Republican politicians and officials in New York called on the newly-elected Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to resign in a news conference following revelations of a two-fold scandal involving the representative. Wednesday’s news conference, held by the Nassau County GOP, came on the heels of Rep. Santos admitting he fabricated much of his resume and life story during his campaign.
“Reporting has revealed Santos’s many mistruths, embellishments and outright lies about his work and educational experience, heritage and personal life, which clouded the public’s ability to evaluate him as their representative in Congress,” Brendan Quinn with the nonpartisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center wrote Tuesday. “Santos has a lot of people to answer to. First and foremost should be his constituents, the voters of New York’s 3rd Congressional District, who were deliberately deceived regarding critical personal and financial information about the candidate on their ballot.”
Santos responded to the news conference Wednesday afternoon, tweeting and telling reporters in Washington that he will not resign.
“I was elected to serve the people of #NY03 not the party & politicians,” Santos tweeted. “I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office to deliver results to keep our community safe and lower the cost of living.”
The news conference came two days after the center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Santos of breaking campaign finance laws. The center accused Santos of the following:
- Concealing the true sources of his campaign funding, including the unexplained and highly suspicious origins of $705,000 Santos purportedly loaned his campaign
- Misrepresenting his campaign’s spending by routinely and deliberately falsifying disclosures regarding the campaign’s disbursement of funds
- Illegally using campaign funds for personal expenses, including the use of campaign funds to pay for a personal residence for Santos
“Santos’s deeply problematic campaign finance disclosures are worse,” Quinn wrote. “They raise numerous red flags of illegal conduct, and they appear to have been intentionally designed to hamper voters’ right to know how his campaign raised and spent its money — information that is essential for voters to evaluate candidates for office.”
The call from New York Republicans for Santos to resign also comes a day after two House Democrats referred the scandals to the House’s ethics committee. Nassau County’s district attorney has already said her office is investigating Santos.
Reuters contributed to this report.
