Politics

George Santos claims he is all done lying

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. George Santos
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. George Santos Photo: Screenshot

In recently published clips from an interview between disgraced gay Rep. George Santos (R-NY) and the far-right One America News Network (OAN), Santos said he is finished with the lying life.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Santos told Caitlin Sinclair. “I can guarantee you that from now on anything and everything is always going to be above board, and it’s largely always been above board. I’m just gonna go the extra step now to double check, cross reference, everything.”

Santos spoke about growing up in Queens in “abject poverty” and said people like him aren’t expected to become Congressmen.

“A lot of people want to create this narrative that I faked my way to Congress,” he said, “which is absolutely categorically false. I’ve worked hard…”

Sinclair asked if he has always felt the need to present as more affluent, to which he responded: “I’ve never presented anything other than what my means allowed me to, so I’ve never had to establish or present falsehoods pertaining to my own finances.”

Santos is currently under investigation for allegedly violating campaign finance laws and has been accused of check fraud in Brazil. Multiple former roommates have also accused him of stealing from them.

In the interview, Santos – accused of lying about his entire life story – criticized politicians who make campaign promises they don’t keep and lambasted Washington, DC, for being too theatrical.

Santos acknowledged he lied about his educational background during the campaign but didn’t mention any of the other countless lies he has been accused of telling.

Sinclair asked if he believed the ends justified the means, and he said no.

“I’m just gonna say, look it was a bad decision, poor judgment. I felt the need to do it because I thought that without a diploma I’d be looked down on and less than the other people.”

Sinclair then asked if his exaggerations increased as his goals and ambitions grew.

“You’d have to define exaggerations,” he responded. “Because there’s so many things out there.”

He also said he did not believe there was any scenario in which it is okay to lie.

“I don’t think lying is excusable, ever, period. There’s no circumstance, especially if you’re legislating for the American people right now, so what I might have done during the campaign does not reflect what’s being done in the office.”

Sinclair also mentioned that public opinion says he has not adequately apologized.

“People show emotions differently,” Santos quipped. “I am sorry, I’m deeply sorry, I’ve been calling supporters to apologize directly to them.”

He said he apologized “for lying about my education and embellishing the resume.”

“Is there anything more humbling and humiliating than admitting that on national television?”

Santos still managed to dig at the Democrats, though, twice calling President Biden a “40-year-long career pathological liar.”

Nevertheless, one of Santos’s former boyfriends recently told ABC News: “The way that he is, is that he lies and then he tries to cover up that lie with another lie.”

After being elected to represent New York’s Third Congressional District and becoming the first out gay Republican elected to Congress, Santos’ life story came crumbling down as several newspapers reported he never went to the colleges he said he attended, never worked for the major banks he said he worked for, and that he had been lying about his family history as well. He has admitted to many of these lies, calling them “a little bit of fluff” on his resume.

Santos admitted that he lied about graduating from Baruch College and New York University, working directly for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and living at a fake address in his congressional district. He provided no additional proof to back up claims that he founded a charity called Friends of Pets, that his grandparents escaped the Holocaust, and that he lost four employees in the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.

The embattled Congressman also recently announced he would temporarily step down from his committee assignments amid reports of an active criminal investigation into his campaign finances.

A recent Newsday-Siena College poll found that 78 percent of voters in Santos’s district think he should resign, including 71 percent of Republicans. Six Republican congresspeople from New York and the Nassau County Republican Party have also called on him to resign.

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