Long Island liar George Santos should resign now

OPINION:

Fact: George Santos, 34, is the U.S. representative for New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Another fact: George Santos is a big fat liar. Don’t believe me? Just ask him, and he’ll tell you he’s a liar.

During the campaign, Mr. Santos lied about nearly everything. He claimed that he attended New York University and Baruch College, that he worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, that his grandparents escaped the Holocaust, that he was Jewish and that his mother died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.

Wait, there’s more. He lied about founding a charity for rescued dogs and cats, lied about owning a number of rental properties, and lied about having employees killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida.

But despite all those lies, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the new speaker of the House of Representatives, is not calling for Mr. Santos’ ouster. “He will continue to serve,” the California Republican said of Mr. Santos, who now makes a $174,000 annual salary — paid by you, the taxpayer.

If you’re a conservative, forget that he’s a Republican. He’s a liar, and he should be drummed out of Congress posthaste.

But not to Mr. McCarthy, who is sitting on a tiny majority, just 222-213. He needs bodies. Asked about Mr. Santos admitting to fabricating much of his resume, Mr. McCarthy told reporters, “So did a lot of people here in the Senate and others.”

So there you have it. The new speaker alleges that “a lot” of people on Capitol Hill have inflated their resumes to get their jobs. Mr. McCarthy has refused to call for Mr. Santos to resign, but he also says Mr. Santos will have to face the music eventually.

“I try to stick by the Constitution. The voters elected him to serve. If there is a concern, and he has to go through the Ethics [Committee], let him move through that,” Mr. McCarthy said.

And the speaker said maybe Mr. Santos can just serve out his term. “It’s the voters who made that decision. He has to answer to the voters and the voters to make another decision in two years,” Mr. McCarthy said.

“He is going to have to build the trust here, and he’s going to have the opportunity to try to do that,” he said.

Mr. Santos has copped to lying about his past but said, “I am not a criminal.”

“This will not deter me from having good legislative success. I will be effective. I will be good,” he told the New York Post. “My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume,” he said. “I own up to that. … We do stupid things in life.”

Mr. Santos, who was elected to Congress on Nov. 8 to represent the Long Island- and Queens-based 3rd District, offered a hilarious defense of his claim to be Jewish.

“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Mr. Santos said. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’”

In that interview, Mr. Santos defiantly dismissed an allegation that he had a criminal charge filed against him in Brazil. “I am not a criminal here — not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world,” Mr. Santos said. “Absolutely not. That didn’t happen.”

But CNN later reported that Mr. Santos admitted to stealing a man’s checkbook to buy clothing and shoes in Brazil in 2008. Law enforcement officials in Brazil plan to reinstate fraud charges against Mr. Santos, the network reported on Jan. 4.

Mr. Santos says he won’t resign, even after being caught deceiving the people who put him in office.

“I was elected to serve the people of #NY03, not the party & politicians. I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office to deliver results to keep our community safe and lower the cost of living,” he wrote on Twitter. “I will NOT resign!”

It may not be his choice to stay in office. A bloc of GOP lawmakers from New York are calling for him to step down. At least four House Republicans from New York say Mr. Santos should resign his post shortly after Nassau County GOP officials on Wednesday called for him to do so.

“George Santos’ campaign last year was a campaign of deceit, lies and fabrication,” county GOP Chairman Joe Cairo said at a news conference with other party officials.

Another newcomer to Congress, New York Republican Rep. Nick Langworthy, said in a statement Wednesday that he supports Mr. Cairo’s call for Mr. Santos to resign.

“It’s clear that he cannot be an effective representative, and it would be in the best interest of the taxpayers to have new leadership,” Mr. Langworthy said. “I will continue working with our local elected officials to ensure that trust and dignity are restored to the 3rd Congressional District.”

Let’s be clear: Mr. Santos will go down. He’ll resign in disgrace and disappear forever. But what’s embarrassing is that every Republican in the House is not calling for him to step down.

Defending a lying liar for the lies he tells never works out well.

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @josephcurl.