Three-Point Shots: This Week in George Santos

America's favorite Faux Congressman has another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

Welcome to another edition of Three-Point Shots, an occasional series briefly surveying three interrelated stories of passing importance. Three-Point Shots is a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button at the bottom, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself newsletter, and 3) recommend it to others. Also, comments welcome and encouraged.

Friday, February 3, 2023

1. Santos relinquishes committee assignments amid … questions.

            On Monday, George Santos (R-Jew-ish) met with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-In Name Only) and subsequently announced that he would surrender his seats on two House committees pending resolution of, ahem, certain disputes about his legitimacy and even identity. 

            “George has voluntarily removed himself from committees as he goes through this process, but ultimately, voters decide,” Representative Elise Stefanik, a fellow Republican of New York and one of his staunchest defenders, said Tuesday. 

            She probably hadn’t seen the latest Newsday/Siena College poll, released Monday, which found that 78% of the voters in his district — including 71% of Republicans — thought he should resign immediately. 

2. George Santos and the Missing Campaign Treasurer

            Santos’s campaign treasurer-for-hire, Nancy Marks, notified the FEC on January 25 that she was no longer his campaign treasurer. The Santos campaign then designated Thomas Datwyler, a veteran Republican operative, as the new campaign treasurer, but there was a hitch: Datwyler “says he does not work for the Santos campaign and that the filings were signed under his name without his consent.” 

            Uh oh. It’s one thing to lose a treasurer over questionable campaign finance reports. And Santos’s reports have raised a lot of questions. There’s the phantom donors, including family members. There are the high life expenditures in Queens and Miami. There’s the “statistically improbable” plethora of $199 expenditures. 

            But it’s a whole ‘nother thing to falsify someone’s name and signature on a FEC filing. The FEC is, of course, looking into these lacunae, but last week the Department of Justice told them to stand down in deference to a DOJ criminal investigation. 

3. Who is George Santos, really?

         And still, the underlying mystery of who Santos is continues to confound. With that in mind, I offer “Which George Said It?” for your entertainment.^[i] Were the following statements made by George Santos or George Costanza of “Seinfeld” fame? (Answers at the bottom.)

1.) “I am not a criminal. Not here, not abroad, in any jurisdiction in the world have I ever committed any crimes.”

2.) “Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ignorance.”

3.) “I don’t think I’ve ever been to an appointment in my life where I wanted the other guy to show up.”

4.) “I’m not going to make excuses for this, but a lot of people overstate in their resumes, or twist a little bit. … I’m not saying I’m not guilty of that.”

5.) “I never claimed to be Jewish. … Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’” 

6.) “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

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Answers

1.) That wasn’t Costanza’s defense of his fact-finding mission to communist Cuba in the search of the Yankees’ next star. That was Santos’ statement Monday with regard to charges that he committed financial crimes in Brazil, or that he perpetrated fraud in embellishing his background to get elected. Nonetheless, state Attorney General Letitia James has launched an investigation into Santos, and Congress Member-elect Dan Goldman called for federal prosecutors to do the same.

2.) Santos could have said that after getting caught lying about his past, but this statement was in fact all Costanza — after he admitted to his boss at Pendant Publishing that he had caroused with the office cleaner. The guilty plea didn’t work, and Costanza was summarily fired. 

3.) Which George said this? That would be Costanza, who was not shy about his insecurity at job interviews. Santos did show up for his appointed debates on the campaign trail against his Democratic rival, Robert Zimmerman, where he repeatedly lied to both voters and Zimmerman about his past.

4.) On Monday, Santos offered this statement in his own defense while continuing to maintain his intent to take in January the Congressional seat he was elected to in November.

5.) Costanza once converted to another religion in order to continue seeing his then-girlfriend. Santos lied to voters about his Jewish background, including that his grandparents were Holocaust survivors. Despite being caught in the shameful lies, Santos claims his statement was taken out of context.

6.) Any Seinfeld fan knows this quote comes straight from mouth of Costanza, who once inferred to his pal Jerry that he lied at a level of mastery that he couldn’t possibly teach to anyone else: “It’s like saying to Pavarotti, ‘Teach me to sing like you.'” Some voters undoubtedly wonder how truthful Santos will be to them during the next two years in Congress, should he be seated in office next month.

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^[i]            Tip of the hat to Robert Pozarycki at AMNY.com for the contest.