Mark Twain is right that a lie travels around the world before the truth can put its pants on, but the truth has raced back to bite George Santos in the rear. That became clearer than ever Wednesday as leading New York Republicans demanded the new congressman resign immediately. Among them were state Republican Chair Nick Langworthy, Nassau County Chair Joseph Cairo, former Sen. Al D’Amato and Rep. Anthony Esposito. It is damning indeed when the party of Donald Trump in Trump’s native state considers a politician’s fabrications disqualifying.
Santos is defiant, refusing to step down because he was “elected to serve the people of #NY03 and not the party &politicians.”
But the man the voters elected bears little resemblance to the disgraced and diminished figure who now puts on a brave face. He lied about where he went to high school and where he went to college. He lied about getting a degree. He lied about working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He lied about founding an animal charity. There’s no record of the portfolio of buildings he claims to have owned. He falsely said that the 9/11 attacks “claimed my mother’s life.” He called himself the “grandson of Holocaust refugees” and a “proud American Jew”; those assertions don’t check out either. He has been shifty on where hundreds of thousands of dollars he lent his own campaign came from. He said he lost “four employees” in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, but that too turns out to be untrue.
Santos dismisses these volumes of fiction as mere “embellishment,” akin to common resume puffery, but making a small fraction of such blatant misrepresentations to a prospective employer during the hiring process would get any ordinary employee fired lickety-split.
New Yorkers elected a man named George Santos who does not exist. The one who now wields power in their name in Congress should look himself in the cracked mirror and have the decency to heed the rising calls for his resignation.