George Devolder Santos should not serve in the House of Representatives for one more day.
He sold voters in the 3rd Congressional District a false biography — Baruch College and NYU grad, star volleyball player, Wall Street success story whose mother tragically was in the Twin Towers on 9/11 and whose grandparents fortunately escaped the Holocaust. In reality, the George Santos voters elected skipped out on paying his rent, skimmed money from a fund to provide surgery for a disabled veteran’s service dog, duped earnest donors, made mysterious loans to his campaign, and refused to disclose his sources of income or where he lived.
Once in Congress, he was incapable of providing constituent services and mocked our plague of mass shootings by co-sponsoring a bill to make the AR-15 assault rifle the “national gun of the United States.”
For those reasons alone, we have previously called for his resignation. Now, we have details on how he conned two donors to send money to a super PAC that he raided to buy luxury items, provided inflated financial campaign statements to the House, and stole almost $25,000 in federal COVID-19 relief money in 2020 by filing false unemployment claims — outlined in Wednesday’s 13-count federal indictment. It charges that while depositing paychecks totaling $120,000 a year from an unidentified investment firm — apparently, Harbor City Capital which federal authorities accused of running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme — he was also collecting New York State unemployment checks during his failing 2020 campaign.
While there is a lot more activity for prosecutors to mine, the government seems to have enough receipts — a deep paper trail along with emails and texts — from which the famously slippery Santos will have difficulty slithering away.
At a cacophonous news conference Wednesday in the shadow of the Alfonse M. D’Amato United States Courthouse in Central Islip, Santos said he can explain away the charges and will provide the right paperwork to prosecutors. It’s really all a mistake, he implied, before calling the probe a “witch hunt. It makes no sense that in four months, four months, five months I’m indicted.”
Actually, George, it makes a lot of sense.
Santos used his post-court appearance to insist he was running for reelection next year and that this whole experience was such a good farce that perhaps he would write a book about it. There is no end to his hustle.
Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay one more dime toward his salary and benefits and House Republicans shouldn’t give him a platform to continue his lies and raise more money for his schemes.
U.S. Justice Department investigators deserve credit for acting quickly to unravel at least some of this web of deceit. Hopefully, the continuing probe will focus on strange fundraising and campaign spending the current indictment doesn’t address. Whatever its direction, federal investigators surely gave the House Ethics Committee plenty of information to make its own decisions on Santos’ future.
If Santos was capable of shame, he would resign now. But it would not be surprising if such an experienced grifter holds onto his seat as long as possible to collect more salary while using his perch as a bargaining chip to get a good plea deal. If Santos is thrown out of the House, he’s got nothing to offer prosecutors.
That’s why House Speaker Kevin McCarthy should listen to Long Island Republican leaders, the three other members of the GOP Long Island delegation, and other state GOP House members who have called on Santos to resign. Santos is a distraction and a liability to Republicans and the work of government. By introducing a measure of expulsion and persuading his conference to vote for it, McCarthy would accelerate the process by forcing the delusional Santos to realize that he has just a short window in which to negotiate with the Justice Department.
But McCarthy sadly cares more about the politics of the moment, and seems ready to tarnish the House and deprive Long Island residents of real representation to hang on to Santos’ vote. If McCarthy fails to act, the Democrats should. They have the power to force an expulsion vote and even if it loses, reintroducing it repeatedly would get Republicans to confront their Santos problem.
Santos is entitled to his day in court and he will get the opportunity to defend himself against the criminal charges. But he doesn’t deserve to stay in the House.
MEMBERS OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD are experienced journalists who offer reasoned opinions, based on facts, to encourage informed debate about the issues facing our community.
