Rep. George Santos: A New Yorker with False Biography and a Democratic Representative in Nassau County [The New York Times]

Nassau County’s Republican committee Chairman Joseph Cairo Jr. believed that George Santos should be given an opportunity to address the claims detailed in the article.

Cairo said he would like to hear Santos’ response to whether a person deserves an opportunity to clear their name.

The school sent a statement to NPR saying it couldn’t find a match in its records for a George Santos who was born July 22, 1988 and graduated in 2010.

“It is no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at the New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations,” said Joseph Murray.

Murray offered no evidence or documents to disprove the Times article, which found thatSantos seems to have fabricated key details of his business career.

“Only someone who came from a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, like me, could rise to become a successful businessperson, then run for congress in this country.”

Santos, who is gay, also claimed in an interview with WNYC public radio last month that his employees died in 2016 when a gunman opened fire at the Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando, Fla.

“I happened to, at the time, have people that worked for me in the club,” Santos said. “My company at the time, we lost four employees that were at Pulse.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/19/1144143474/rep-george-santos-new-york-false-biography-republican-red-wave

Rep.-elect Kevin Santos: Rep. LaLota Embedded in the Mueller investigation and he will not return to the House

In an editorial before the election, the North Shore Leader newspaper endorsed Santos’ Democratic opponent, Robert Zimmerman, and voiced skepticism about Santos’ credibility.

Besides making a referral to the House Ethics Committee, other potential options for dealing with Santos include not giving him any committee assignments, which would be up to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Although he stopped short of calling for an investigation, the incoming GOP lawmaker from New York condemned the false statements bySantos, and called on him to pursue a path of honesty.

Santos, in interviews with WABC radio and the New York Post earlier this week, admitted to lying about attending Baruch College and New York University as well as misrepresenting his employment at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup but claimed he hadn’t committed any crimes.

The statement from GOP Rep.-elect Nick LaLota marks the most stern rebuke yet from a Republican, as he stated that a full investigation of the House Ethics Committee is required.

It is unlikely that the leadership of the House will refuse to seatSantos, who will be sworn in next Tuesday. The House has the power under the Constitution to expel any member with a two-thirds vote, but doing so is extremely rare and only five lawmakers have been expelled in US history.

California Republican has shown no appetite for punishing his members for bad behavior from before they went to Congress. McCarthy argued that he will let the probes play out before determining how to proceed, rather than interfering when members are under investigation.

“This will not deter me from being an effective member of the United States Congress in the 118th session,” Santos told City & State in an interview posted Monday night.

Nassau County Republican Committee Chairman Joseph G. Cairo, Jr., said Tuesday that Santos “has broken the public trust” and “has a lot of work to do to regain the trust of voters.”

Cairo said he was disappointed in the apology and he expected more than a blanket apology. The damage that has been done to many people by his lies is profound.

CNN’s KFile reported that claims by Santos that his grandparents “survived the Holocaust” as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium who changed their surname are contradicted by sources including family trees compiled by genealogy websites, records on Jewish refugees and interviews with multiple genealogists.

A document which was shared with Jewish groups during the campaign was first reported by the Forward and has been confirmed by CNN.

“He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. In public comments and to us personally he previously claimed to be Jewish,” the coalition said. “He will not be welcome at any future RJC event.”

The Congressman-Elect Abelian Santos’s Conjecture is a Demonstration of Disturbing Political Processes

He had claimed he had degrees from NY University and Baruch College, but now admits he didn’t graduate from any college.

He also admitted that he never worked directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as he has previously suggested, but claimed that he did do work for them through his company, telling the New York Post it was a “poor choice of words” to say he worked for them.

Last week, the New York Times admitted that the biography was not real. CNN confirmed that he was reported about his college education and employment history.

CBS News first reported the federal probe, which comes as the Nassau County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday that it was looking into fabrications from Santos.

The District Attorney said that the numerous fabrications and discrepancies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are stunning.

She wants residents of the third district to have an honest and accountable representative in Congress. If a crime was committed in the county, we will prosecute it.

CNN confirmed reporting from the Times that Santos was charged with embezzlement in a Brazilian court in 2011, according to case records from the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice. The charge was not archived after court summons went unanswered, but after they couldn’t locateSantos.

Rep.-elect Mike Lawler, also a soon-to-be freshman member from New York, urged his fellow Republican cooperate with any investigations and called on Santos to apologize, calling the whole controversy a “distraction.” Lawler added that by downplaying action’s, Santos is “only making things worse.”

But for now, there is no getting around the fact that Mr. Santos’s con game is a manifestation of a growing political phenomenon of saying or doing anything, with no automatic consequences. Whether it be far-right election deniers, personal attacks that call for violence against opponents, claims of false-flag mass shootings, extremists spouting the first thing that comes to mind and even one politician saying he could “shoot somebody” on Fifth Avenue and still not lose supporters. If we want to get rid of liars and their lies, then Mr.Santos must be removed from office by Congress or prosecutors because he will not step down voluntarily.

He will be sworn in at the United States House of Representatives next Tuesday. If he assumes office, he could face investigations by the House Committee on Ethics and the Justice Department.

The Republicans have admitted to lying about having a college degree, Wall Street experience, and Jewish roots, but they have yet to address other questions about their fortune, including the source of a large amount of back rent.

The New York Times Revealed “I Know George Santos a Republican, but I Can’t Get Ahold of Jewish Tradition” and “My Last Day in Congress”

Brendan Brosh, a spokesman for the Nassau County District Attorneys office, said Wednesday they were looking into the matter. There is no clear scope of the investigation.

Questions were raised after the New York Times looked at the story that Santos told to voters during his successful campaign for congress.

While apologizing for his fabrications,Santos downplayed them as sinners and said “we do stupid things in life” in an interview with the New York Post.

He backtracked on that claim, saying he never intended to claim Jewish heritage, which would have likely raised his appeal among his district’s significant ranks of Jewish voters.

In its opposition research on Santos, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised several red flags about the Republican’s record — but also accepted some of his assertions, including his educational record, as fact. He was tied to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and to baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election in the 87-page dossier. The report also sought to depict him as a far-right candidate. The DCCC raised his financial standing and the amount of debts he had left after a number of evictions.

During his losing campaign, Robert Zimmerman tried to raiseSantos’ misrepresentations, but it didn’t gain much traction.

George Santos, who is about to be sworn in to take the seat I held for six years, is my last day in Congress. He will take an oath to obey the Constitution, without any purpose of evasion. I’ve lost track of how many evasions and lies Mr. Santos has told about himself, his finances and his history and relationship with our stretch of Long Island and northeastern Queens. When he is seated, it will diminish our Congress, our country and my constituents — soon his constituents. It’s sad that I’m being replaced by a con man after thirty years of public service.

The Failure of the State of the Art, the Power and the Power of the Law. The Case of Mr. Santos in the House of Representatives

I keep on believing in my sense of optimism. I believe that as slow and frustrating as it sometimes is, our democracy, our free press and the rule of law work. They have to.

Voters of the Third District believe in the rule of law, and they play by the rules. They like authenticity in their leaders and pride themselves on having a good BS detector. The fact is that Mr. Santos fabricated the basics of his biography to the extent that most voters wouldn’t have thought possible. The shame would be too great, right? I am certain that if the Third District’s voters have an opportunity to weigh in on his political future again, he will be gone.