Disgraced Rep. George Santos (RN.Y.) rejected calls from his campaign staff to drop out of the race for New York’s 3rd Congressional District after a routine background check revealed some of his many lies, according to a report.
In late 2021, an opposition research firm hired by Santos’ team to conduct a “vulnerability study” on the candidate found no evidence of Santos’ purported degrees from Baruch College and New York University, The New York Times mentionted the manufacture.
The firm found records of evictions, a suspended Florida driver’s license, his involvement with a company accused of a Ponzi scheme and that the openly gay candidate had married a woman, the news outlet reported.
The research firm’s findings took off so much that some members of Santos’ team urged him to drop out of the race, according to the report.
Santos rejected the background check results and ignored advice to drop out or face humiliation, saying it prompted most of his campaign team to quit.
Santos would continue to recruit new vendors for his campaign through the spring of 2022, according to the report.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a group that works to elect Democrats to the House, compiled 87 pages of opposition research against Santos ahead of his race against Robert Zimmerman that revealed some, but not all, of the research firm’s findings that hired. Santos’ team, the New York Times found.
The DCCC disclosed evidence of evictions, a pet charity associated with him that was not registered with the IRS, his ties to Harbor City Capital (the alleged Ponzi scheme), and discrepancies in his financial disclosure forms.
Zimmerman’s campaign had access to the DCCC’s file on Santos, but chose not to spend precious campaign money on a more rigorous investigation of Santos’ background and instead focused on his views on abortion and the Capitol rebellion in Jan. 6, according to the report.
Santos went on to defeat Zimmerman in the 2022 midterm elections. more than a month later, The New York Times dropped their bombshell report exposing Santos’ obvious lies.
The Long Island Republican subsequently admitted to The Post in December of last year that he fabricated his work and education history, lied about owning 13 properties and was actually married to a woman before launching his first campaign for Congress in 2020 .
Several of Santos’ Republican and Democratic colleagues in Congress have called on him to resign. He is likely to face an investigation by the House Ethics Committee and is currently under local, state and federal scrutiny in connection with his House campaign finance.
Brazilian authorities have reopened Santos on allegations of check fraud stemming from a 2008 incident involving a stolen checkbook.
The freshman lawmaker says he will only resign if the 142,000 people who voted for him ask him to.
