The drumbeat of revelations exposing the pathological deceit of fabulist freshman congressman George Santos has been so relentless, it places to disgrace that previous journalism adage, “the story that retains on giving.” One of many wildest whoppers that’s come to mild thus far materialized on Tuesday night, when Jacqueline Candy, a reporter masking Santos’s Lengthy Island congressional district for the native information community Patch, revealed the next stunner of a headline: “Disabled Veteran: George Santos Took $3K From Dying Canine’s GoFundMe.” She had the receipts to again it up—on-the-record interviews, textual content messages, and corroborating social media exercise.
Inside the hour, the piece was throughout my Twitter feed, together with retweets from George Conway and mouth-agape proclamations from distinguished journalists. “Congrats should you had ‘George Santos allegedly rips off disabled vet who wanted cash to deal with dying canine’ in your bingo card,” sneered Columbia J-school professor Invoice Grueskin. Putting Candy’s article within the context of Santos’s just-announced appointment to the Home’s Small Enterprise Committee, Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin observed, “In all seriousness, that is (if true) the seemingly tipping level within the Home. ‘Kevin McCarthy despatched a dog-abusing swindler of disabled veterans to take care of your small enterprise’ is the form of factor that begins dragging down individuals past Santos.” (Sarlin obtained a remark from Santos calling the Patch story “faux,” which, it goes with out saying, needs to be taken with a hundred-pound bag of salt.) “It jogs my memory of Scooby-Doo,” Candy instructed me after we spoke earlier within the day, “and the journalists are the pesky children.” (Jimmy Kimmel made the identical joke the next night time.)
The dying canine was Candy’s second Santos scoop in per week. The earlier Tuesday, in one other viral story, she’d reported {that a} former Santos roommate, Gregory Morey-Parker, was “100%” sure his lacking Burberry scarf was the identical one draped round Santos’s neck throughout a “Cease the Steal” rally in Washington on the eve of the January 6 riot. (Can’t make these things up.) It wasn’t lengthy earlier than Morey-Parker was throughout CNN, enlightening viewers concerning the purloined winter accent in addition to different con-man-like habits he’d witnessed. “The reality has lastly come out,” he instructed a shocked Don Lemon. “Did he go one after the other to everyone in his district and simply actually pull the wool over their eyes?” (Reps for Santos didn’t reply to CNN’s requests for feedback.) Interviews like these have turn into the most well liked tickets on the town. After I requested a correspondent from a nationwide TV outlet whether or not there was any behind-the-scenes jockeying for a Santos sit-down, the correspondent replied, “You’re asking the flawed query. The query is, how intense is the competitors for somebody who is aware of one thing about his previous and what else he’s lied about?”
Welcome to the George Santos media circus, which has captivated the press and the general public for a full month now, ever since The New York Occasions dropped its bombshell investigation that demonstrated, in cringe-inducing, mortifying element, how Santos’s whole résumé gave the impression to be an elaborate work of fiction. It’s a very wild experience, and one which’s laborious to get off of—as I used to be tapping out this paragraph on Wednesday afternoon, a new report began circulating about how Santos, who’s overtly homosexual however helps anti-LGBTQ+ coverage, carried out drag as a teen in Brazil beneath the identify Kitara Ravache. (The accompanying images are fairly convincing, however Santos tweeted: “The newest obsession from the media claiming that I’m a drag Queen or ‘carried out’ as a drag Queen is categorically false. The media continues to make outrageous claims about my life whereas I’m working to ship outcomes. I cannot be distracted nor fazed by this.”) Hours later, on Wednesday night time, the Occasions revealed a assessment of immigration paperwork that appeared to completely debunk Santos’s declare that his mom had been working within the World Commerce Middle’s South Tower on 9/11. “How does he have the time for all these scams?” Rusty Foster contemplated in his “As we speak in Tabs” e-newsletter. “It’s a great month if I handle to scrub my bedsheets as soon as, and George Santos is on the market actually stealing from disabled veterans and infants 25 hours a day.”
There are apparent the explanation why the Santos saga is so enthralling, aside from the truth that an {accused} fraudster from Queens managed to propel himself, nearly within the blink of an eye fixed, from outer-borough obscurity to Washington’s corridors of energy. In recent times, the grifter style has turn into a journalistic tour de power, popularized by sprawling narratives that are likely to set the web ablaze. Plus, because of the ever-more-shameless shenanigans of the modern-day Republican Get together, Congress now has all of the makings of a low-rent tabloid rodeo, from the toilet brawl of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, to the positively Kardashian-like dramas chronicled final week by my colleague Molly Jong-Quick. Santos finds himself on the heart of this salacious smorgasbord, his personal story falling someplace between a rollicking black comedy and a tragic psychodrama a few doubtlessly troubled particular person. In the event you’re discovering it tough to remain in control on all of the insanity, you would possibly need to subscribe to this new Substack collection by freelance journalist Marisa Kabas, “The Every day Santos.” From the lead of Tuesday’s installment: “He principally killed a canine.”
Curiosity in George Santos—or Anthony Devolder, as he was previously known to many—intensified when Santos confirmed up for his first day of labor within the nation’s capital on January 3, greeted by a crush of journalists staking out his workplace, “simply ready for him to return in and say actually something,” as Politico’s Nicholas Wu put it, “ready outdoors for any signal of life, any crumb of reports he would possibly drop. There’d be instances when he’d come out and there’d be a complete stampede of reporters and photographers and video individuals all following after him.” Right here he’s on January 9 being pursued by ABC Information correspondent Rachel Scott: “You’re {accused} of fabricating nearly each single a part of your life. Why do you need to characterize the individuals of New York?” Later that very same afternoon, Scott ambushed Santos as he rounded a nook: “Congressman, did you misuse marketing campaign funds? Why gained’t you reply our questions?” Disappearing into his workplace, Santos replied, “I will likely be addressing the media quickly. On my time.” In one other clip that went viral on Twitter, from January 12, Santos is requested for a response to calls that he step down. “I cannot resign,” he says, unlocking his workplace door. “I will likely be persevering with to carry my workplace elected by the individuals.” Then he walks into stated workplace and slips on a newspaper, a transfer that HuffPost’s Igor Bobic described as “prime VEEP.”
Earlier than Congress went into recess on Wednesday, the Santos stakeouts have been a grueling day by day train. Reporters, principally from the TV networks, would present up outdoors his door on the primary flooring of the Longworth Home Workplace Constructing as early as 8 a.m., barking out questions as he arrived shortly earlier than 9 a.m. There they’d stay for hours on finish, hoping to catch a face-to-face second with some fleeting remark worthy of a headline. (Or no less than a great tweet.) A Democratic staffer from a neighboring lawmaker’s workplace, Aaron Fritschner, would tip them off if he noticed Santos exiting the premises by means of a aspect door. “I’ve finished it twice,” Fritschner instructed Politico. “I’m gonna carry on doing it for so long as he’s there. And it looks as if he’s not going anyplace.”
Congressional reporters instructed me they’re stunned by the diploma to which Santos has engaged, albeit minimally. When a misbehaving member of Congress turns into embroiled in controversy, they normally simply look straight forward and faux the reporters aren’t there. Santos is relatively accessible. On one camera-ready event, reporters observed that Santos hadn’t parked close to the restricted Home carriage entrance, the place lawmakers usually make a touch for it each time they need to keep away from being hounded by the press. As an alternative, as the tv correspondent recalled, “He was parked on Independence, and there was a brilliant lengthy TV shot the place the press was working after him, this wonderful footage of reporters throwing questions till he jumped right into a Ford Bronco. Finest TV ever.” Are Santos and his staffers—there are solely 4 of them listed thus far—only a posse of rank amateurs, or are they intentionally leaning into all of the media consideration? My supply suspects the latter. “He’s an fool, however he’s not an fool.”
One other member of the Santos scrum isn’t so certain. “What’s perceived amongst Republicans is that no matter steering he’s getting when it comes to his interactions with the press, he’s doing it flawed,” this individual instructed me. Happening Fox Information “was seen as an enormous mistake”—i.e., when Tulsi Gabbard annihilated Santos whereas filling in for Tucker Carlson—“and so was the Semafor story through which he talked about how he obtained all this cash from his involvement within the luxurious world. It’s type of like, each time he opens his mouth, it makes it worse.”
