Santos Confession Doesn’t Quiet Calls for Resignation
"The fabulist congressman-elect is a total fraud—and yet he’s not even in the running for “worst Republican member of Congress right now"
Deceit at that level with the aim of being elected should be seen as electoral fraud.
The disgraced politician hasn’t even taken office, but he’s facing an overwhelming wave of calls for his resignation after he admitted to a pattern of lying about virtually every aspect of his life.
By Susan Milligan | Dec. 27, 2022, at 4:54 p.m. U.S. News & World Report [...] And the criticism was not limited to the Democratic side, as more details began to seep out about Santos' lies. Scott Parkinson, vice president of government affairs for the conservative Club for Growth, said Santos should resign but be allowed to run again in a special election.
"Serving in Congress is a position of public trust," Parkinson, a veteran of three GOP Senate offices, tweeted. "If a campaign is built on lies, you’ve broken the public’s trust in you & lost your credibility to serve." [...] The entire episode has Democrats fuming that their party had not exposed Santos' lies ahead of the election for the swing district seat. And it raises questions about whether Santos' behavior is the new political normal, as Trump loyalists continue to believe the "big lie" that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump – himself the teller of many lies and exaggerations about his political and business lives.
"It should have been discovered by both (parties) and dealt with, and he should not have been the nominee or the winner," says Matt Bennett, executive vice president for Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. But Bennett says he does not think Santos is the new template for truth in campaigning.
"There are super-crazy people in Congress, of course. But the notion that you can make up everything about yourself? That is a massive outlier, even in the era of Trump," he adds.
There isn't much Democrats can do to stop Santos from being sworn in as a member of Congress. McCarthy is in a bind, since Santos has committed to voting for McCarthy for speaker and the Republican leader can't afford to lose any votes.
Santos may run into legal problems, however. The Times story raised questions about Santos' company, Devolder. While Santos – who contributed $700,000 to his own campaign – reported a salary of $750,000 and more than $1 million in dividends from the company on his financial disclosure statement to the House, the Times found the company is something of a mystery, with little online or public presence.
Santos also listed no clients on his federal financial disclosure, odd for a company allegedly paying him such a high salary. If Santos lied on his financial disclosure forms, he could be prosecuted for it.
As for having Santos as a House colleague, "The Democrats at this point won't be able to do anything about it," Matthew Dowd, a political consultant who worked for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004, told MSNBC on Tuesday. But "my guess is, George Santos' tenure in Congress is a short one," he added.
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