George Santos news latest: Congressman’s Holocaust speech sparks outrage after lying about Jewish heritage

Trixie Mattel of RuPaul’s Drag Race and George Santos got into a feud on Twitter over the (now confirmed) rumours that the New York Congressman was a drag queen in the past.

Rep Ritchie Torres has slammed Kevin McCarthy’s “hypocrisy” over George Santos.

On Tuesday, the House speaker ousted Democratic Reps Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee.

Meanwhile, Mr Santos has been given roles on the House Small Business Committee and the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Mr Torres described Mr McCarthy’s actions as “inexplicable” in an interview with MSNBC on Thursday.

“It’s the height of hypocrisy for Speaker McCarthy to remove Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell – two members in good standing from their committees … while appointing a complete charlatan and utter fraud like George Santos on a committee.”

He added: “It’s a subversion of the institution.”

George Santos made waves on the political scene of Washington D.C. by flipping New York’s 3rd congressional district seat in the November midterms, a once reliable Democratic seat. But, soon, reports emerged that many things in his résumé and the life story told to the public wasn’t all strictly true. Santos is refusing to stand aside as the controversy mounts but how long can that position hold?

The Independent’s Senior US Correspondent Richard Hall visited Long Island and Nassau county to find out the truth, trying to track down the real George Santos.

In the Long Island congressional district he was elected to represent, George Santos is a pariah.

This is electoral politics turned on its head. A member of Congress should, in theory, have more to fear from the snakepit of the Capitol than the people who elected them. The reason why Santos doesn’t tell us something about the state of the Republican Party today.

A former roommate of Mr Santos has claimed that he threatened to have her sent back to Brazil when she confronted him about stealing her jewellery and money.

The roommate, Adriana Parizzi, told Mother Jones that Mr Santos “made it very clear that I was in his country…and at any point, if I opened my mouth, he could send me back to Brazil”.

The 55-year-old told the outlet that she bought the tickets for the two of them to fly to New York in February 2011.

“He didn’t have any money to go back and I was the way for him to leave Brazil,” she said.

“He always convinced people that everything was a big misunderstanding,” she added.

Mr Santos has rejected the claims.

“Everybody that has ever wanted to come for me is coming for me and they are making s*** up on the way, and I look very much forward to poking holes in all these people who are making these insane accusations without any corroborating evidence—because it is false,” he told The New York Times.

Long Island’s Gold Coast is known to many as the backdrop for a story about a fictional character who concocted fabulous tales about his past to climb the ranks of New York’s high society in a ceaseless quest for the object of his desire.

Nearly 100 years after F Scott Fitzgerald set The Great Gatsby in these same opulent shores, the 34-year-old Republican congressman has once again drawn the eyes of the world onto the eastward-stretching leg of New York City, and invited comparisons to the titular character of that Great American Novel along the way.

Where Jay Gatsby ultimately failed in his efforts, Santos succeeded in his. A man who repeatedly lied about his own history, from claiming his mother died on 9/11, to falsifying his education and net worth — not for love, but for donations, votes and influence — was elected to a seat in one of the most powerful legislative bodies in the world.

So, how did he do it? How did he fool so many people? How did no one know? The truth is, many did. But no one listened to them.

Christian Lopez met with Mr Santos in November 2020 at the Il Bacco Ristorante in Queens.

“I felt like we were in ‘Goodfellas,’ like we were in a mafia movie,” Mr Lopez told The Washington Post. “They were like, ‘Hello, I see you are here with George, right this way.’ Bringing us to this fancy restaurant and doing all this, I felt like he was doing it to capture us.”

“He was saying if you give me $300,000, I am going to make you money. I’m going to make you $3 million,” the 35-year-old added.

Mr Santos was working as the New York regional director at Harbor City Capital, a Florida investment firm, which the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in April 2021 has taken millions from investors in what they called a “classic Ponzi scheme”.

The Federal Election Commission has sent a letter to the Santos campaign asking for more information on the paperwork submitted showing a new treasurer who claims he never took the job.

The Thursday letter states that Mr Santos’s campaign “may have failed to include the true, correct, or complete treasurer information” on the documents submitted on Wednesday showing that Thomas Datwyler is its new treasurer and the custodian of records.

Five separate fundraising committees received the same letter after they also sent in documents showing Mr Datwyler as their new treasurer.

The committees and the campaign have to respond before 2 March.

The FEC letter said that if they’re found to have provided a “materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” on the documents, they could face criminal charges.

Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina blasted embattled fellow GOP Representative George Santos of New York and said he should resign.

The South Carolina Republican spoke to The Independent in an exclusive interview.

“I mean, if you look at the allegations about his campaign finance, there are serious issues there,” she said.

Specifically, federal prosecutors are investigating irregularities regarding financial disclosures and loans, according to NBC News. “Nothing he has ever said has turned out to be true.”

“He should resign, but he won’t and if you watch the press gaggled up, chase him around Capitol Hill, he’s loving the attention,” she said. “He’s smiling and giggling and just soaking it up.”

Mr Santos allegedly commented on a photo posted by a friend on Facebook in March 2011 showing what seems to be a salute with the caption “something like Hitler”.

“hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh hiiiiiiiiiiiitlerrrrrrrrrrr (hight hitler) lolololololololololololol sombody kill her!! the jews and black mostly lolllolol!!! Dum” Mr Santos seemingly wrote.

On Friday he rejected the allegation, telling NBC News, “I have a black father and a Jewish ancestry. Let’s have a genuine conversation. It’s not real”.