SUFFOLK CLOSEUP
By Karl Grossman
Congressman SantosOn CNN last week, in a discussion about serial liar and now U.S. Representative George Santos, Heather Caygle, managing editor of the Punchbowl News, said: “More revelations are coming out.” Francesca Chambers, Washington correspondent for USA Today, followed up by saying: “It’s not going away.”
Indeed, the Santos scandal is not going away.
Never, since I started as a journalist based on Long Island in 1962, has there been so much strongly critical national coverage of a member of the U.S. Congress from this area. Not even close.
And deservedly.
On the local level, as Suffolk County Republican Chairman Jesse Garcia said in a statement he issued last week: “George Santos’ lies and deceit have caught up to him, and the public has had enough of Mr. Santos. He is not welcome in our Republican Party and it is time for him to resign from the House of Representatives.”
Suffolk County would have been, and long was, part of the 3rd Congressional District which Santos was elected to represent. But six months before Election Day, a court order led to the district being reconfigured for a second time. Huntington Town and a chunk of Smithtown were cut out and its portions in Nassau County and Queens expanded.
A day before the Suffolk GOP chairman’s statement, a large grouping of Nassau Republican leaders and officials held a press conference at Nassau GOP headquarters calling for Santos to resign.
Said Nassau Republican Chairman Joseph Cairo: “He deceived the voters of the 3rd Congressional District, he deceived the members of the Nassau County Republican Committee, elected officials, his colleagues, candidates, his opponents, and even some of the media. His lies were not mere fibs….His fabrications went too far. Many groups were hurt. He has no place in the Nassau County Republican Committee, nor should he serve in public service as an elected official. He’s not welcome here at Republican headquarters for meetings or at any of our events. He’s disgraced the House of Representatives, and we do not consider him one of our congresspeople.”
Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin called Santos a “joke.” Said Clavin: “On behalf of all the board members, and, frankly, the 750,000 residents living in the Town of Hempstead, it’s time to go. You see a unified voice here. He’s unified the country in their opposition to him. He’s a national joke. He’s an international joke. But this joke’s got to go.”
Indeed, Santos has become a joke.
On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS-TV last week, Colbert commented: “Santos has a long history of stretching the truth by never telling it. That’s so disappointing. I would expect more from the man who invented the automobile.”
Colbert said the “walls appear to be closing in” on Santos after the Republican press conference earlier in the day. He said: “In response to this stunning rebuke from his own party, Santos told reporters on Capitol Hill that he ‘will not’ resign.” But considering that what Santos says is repeatedly untrue, this, said Colbert, “means that he is going to resign.”
At this writing, it doesn’t seem likely.
It’s not just his thoroughly make-believe resume now at issue. As the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center said in a complaint it filed with the Federal Election Committee last week: “Particularly in light of Santos’ mountain of lies about his life and qualifications for office, the commission should thoroughly investigate what appears to be equally brazen lies about how his campaign raised and spent money.” The complaint raised the issue of “unknown individuals” having “illegally funneled money” into Santos’ campaign. It accused Santos of using campaign funds for personal expenses including rent on an apartment in Huntington.
Investigations into Santos now include those by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, the New York State attorney general, and the district attorneys of Nassau County and Queens, and authorities. Also, authorities in Brazil are seeking to revive a fraud case against Santos.
The House of Representatives has the power to expel a member, but a major factor here is its new speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, whom Santos voted for. McCarthy declared about Santos last week: “The voters elected him to serve.” Key to this, said chief CNN political correspondent Dana Bash, on the panel on the “Inside Politics” CNN segment with Caygle and Chambers, is what a Santos departure would mean to McCarthy. If Santos is expelled and a special election held in the Democratic-leaning 3rd C.D. and a Democrat wins, without Santos McCarthy would be down a vote in the four-vote margin, she noted, that got him elected speaker. And, with a new House rule just approved, a single member can call for a new election for speaker—thus that vote could be repeated. The vote on the 15th ballot was 218 for McCarthy, 214 for Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn.
Jefferies last week called Santos “a complete and total fraud” who “lied to the voters” of the 3rd C.D. and “deceived and connived his way to Congress.”
Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.