A journalist has released recent recordings in which gay Rep. George Santos (R-NY) admits that he “f**ked up” by lying to voters and his own congressional staff about his personal history.
The journalist, Derek Myers, secretly recorded the January 30 conversation after briefly working for Santos on a volunteer basis. In the recording, Santos revealed to Myers that he wouldn’t be hired for a full-time position on Santos’s staff because of Myers’ past legal troubles.
“I’ve made bad judgment calls, and I’m reaping the consequences of those bad judgment calls,” Santos can be heard saying in the recording, according to Talking Points Memo (TPM).
“I’ve obviously f**ked up and lied to him, like I lied to everyone else,” Santos said, referring to his chief of staff Charles Lovett. “And he still forgave me and gave me a second shot, unlike some other people… I trust his judgment more than my own judgment.”
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Myers faced criminal charges last year after publishing secretly recorded courtroom testimony that was provided to him by confidential sources. The criminal case against Myers, which remains ongoing and unresolved, caused numerous press freedom organizations to defend Myers’s journalistic rights.
In the January 30 recording, Santos told Myers, “[Your criminal charges are] not concerning to us. It’s concerning to this institution…. It’s bad enough that I have to answer for myself these days, I don’t want to have to answer, prospectively, for you.”
Myers told TPM that he found it hypocritical for Santos to hold the charges against him, seeing as Santos had already been widely condemned for faking large parts of his personal and work history.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘I’m a threat and concern to this institution. George Santos, You’re George Santos!”
During their recorded conversation, Santos also advised Myers to stop traveling to Colombia, South America for “diluted” discount Botox injections. Santos also mentioned that gay CNN journalist Don Lemon had texted him during their conversation.
In the recording, Santos also joked about the possibility of Myers secretly recording the conversation.
“From my understanding, recording in this building is a federal crime, and you get seven years,” Santos told Myers. “Have fun at your peril!”
Myers said he wanted to share the recording now because it “shines a light” on Santos, his office, and how Santos “differs from his staff.”
“George Santos is making history,” Myers told TPM. “There’s gonna be a book about it. There’s gonna be a movie about it.”
Myers said that Santos’s young staffers do much of the office work and struggle to make new hires. Myers also said that Santos said he had Lovett sign a three-year non-disclosure agreement (NDA) because Lovett “knows too much.” However, Lovett and Santos’s office have denied these claims.
“The congressman said that in a lighthearted joking kind of manner, neither I nor anyone on staff is on a non-disclosure contract or agreement,” Lovett told TPM.
While Santos recently claimed that he’s all done telling lies, it seems like the Department of Justice has opened “an active criminal investigation” into the congressman’s campaign finances. Santos recently stepped down from his congressional committee assignments over worries that he’ll be a “distraction.”
More recently, Santos’s former romantic partners have alleged that he lied to and stole from them. Santos has also been accused of making blatantly racist and antisemitic comments in a resurfaced Facebook post.
The Republican Jewish Coalition said that Santos “deceived us” during his election campaign by falsely claiming that he was Jewish. Santos later claimed that he merely joked that he was “Jew-ish.”
Santos has been accused of using the alias “Anthony Zabrovsky” to appear more Jewish. Santos once claimed that his grandparents fled Nazi persecution in Ukraine, but genealogical records show they were both born in Brazil.
Santos has 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 he lost four employees in the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, and that his mother died in connection to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
