the Congress of the United States won today. But more importantly, the people of NY-03 will now have a real representative in the House.”

Even though his congressional days are over, anyone who has covered Santos knows better than to write him off just yet. As Mark Chiusano, fellow Santos beat reporter and author of the new book “The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos,” recently told me, “I think that he’s the kind of guy who would really relish a second act, whether that’s ‘Dancing With the Stars’ or being on Cameo,” a service where users can pay celebrities to record a personalized video message.

A drag mentor of Santos’ told me in January that Santos “did not have what it takes to be a professional. George did not have the glamour for that.” But Santos still made it as a performer.