NEW YORK – Dozens of constituents of Republican Rep. George Santos are expected to deliver a petition to the embattled congressman at his district office on Wednesday morning calling on his removal from Congress. The group is also slated to call on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to immediately move the resolution to expel Rep. Santos to the House floor for a straight up or down vote.
"Let me count the [reasons] George Santos should be expelled," Jody Kass, coordinator of Concerned Citizens of NY-03, a nonpartisan group created to get Santos ousted from office, told The Jerusalem Post ahead of Wednesday's rally. "He's an imposter, he's a cheater, he's a criminal, nothing he says can be trusted. No one in Washington will believe him. He's an embarrassment to our district and to democracy. He's destroying the most important foundations of our country."
"I came out of retirement to form this group because of my anger."
Jody Kass
Last week, Kass's group traveled from New York's 3rd Congressional District to Capitol Hill to demand Congress vote to expel Santos. The constituents were joined by Reps. Daniel Goldman and Ritchie Torres, the New York Democrats who recently filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee where the investigative process has begun.
"I came out of retirement to form this group because of my anger," Kass told the Post.
"This is not a Republican or Democrat issue," Kass said. "Both parties have aligned interest. Santos is not good for the Republican party."
George Santos' long list of lies
The freshman Republican has refused to leave office despite a series of allegations of lying and fraud that first came to light in December shortly after he won a swing seat on Long Island.
In his campaign launch video for Congress, Santos stated: “I’ve seen how socialism destroys people’s lives because my grandparents survived the Holocaust.”
A former roommate of Santos said that he used a "fake Jewish-sounding last name" to raise funds on GoFundMe, according to a Business Insider report.
In late December, Santos confessed to a multitude of lies he made on the campaign trail, including about his education and work experience, but he denied claiming to be Jewish.
One day prior to his confession, Santos joined the Republican Jewish Coalition on Long Island for a menorah lighting to mark the first night of Hanukkah. He’d been invited as one of just two freshmen Republican Jews elected to Congress in November.
“I am not a criminal,” Santos, the first openly gay non-incumbent Republican elected to the House, said during an interview with New York Post in December. “This [controversy] will not deter me from having good legislative success. I will be effective. I will be good.”
Following the interview, the Republican Jewish Coalition said it would not invite Santos back.
“He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage,” said Matt Brooks, chief executive of RJC. “In public comments and to us personally, he previously claimed to be Jewish.”
Santos, elected to Congress in November's midterm elections to represent the Long Island and Queens-based 3rd District, was accused of lying about his family history, saying on his campaign website that his mother was Jewish and his grandparents escaped the Nazis during World War II.
Now Santos is insisting that he's “clearly Catholic,” but continues to claim that his grandmother told stories about being Jewish and later converted to Catholicism.
He also originally claimed on his resume to work for high-profile Wall Street firms, but later confessed that he "never worked directly" for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, suggesting that he probably could have used a better choice of words. Instead, Santos said, he worked for Link Bridge, which did business with both Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
“My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry,” Santos said.
Caught in another untruth, Santos' campaign website claims that his mother "survived the tragic events on September 11th, but she passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer."
But last month, journalist Yashar Ali found two contradictory tweets from Santos. The first post, in July 2021, read, "9/11 claimed my mother's life... so I'm blocking so I don't ever have to read this again."
The second post, in December 2021, read, "December 23rd this year marks 5 years I lost my best friend and mentor. Mom you will live forever in my heart."
"This guy has to be an op. My god," Ali tweeted.