There are lies, there are damned lies, and after that there is George Santos’s CV. In the brief time that he has actually remained in the general public eye, the 34-year-old Republican congressman from New York has actually been implicated of producing almost every facet of his life. During his election campaign, Santos declared to be a “proud American Jew” whose grandparents “survived the Holocaust”. After being challenged on this, nevertheless, Santos clarified that he was raised Catholic and argued that he had constantly said he was “Jew-ish”. Emphasis on the ish.
What else has he lied about? Well, for how long have you got? His education and work history seem fabrications. He has said his mom was working in the World Trade Center on 9/11, yet records reveal she remained in Brazil. He has actually said that he “lost four employees” in the 2016 Pulse club shooting in Florida, however the New York Times has not been able to verify these claims. He has likewise claimed to have been a college volleyball star (not likely) and a manufacturer on Spider-Man (false). No one is even sure what Santos’s real name is.
I might continue with the lies, however I require to get to the scandals. There is the scandal about his previous life as a drag queen in Brazil, which he initially rejected, then appeared to admit. (To be clear: the only outrageous feature of his supposed drag-queen past is that he is now active in a celebration that demonises and wants to criminalise drag queens as part of a wider anti-LGBTQ+ program.) There is the $365,000 in campaign funds he can’t represent. And then there are the several dog-related scandals.
Last week, Politico reported accusations that Santos invested 2017 cruising around Pennsylvania’s Amish Country purchasing puppies from dog breeders with cheques that bounced. (I understand that cheques haven’t been extensively utilized in the UK because about 1492, so this story sounds suspicious to British ears, however Americans still utilize them.)
A couple of days after supposedly composing $15,125 in bad cheques to breeders, Santos held an adoption occasion at a family pet store in New York. It’s unclear if he made money from this, however adoption charges can vary from $300 to $400. Santos was charged with theft by deceptiveness, however those charges were dropped when he declared his chequebook had actually been taken.
The other dog-related scandal? The congressman is implicated of assuring to raise funds for a homeless male’s passing away dog in 2016, then taking off with the money.
I am not exactly sure how Santos still works as a legislator, however, as he ends up being a growing number of of a shame, his celebration associates are slowly turning versus him. Fellow New York congressman Nick LaLota recently called Santos a “sociopath”. The Utah senator Mitt Romney, on the other hand, explained Santos as a “sick puppy” and said he “shouldn’t be in Congress … if he had any shame at all, he wouldn’t be there”.
It ends up Santos doesn’t have any pity. On Wednesday, he told reporters that he is the genuine victim. “It’s not the first time in history that I’ve been told to shut up and go to the back of the room, especially by people who come from a privileged background,” Santos said of Romney’s remarks. “I think it’s reprehensible the senator would say such a thing to me … it wasn’t very Mormon of him.”
If Santos were a one-off, his shenanigans may be entertaining. But there is absolutely nothing from another location amusing about a political system that has actually enabled somebody such as Santos to get as far as he has. Indeed, Santos might not be the only fabulist in the Republican celebration: the Washington Post reported recently that Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who was just recently chosen as a Republican congresswoman in Florida, likewise appears to have actually made a great deal of her bio.
She, too, has actually declared Jewish roots, however, according to her own family, her grandpa supposedly “served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany”. If real, these accusations would recommend that the only credentials for an effective profession in the Republican celebration are an active creativity and no ethical compass whatsoever.
