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“State and local Republican leaders in New York on Wednesday called for the immediate resignation of their new GOP congressman George Santos, who is facing multiple investigations by prosecutors over his personal and campaign finances and lies about his resume and family heritage.” AP News
The right is critical of Santos but points out that many politicians lie about their backgrounds.
“The [Campaign Legal Center (CLC)] is asking the FEC to investigate some of the glaringly obvious questions that many of us have already been posing. At the top of the list is how Santos was able to ‘loan’ his own campaign more than $700,000 last year when his own disclosure forms showed he was only worth a total of $55K barely a year earlier… The CLC also suggested the possibility (without making a direct accusation) that the $705,000 he loaned himself could have come from ‘a corporation or foreign national.’…
“The complaint also points out that the Santos campaign listed dozens of expenses valued at $199.99. That’s not illegal in and of itself, but it’s conveniently and coincidentally (I’m sure) only one penny lower than the $200 threshold for expenses requiring the campaign to provide receipts. One of those expenses was listed as a ‘Hotel Stay,’ at the W Hotel South Beach of Miami, Florida last October. But the CLC points out that the cheapest room available at that hotel at the time cost more than $700 per night… Nothing about Santos’ campaign finances adds up or matches the answers that he’s given in multiple interviews.”
Jazz Shaw, Hot Air
“We know that Santos has lied about a lot of things, enough to make him politically a dead man walking if he faces the voters again in 2024. Less clear is whether Santos has problems besides just serial fabulism. It is very hard, after all, to get kicked out of Congress for being a liar…
“Senator Richard Blumenthal claimed falsely to have ‘served in Vietnam,’ and senator Elizabeth Warren falsely claimed Cherokee heritage when applying for jobs as a law professor. The last president was a pathological BS artist who won the job in part because his opponent and her ex-president husband were perhaps America’s most notorious liars; the current president has arguably the longest track record in American political history of telling false stories about himself, his credentials, and his life experience. If we kicked all the liars out of Congress, neither house could muster a quorum.”
Dan McLaughlin, National Review
Some argue, “George Santos should step down, cooperate with all investigations and come clean about his past. Assuming that won’t happen, his local party should disavow him and call for a special election. Republicans in the House should end their silence, formally oppose his entry and close their conference to him. They have a close margin in the House and believe they can’t afford to lose even one. But Mr. Santos will be the focus of investigations from day one and will be used to pummel the GOP each day for looking past his fraud. They can’t afford to keep him. He is a bridge too far. He is an embarrassment.”
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
The left is critical of Santos and applauds local Republicans calling for his resignation.
The left is critical of Santos and applauds local Republicans calling for his resignation.
“For now, the morally obtuse Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who received Santos’s vote to become House speaker, is sticking by him. But McCarthy did say he would not appoint Santos to any top committees. That’s a strange decision: It’s too dangerous to have [him] serve on, for example, the Judiciary or Foreign Affairs committees, but it’s fine to let him vote on bills coming out of those committees or to serve on less important ones? (It’s also interesting that Santos’s presence on a committee will signal that McCarthy thinks that committee is unimportant.)…
“What passes for decency in the GOP today: Willingness to demand the resignation of a compulsive liar who falsified practically his entire biography and possibly violated campaign finance laws. It’s a low bar, but let’s at least give a nod to the minimally responsible Republicans in New York willing to do it.”
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post
“It’s worth emphasizing that this isn’t just Santos having lied in various ways about his educational and professional record; he allegedly exploited not just the Holocaust, as Miller notes, but also 9/11 and the Pulse nightclub massacre by suggesting personal links to these tragedies that have since fallen apart or come into question. And that’s not even to mention the very real legal jeopardy he faces.”
Aaron Blake, Washington Post
“Santos’s fellow New York Republicans are trying to distance themselves from the congressman, calling on him to resign in the hopes that it will help their own re-election chances. ‘He needs help,’ said Jennifer DeSena, a local Republican official from Long Island. ‘This is not a normal person.’ And indeed it’s hard not to suspect that there might be something wrong with the man, aside from the moral turpitude…
“But it would be a mistake to think that George Santos’s pathologies are his alone. His lies are the product of a political system that incentivizes dishonesty, punishes sincerity and is rife with opportunities for petty crooks. In that sense, Santos is the politician that we deserve.”Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“The biggest wild card, as Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reported, will be the realm of the law. Any developments in the investigation into Santos’ finances or charges of check fraud in Brazil could ramp up the pressure for Republicans to take action and force Santos to finally step down…
“[But] If history tells us anything, Santos has a pretty good chance of serving out the rest of his term. In the shadow of President Trump, Republicans have shown they will tolerate – and even defend – a broad range of behavior that was previously considered unacceptable.”
Julian Zelizer, CNN
