If anyone wants to know what the Republican ”leadership” in House of Representatives will look like in 2023, I give you the Curious Case of George Santos. In November, Santos achieved high federal office and a plaque in the Infamy Hall of Fame!
In the course of a few weeks, George went from soaring with the eagles to joining the skunks rooting in the ground for grubs. On November 3, he was elected as a Republican to the House from New York’s Third Congressional District (NY - 3), which covers part of Queens and part of northern Long Island. He won with about 54% of the vote.
NY - 3 is one of the wealthiest congressional districts in the country. Approximately 93% of the district’s population graduated from high school, and 58% has a bachelor’s degree or an advanced degree. The median household income is $130,000; the mean household income is $179,000.
On December 19, thanks to The New York Times, the motto of which is “All The News That’s Fit To Print,” saw fit to print that Congressman-elect George Santos is a fraud. Fraud as defined Merriam-Webster Webster Dictionary as the “intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right;” and “a person who is not what he or she pretends to be…”
So what fraud did Santos perpetrate? According to the Times, the list goes something like this: he claimed to have matriculated from Baruch College and New York University; he had worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup; he claimed to be independently wealthy and thus would decline taking a salary; he openly claimed to be gay; and, he claimed to be Jewish. According to his bio published on Ballotpedia, he claimed to be a Wall Street “financier and investor, with extensive work in capital introduction, real estate, capital markets, bio-tech and ETC. He [sic] participated in landmark deals on Wall Street, and worked my way up to being one of the youngest vice presidents in the industry.”
Let’s unpack this hot mess. Neither Baruch nor NYU have any records of his attendance, let alone matriculation. In an interview on December 26, Santos admitted he did not matriculate from any college after he graduated from high school. He claimed the listing on his resume of his having attended both institutions to have been an embellishment.
Neither Goldman nor Citigroup have any record of Santos working for them. In the interview, Santos said he worked “for” Goldman or Citigroup, not “on” or “in” or “at.” He characterized the use of the word “for” as an unfortunate choice of words, claiming he worked for a company that did work with the two financial institutions. Another “embellishment.”
His financial career leading to his Vice-presidency. Amazing that a guy with no post high school credentials was able to participate in landmark deals on Wall Street and his becoming one of the youngest vice-presidents in “the industry.” Amazing.
This financial issue potentially poses bigger problems than mere embellishments. A quick timeline:
2020 Santos ran his first race for Congress and submitted a required financial disclosure form indicating that he had a net worth of $5000.
2022 Santos makes his second run and on his financial disclosure form lists his net worth at millions of dollars. There’s no record of Santos winning the lottery.
Where did this windfall come from? According to Santos, he opened a Florida company named Devolder Organization of which he is sole owner. Florida filings indicate that the company opened in May of 2021, one month prior to Santos announcing his candidacy for a 2022 race for congress. Initially, Santos claimed to have $80 million of assets under the company’s management - a claim since removed from any campaign materials. According to an analysis performed by Dun & Bradstreet, the company’s worth is about $47,000.
Aside that it might appear at first blush that we crossed the embellishment Rubicon into outright lies, there’s a more substantive issue involving money. On his campaign finance filings, Santos claimed to have loaned his campaign $700,000. Question: where’d the money come from? If the value of his company, which was formed in 2021, is approximately $47,000 then even if he took every nickel out that still leaves him about $650,000 unaccounted for. One more point, if he had this amount of money to loan to his campaign, why is it that he’s subject to eviction from his apartment for non-payment of rent?
This is where we might cross from lies to criminal fraud. Each candidate is required to file truthful campaign finance reports. Failure to knowingly lie about the source of funds is a crime. This should be investigated; if it came from his personal funds then it should be easy enough for him to prove and case closed. But if it came from an undisclosed third party, then who was this third party?
Finally, his ancestry. He claimed to be Jewish. Questions about this ancestry have been raised and in an interview he claimed not to be Jewish. But because his grandmother, who reportedly converted to Catholicism, came from a Jewish family, Santos claimed to be Jew-ish, not Jewish. It’s just how we heard the words coming out of his mouth, I guess. And like his grandmother, Santos is a catholic.
How did the well educated, financially well off, worldly voters of the NY-3rd fall for these “embellishments?” Borrowing from contract law, Santos masterfully committed a fraud in the inducement. Putting it simply, person A (e.g. candidate Santos) tricks another person B (NY - 3 voter) into signing an agreement (e.g. vote) to person B’s disadvantage by using fraudulent statements and representations. If not in letter then in spirit, fraud in the inducement helps as an analytical construct to understand how people fell for this avalanche of lies.
Another reason explaining why Santos was successful in his fraud could be political malpractice on the part of Santos’ democratic opponent. Evidently that campaign didn’t bother to check Santos’ claims, do even a cursory look at his financials, or even review his campaign finance reports. Like I said, political malpractice.
But did the voters err? Clearly, but it was a mistake born of a quaint belief that those running for office would have at least a passing acquaintance with the truth. What Santos did was take a play out of the Nazi propaganda (and maybe Trump?) handbook to tell a lie so colossal that people will assume it’s the truth. Voters make decisions based on information presented to them. Without a forensic process between campaigns, any unchallenged statement or assertion is likely to be regarded as true.
The people of NY-3 are the victims of a cruel hoax perpetrated by a rogue candidate who would tell any lie to get elected. He perpetrated a fraud on the people he seeks to serve, a fraud that these people will have to live with for the next two years.
But why wait two years? Can’t something be done to prevent Santos from being sworn in next week? The short answer is no. While the Constitution, in Article I, section 5, gives the Congress the authority to judge the qualifications of its members, in 1969 the Supreme Court in the case Powell v. McCormack held that the assessment of a member’s qualifications could only be limited to age and citizenship/residency.
There’s little doubt that Santos is over 25 years of age - but I’d like to see his long form birth certificate - or that he meets New York’s legal requirements of residency - again, given the circumstances, I’d like conclusive proof. For now the voters are stuck with him.
He could be investigated by the House Ethics Committee (insert oxymoron joke here), but that probably won’t yield a just result. The Committee is comprised of an equal number of representatives from each party. Unless the democrats stay unified and some republicans are red faced enough to join them, it’s unlikely that any sensible outcome would result.
And even if the Committee found Santos to be a self serving political cretin, it’s very unlikely that he would be removed from office. Why not? No doubt there’d be a lot of handwringing about overturning a democratic election. Over the past few years, republicans have been good at raising this self-serving argument.
Let’s not overlook the influence of the wannabe next House Speaker and human slinky toy, Kevin McCarthy. As you may know, McCarthy needs 218 votes to be elected Speaker by a majority of the House. Reports indicate that he hasn’t got them. His Republican caucus has 222 members, including Santos. Five members of McCarthy’s own caucus are “never Kevin” republicans. At best he has 217 votes and it might not be that solid. And it’s not likely that the democrats will come to his rescue.
This gives Santos a chip to play in this game. I would bet the house money that he’s in contact with McCarthy telling him that he, Santos, would love to vote for Kevin for Speaker, but Kev’s got to do something for George in return. If Santos doesn’t extract a solid commitment that there would be no serious Ethics Committee investigation or action, then he’s committing political malpractice. As Santos appears to be a self serving predator it’s unlikely that he’d miss this political layup.
There we have it, the Xmas gift to America sent to us, especially to the people in NY - 3, by our friend the Grinch. And in this season I’d like to paraphrase Holden Caulfield, “If Madison could see what they’ve done to his democracy, he’d puke.”
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