George Santos Seriously Seems To Be Planning To Run for Reelection
George Santos, the Junior Republican Congressman in New York, has been embroiled in pressure to resign, as well as criminal and ethical investigations—even from his own party—after so many of his campaign claims about himself have been revealed to be lies that he gives Donald Trump himself a run for his money in the post-truth game. That has not stopped Santos, however, from filing the necessary paperwork last week to set himself up to run for reelection in 2024.
The fact that Santos filed a statement of candidacy last Tuesday to run for re-election as a congressman for constituents in Queens and Long Island doesn’t guarantee the first-year legislator will actually launch a re-election campaign. However, his paperwork with the Federal Election Commission does mean he can legally raise money. He can also use that money for campaign-related expenses. That means he could pay himself back the $700,000 he claims to have lent to his campaign from his personal wealth. He could also use donated funds to cover legal fees in the future, which he may well need. Santos’ private and public financial dealings are currently being examined by federal prosecutors, according to The New York Times. He’s also under investigation by local New York prosecutors and is set to be investigated by the House Ethics Committee.
Suffice it to say, Rep. Santos’ political and financial moves are already the subject of much controversy. Late last year, the New York Times exposed the first in a vast explosion of lies Santos has told about his own biography. Some of the “untruths” he told were part of his campaign, which seems particularly egregious since he basically tricked voters into electing a version of a man who does not exist. Sure, maybe that’s just politics. Santos himself says his lies were “harmless embellishments” of the kind apparently “everyone” makes on their resumes.
For instance, Santos claimed he went to college and earned degrees at NYU and Baruch College. In reality, there’s no record of him earning a college degree or attending those schools. Yeah, that’s a major lie, but countless other people have lied about degree status on resumes. Just, most of them aren’t in public office.
But Santos went much further to tell some truly shocking whoppers, including falsely claiming his grandparents were Ukrainian Jews who managed to escape the Holocaust, to his 2021 tweet saying, “9/11 claimed my mother’s life.” And then inexplicably a few months later tweeting that his mother died in 2016. He then claimed in an interview with One American News Network that it was inhaling the “toxic dust” in Manhattan that gave her the cancer that killed her seven years later. But when The New York Times again confronted Rep. Santos, showing him immigration records stating that his mother was not in the United States during 9/11, Santos replied he “didn’t know where that came from,” and has not given any further explanation. There are so many more truly hilariously big and unnecessary lies in Santos’ past. We can’t wait to see more come out. (Or to see him disappear from public life forever. Whichever comes first!)
(featured image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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