It is now clear that Rep.-elect George Santos, R-NY, completely fabricated his resume and life history. In case you missed it, here’s a summary of the falsehoods George Santos admitted to spreading while running for office, gleaned from several New York Times and Washington Post articles published over the past week:
■He lied about graduating from college
■He lied about working for Citigroup or Goldman Sachs
■He lied about owning 13 rental properties in New York City (he owns none)
■He lied about owing thousands of dollars in unpaid rent
■He denied having claimed Jewish heritage, despite unequivocal evidence to the contrary
■He claimed he founded and ran a nonprofit animal rescue operation called Friends Of Pets United, but no such organization was found in the IRS’ database.
■He denied having committed a crime “anywhere in the world,” despite evidence provided in a New York Times report that he was arrested in Brazil for check fraud.
At this writing, no one in the GOP has rushed to defend Santos, and few have offered on the record comments. Earlier this week the Times reported that Nassau County Republican chairman, Joseph G. Cairo Jr., said in a statement that he was “deeply disappointed” in Santos, who he said had “broken the public trust” by mischaracterizing his background to voters and that he did not believe that Santos’s apologies in interviews sufficiently addressed his past remarks. But despite the breath and brazenness of Santos’ lies, Cairo stopped short of calling for his resignation or further investigation and seemed to accept the congressman-elect’s emphatic assertion that he would take office in January.
But recent reports indicate there is another shoe yet to drop in this case. In addition to dodging answers to questions about his Jewish lineage, the criminal charges he faces in Brazil, and fabricating his personal history, Mr. Santos has not offered a plausible explanation for the source of $700,000 he used to underwrite his campaign. This question, now being probed by the attorney general in New York, could have far-reaching reverberations once the source is determined.
The coverage of this debacle left me with one overarching question: Why didn’t anyone discover the “embellishment” of Santos’ credentials during his campaign in 2020 or 2022? I can offer three reasons for this oversight.
First, because Santos was unopposed in the GOP primary his credentials were never challenged by a candidate within his party and, evidently, never vetted by the GOP leadership on Long Island or at the national level. In an ideal world, primaries serve the purpose of winnowing out unqualified candidates within a political party. When candidates run unopposed, there is no opportunity to examine their credentials carefully.
Second, for reasons that are inexplicable ex post facto, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) strategy was to focus on Santos’ extremism as a candidate instead of carefully examining his qualifications or his finances. Santos’ resume was never called into question and his “shady finances” were fourth on the DCCC’s list of reasons to vote against Santos — behind his support for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, his hardline stance against abortion, and his support for billionaires at the expense of seniors and other Social Security recipients. Yet in an August 2022 press release, the DCCC noted Santos’ failure to report any assets or money in his bank accounts on his 2020 Personal Finance Disclosure, noted that he was nevertheless able to loan his 2020 campaign more than $80,000, and noted that he somehow self-funded his 2022 campaign to the tune of $500,000 in the first quarter of 2022. But after flagging questions about Santos’ finances, they did not emphasize these issues in the campaign, choosing to focus on hot-button national issues. In effect, by nationalizing the campaign for the House seat in New York the Democrats ignored Santos’ flaws as a candidate.
Third, the local and regional media, who in years past might have delved into the background of a candidate for office, are woefully understaffed and the major news outlets during the lead up to the campaign were more interested the “horse race” statistics than the quality of the horses in the race. Digging into Santos’ past required a lot of legwork, and with diminished staffs, local newspapers do not have the wherewithal to explore each candidates’ qualifications and the national media focused on the logistics and strategy of the parties instead of the candidates themselves.
The George Santos story is not over, and once law enforcement officials and investigative reporters begin following the money, it is probable that more damning revelations will come to light. Santos’ lies have consequences far beyond the borders of his district. The political fallout could cascade into the national spotlight should Kevin McCarthy need Santos’ vote to secure the Speaker of the House seat he seeks.
In the long run, if we hope to avoid a repetition of this kind of episode, we need to address the deficiencies in our system that led to this oversight. Both parties should strive to seek candidates so that there will be competitive primary elections. Both parties should also make certain their candidates and the opposition’s candidates are trustworthy and fully qualified to hold the office they seek. And finally, the media should use this experience to reflect on how best to vet candidates in a fair and unbiased way. Had a Long Island newspaper explored the questions raised in the DCCC’s Press Release of August 2022, it’s possible Santos’ “embellishments” would have come to light in October instead of after the election. Digging up facts is far more helpful than mining data. Tracking down answers to tough questions posed by each party would help democracy more than the endless data analysis that fills the weeks and months leading up to each election.
Wayne Gersen lives in Etna.