Rep. George Santos’s new GOP challenger calls him “a crook & serial liar”

Because out gay Rep. George Santos (R-NY) broke his promise not to seek re-election, he’ll soon be facing six Republican opponents who wish to unseat him in a primary election, including the newest opponent to throw his hat in the ring: Air Force veteran and lawyer Greg Hach.

“I am running for Congress because the honorable third district voters were conned by a crook and serial liar,” Hach wrote of Santos in a Tuesday statement announcing his candidacy. “I am running to restore integrity to an office that’s been corroded by fraud.”

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“It’s time to elect a principled, conservative public servant with the experience and toughness to take on the liberals in Washington and get things done,” he added.

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Hach founded a law firm after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks which represented victims of the tragedy for free. His campaign website doesn’t mention LGBTQ+ issues, but it does mention a desire to reform border and cyber security, increase police presence on public transport lines, and end stock-trading from Congress members as well as China’s alleged currency manipulation.

Hach and Santos will face five other Republican primary candidates: Kellen Curry, Philip Grillo, Harvey Manes, Daniel Norber, and Mike Sapricone.

Santos has admitted to fabricating large parts of his personal history during his election campaign. Out Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and other House Democrats introduced a resolution to censure Santos for lying about his personal and professional life in order to get elected.

Santos has provided no substantial proof to back up his claims that his grandparents escaped the Holocaust, that he attended the Horace Mann preparatory school, that his mother died in connection to the September 11th terrorist attacks, or that he lost four employees in the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.

Santos was part of Rio’s drag scene in the late 2000s (despite initially claiming that he was never a drag queen). Santos also denied an accusation of check fraud in Brazil but later formally confessed to it. Some have questioned whether he married his ex-wife so that she could obtain U.S. citizenship through him.

In May, Santos was charged in federal court with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives, and one count of theft of public funds. Prosecutors allege that he illegally used campaign funds to buy designer clothes and other personal items. He has tried to fundraise off of these criminal charges.

Santos posted a $500,000 bond to appear in court for the charges. Though he said he’d rather go to jail than publicly reveal the names of the guarantors who posted his bond, they were later revealed to be his aunt and his father.

Since joining Congress, Santos has cosponsored a bill to roll back LGBTQ+ civil rights and one to ban LGBTQ+ books from schools. He has also made public statements against transgender people and the so-called “radical rainbow mafia.” He also said that LGBTQ+ families “create troubled individuals.”