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The Not Significantly Proficient Mr. Santos

Twenty-two days after the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol, Kevin McCarthy visited Mar-a-Lago and posed with the man who not solely inspired the rioters however apparently delighted of their need to hold his vp, Mike Pence. Like so many Republicans, McCarthy, who initially condemned Donald Trump’s conduct, wished to have it each methods. He might strive distancing himself from Trump, however totally breaking with MAGA could be too painful; the previous president nonetheless had a maintain on the GOP base and was raking in donations. 

Since lastly fulfilling his dream of turning into Home Speaker, McCarthy is once more making an attempt to have it each methods, in maintaining George Santos at arm’s size whereas nonetheless maintaining him—and his valuable seat—within the Republican column. “He’ll get seated on committees,” McCarthy mentioned earlier this week. “My workers raised considerations when he had a workers member who impersonated my chief of workers, and that particular person was let go when Mr. Santos came upon about it.” Positive, Santos’s marketing campaign fundraiser is the issue, however not the newly sworn in congressman whose documented dishonesty is so off the charts that New York journal is working (and updating) a listicle titled “Right here’s Each Single Lie Informed by George Santos.” 

However whereas Santos might take mendacity to a different stage, his willingness to deceive the general public for energy—together with Republicans tolerating and even excusing such conduct—isn’t out of character with immediately’s GOP. Bear in mind, McCarthy, together with 138 different Home Republicans, have been prepared to overturn the need of the American folks to validate Trump’s “stolen” election lies, whereas additionally wanting the opposite means for 4 years as the previous president made greater than 30,000 false or deceptive claims. The message Republicans despatched even earlier than Santos is that mendacity to People is suitable if it’s within the pursuit of energy. 

Democrats are understandably agitated by McCarthy seating Santos on two Home committees—Small Enterprise and Science, Area, and Know-how—similar to he’s some other new member. The Small Enterprise Committee task is particularly galling on condition that Santos lied about having an MBA. “Home Republicans have sunk to the extent of self-parody,” New York consultant Ritchie Torres instructed me, including: “The Home Small Enterprise Committee oversees the Fee Safety Program (PPP), one of many largest packages ever enacted by Congress. A fraud like George Santos can’t be trusted to root out rampant fraud in PPP.” 

As well as, Torres identified that Scott Perry, who had his telephone seized by the FBI as a part of a federal probe into Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election “may examine the investigators,” whereas Marjorie Taylor Greene, “who incited Jan. 6, might be on the Homeland Safety Committee.” Greene is additionally nabbing a spot on the highly effective Oversight Committee, together with fellow 2020 election deniers like representatives Byron Donalds, Paul Gosar, and Lauren Boebert. 

Maybe sensing a comrade in arms, Greene was an early defender of Santos. In late December, after a contentious interview on Fox Information, of all locations, Greene shot again: “The actual cause they’re attacking George Santos is that he [is] the primary brazenly homosexual [non-incumbent] Republican elected and so they hate him for it.” Inform that to the disabled veteran he reportedly grifted $3,000 from. Richard Osthoff doesn’t hate Santos as a result of he’s homosexual; he hates Santos as a result of he did nothing to save lots of his canine, although he raised cash to just do that. (Santos known as the story “faux.”)

Possibly Greene, who additionally has a historical past of constructing wild claims, noticed a little bit of herself in Santos. She made a YouTube video in 2018 through which she claimed that the 1999 airplane crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr. was “one other a type of Clinton murders.” In that very same video, Greene floated a conspiracy idea concerning the airplane which flew into the Pentagon on 9/11. “It’s odd, there’s by no means any proof proven for a airplane within the Pentagon,” she mentioned. Greene will now be tasked with serving on the committee that was created after a terrorist assault that she’s spun conspiracy theories about. 

Greene migrated towards Santos fairly rapidly, sitting with him on the ground at one level throughout McCarthy’s 14 failed Speaker votes. And Santos appears to be completely happy to be a member of any membership that might have him: He appeared this previous week on Steve Bannon’s podcast, interviewed by fellow MAGA caucus member Matt Gaetz. After enjoying down his Trumpist views through the midterms, and as a substitute specializing in inflation and crime, experiences The New York Instances, Santos appears to be shifting again to the far proper. 

Nobody has ever {accused} McCarthy of enjoying three-dimensional chess. As soon as dubbed  “a golden retriever of a person,” McCarthy now has a slim majority to protect. And he doesn’t desire a particular election, particularly one in Nassau County, Lengthy Island, a district that earlier than Andrew Cuomo’s redistricting nightmare, was once a Democratic stronghold. Santos’s non-serial-liar substitute won’t win a particular election in New York’s third. 

And so McCarthy absolutely hopes he can sweep Santos below the rug. Sadly for McCarthy, he’s going to want an unlimited rug, given the continued questions on Santos’s funds. Because the Instances just lately reported, primarily based on monetary disclosures, “Santos claimed that he went from incomes $55,000 to working an organization value greater than one million {dollars} in only a few years,” which “ostensibly enabled him to lend his marketing campaign greater than $700,000.” 

However lest you suppose all of the Santos allegations are main, a few of them are simply embarrassing allegations of petty theft. This weekend we realized the Burberry scarf he wore to the January 5 “Freedom Plaza rally” pre-insurrection occasion was claimed to have been stolen. (My colleague Bess Levin compiled a listing of among the most absurd whoppers.) And new revelations about Santos’s previous proceed to floor, together with a report Wednesday that he competed as a drag queen in Brazil, a declare that comes as Republicans are fueling a nationwide panic towards drag performances and attacking LGBTQ+ rights extra broadly. (Santos denied the declare.) The drag story appeared excessive up on the Drudge Report, which basically has a section dedicated to Santos.

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