House GOP campaign arm erases George Santos from its website

The National Republican Congressional Committee, a political committee whose purpose is to help elect Republicans to the House of Representatives, has recently erased embattled newly seated New York Rep. George Santos from its website.

Reporters have continued to uncover lies Santos told about his background and resume during his 2022 campaign for New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

It’s unclear when exactly Santos was erased from the committee’s website; however, he had appeared on the site as recently as Jan. 15, according to an archived snapshot from Google. Every other GOP House member from New York remains on the NRCC’s site, which directs donors to give to current elected officials to “defend our majority.”

Santos has been under fire since December, when the New York Times reported that a number of key claims in Santos’ biography were lies. Since then, reporters have unearthed numerous other lies Santos told, which has led to calls for him to resign his House seat from the Nassau County Republican Party and a handful of his fellow GOP lawmakers, including Reps. Nick LaLotta, Mike Lawler, Max Miller, Marcus Molinaro, and Brandon Williams.

Santos’ lies continue to be uncovered and debunked. They include:

• He has no Jewish heritage, despite having described himself as “half Jewish” and a “proud American Jew.” Santos later told the New York Post: “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish.'”
• His grandparents were not Ukrainian Jewish refugees who fled the Nazis during the Holocaust, as he had claimed.
• Santos said his mother was in the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, and died from cancer she contracted there. However, according to the Washington Post, immigration documents show Santos’ mother was not even in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
• Santos listed jobs at the major financial institutions Citigroup and Goldman Sachs on his resume, but neither company has any record that he worked there.
• He said he started an animal rescue charity called Friends of Pets United, but no charities are registered with that name. On Wednesday, a military veteran came forward with a charge that Santos raised $3,000 to help his dying dog get surgery but took the money for himself.
• Santos lied about his education, falsely claiming to have attended the New York private school Horace Mann, Baruch College, and New York University. Records show he attended none of those schools. Santos later admitted that he “didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume.”
• Santos also claimed to have been a volleyball star at Baruch College, even though he never attended the school.
• Santos said he was a landlord who owned 13 properties. But not only does he not own any properties, but, the New York Post reported, he is actually living with his sister, who herself is facing eviction over $40,000 in unpaid rent.
• In November, Santos said a company he owned “lost” four employees in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016. However, the New York Times reported, none of the victims of the shooting worked at any companies tied to Santos.
• Santos filed a financial disclosure report with the House in which he claimed to have made a $750,000 salary in 2021 from a company he runs. However, he did not list in that disclosure payments he is reported to have received from Harbor City Capital, a company that the Securities and Exchange Commission has accused of running a “classic Ponzi scheme,” the Washington Post reported.

Santos’ biography on the NRCC site included a number of those lies that have since been debunked, including Santos’ work and educational history, as well as the lie that his mother was in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

The NRCC did not return a request for comment about when it removed Santos’ profile from its website or why.

Polling shows that, in addition to the calls for his resignation from fellow Republican officials, a majority of his constituents want him to step down.

Santos has said he won’t step down.

And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose party holds the slimmest of majorities in the chamber, has said Santos deserves to stay in Congress and will be dealt with by the House Ethics Committee “if there is a concern.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.