2023-01-18 – Controversial Republican Representative George Santos, NY, has secured two committee assignments. This comes after the congressman continues to receive blowback from lies on his résumé. Lies that created a false background and brought him to Congress. While both Republicans and Democrats have demanded he resign, Santos still received his committee assignments that were righted to him by assuming his position.
Who is George Santos?
George Santos is the 34-year-old openly-gay son of Brazillian immigrants. This year he comes into the House of Representatives as a freshman elected in November to serve New York’s third district which serves a small portion of Queens and a large portion of the North Shore of Long Island in Nassau County. He is a Trump supporter and had even attended the January 6, 2021, Trump Ellipse rally. One component of his résumé we do know is that one of his confirmed jobs – Harbor City Capitol – has been accused of being a Ponzi scheme by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
What has he lied about?
Santos, if that is his real name, has lied about quite a bit. It starts with his résumé – in which he claims to have graduated from Baruch College and to have worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Though these were all, according to Santos during a media tour on December 26, “a little bit of fluff” as he never graduated from college or worked at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup. Santos had also lied about his heritage, which he had claimed included Jewish roots and that he had descended from refugees fleeing the Holocaust, though there is no evidence to back up this claim. Santos also claimed that he had started and ran an animal rescue charity, though there was no registration for such a thing.
The Latest:
Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, had previously mentioned Santos would be given committee appointments. On Tuesday he was assigned a spot on two committees, the House Committee on Small Business and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. These are not what he had mentioned he wanted, as he had previously told AXIOS on November 13th he would like to be on the Financial Services Committee given his “background.” Though he lied about said background and never worked at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup. Now that Santos has been assigned committees, others have come out to respond to the news.
Representative Roger Williams, R-Texas, the chair of the Small Business Committee stated “We will find a way to make him add value to [the committee].” Williams also told AXIOS that he “is concerned about Santos’ record of dishonesty. “What he’s said, the things he’s done, I don’t agree with … I’m against all that. Nobody agrees [with] all that, but, he said, Santos has a right to be on the committee as a duly elected member of Congress. Williams added that he can handle keeping Santos in line: “I employ hundreds of people right now in Texas. I’ve been through everything. This is not something that I’m new at.”
