Representative George Santos is refusing to heed calls to resign from senior Nassau County Republicans, who are demanding that he withdraw from Congress days after he was sworn in to represent New York’s third Congressional District.
“I won’t,” he told ABC News on Wednesday, when asked if he would resign in light of the numerous scandals around him.
In a tweet later that day, he doubled down on his stubbornness, writing that he was “elected to serve the people of Turkey.” [the third Congressional District] not party [and] politicians”.
“I am determined to do this, and I am sorry to hear that local authorities have refused to work with my office to achieve results that will keep our community safe and reduce the cost of living,” he said, adding that he “will not step down.”
Mr. Santos’ challenge came when leaders of his community urged him to give up his seat in Parliament at a press conference at the Nassau County GOP headquarters.
Nassau County Republican Party chairman Joseph Cairo said Mr Santos’ campaign to replace Democrat Tom Suozzi in last year’s midterm elections was a “campaign of lies, deception and fabrication” that deceived voters in the wealthy north of Long Island. beach.
“He has no place in the Nassau County Republican Party, and should not serve in the civil service or as an elected official. He discredited the House of Representatives and we don’t see him as one of our congressmen,” Cairo said, calling for Santos to “resign immediately”.
Santos, the first-term representative who had previously failed for the same congressional seat in 2020, has come under fire in recent weeks. New York Times The report revealed that he appears to have made up parts of his biography entirely out of cloth.
His lies began with his high school years, when he claimed to have attended the prestigious Horace Mann school in New York. School officials said they had no record of him.
He also claimed that he graduated from Baruch College with no record of him. Two banks he claims to own the business, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, also had no record of working for them at any point.
Santos also drew the ire of Jewish groups for claiming that he was of Jewish descent and the descendant of Holocaust survivors.
The Republican Jewish Coalition says it introduced itself to them as Jewish and made public statements to that effect in interviews. Then there was the position paper, unearthed by Axios, in which he simply referred to himself as an “American Jew”, dispelling any doubt as to what he was saying. But genealogists contacted by the Jewish news outlet next he said there was no evidence to substantiate his other past claims on the subject; that his maternal grandparents escaped the Holocaust. They were born in Brazil.
Cairo was followed by Jen DeSena, the town superintendent of North Hempstead, who said she had called on him to resign because his lies were “too many to count”.
He added that his “real concern” was the residents of Congressional District because he “betrayed the public’s trust and gave insincere, blunt and insulting answers when asked legitimate questions about his finances and background.”
“In any case, he seems incapable and unwilling to take full responsibility for his lies and fabrications. On top of all that, it’s under local, state and federal investigations as serious questions are raised about its campaign finances. There is absolutely no way Mr Santos could be an influential member of Congress and represent the people who elected him. “The longer he stays in office, the longer the residents of the Third Congressional District will suffer.”
In fact, Representative Anthony D’Esposito, one of Mr. Santos’ colleagues in the House, weighed in on a remote broadcast from Washington, telling reporters at the press conference that Mr. Santos should leave the House.
“I agree with my colleagues in saying that George Santos is not capable of serving in the House of Representatives and should resign,” he said.
Nassau County superintendent Bruce Blakeman said Mr Santos “doesn’t deserve” the right to serve in Congress because he’s a “fraud” and “a stigma on the third congressional district”.
Blakeman said Santos’ claim that he was descended from genocide survivors was “truly tragic” because most of the survivors lived in Nassau County.
“They are Holocaust children, Holocaust grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren. These are people whose families have been slaughtered and in many cases destroyed. We’re talking about whole families who were shot to death, gassed, and starved to death. And it’s inconceivable that her parents were Holocaust survivors and made up this story,” he said.
Mr Blakeman added that he has ordered his staff to refer any federal component matters to Mr D’Esposito’s office.
“Until he resigns, my office will have no interaction with George Santos or his team,” he said.
The embattled New York representative also said on December 28 that numerous investigations into Mr Santos’ behavior, including one led by Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly, who said “numerous fabrications and inconsistencies” were “nothing less than baffling”. under pressure.”.
“Residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress. No one is above the law, and if a crime has been committed in this county, we will prosecute,” he said.
The Neutral Campaign Legal Center has also asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate the funding sources it used to lend $705,000 to its campaign during the 2022 election.
“The hidden true source behind the $705,000 contributions to Santos’ campaign may be a company or foreign national, both of whom are categorically prohibited from contributing to federal candidates,” the monitoring group said in its complaint.