By SPENCER MOORE

Directly after his election in November of 2022, Republican house representative of New York’s 3rd congressional district, George Santos, received public scrutiny due to some dubious claims made during his campaign. Primarily publicized by comedy programs including “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”, and “Saturday Night Live”, Santos quickly rose to the center of attention as an example of the dishonesty that many Americans feel pervades the federal government. Amidst indictments, ethics investigations, and general public outcry, a vote was held on Friday, Dec. 1, leading to the expulsion of Santos from Congress.

Many citizens wondered how such an ethically dubious individual could be elected to a representative seat, and the answers to their questions were slowly yet surely revealed, as Santos’s web of lies unraveled. From the beginning, George Santos had falsified his education records. Not only did Santos claim that he was a college graduate, but he claimed that he graduated near the top of his class from one of the nation’s most prestigious business schools, New York University. Santos, it turns out, had not even completed an undergraduate degree, as he had falsely claimed.

While Santos deceived voters on his educational history, the discrepancies in his alleged personal history is perhaps even more egregious. For example, during an address to a group of Jewish voters from New York City, Santos made a joke involving his claimed Jewish heritage. When sources revealed that Santos had no Jewish heritage, he later tried to spin his comments as not a claim of Jewish ethnicity, but instead a play on words, as Santos stated that he said he was, “Jew-ish.” Another crucial piece of information regarding Santos’s personal life is his name. Born George Anthony Devolder Santos, for the majority of his life, Santos went by the name of Anthony Devolder. Due to this, he was able, at least for a brief period, able to use this change in name preference to try and defend some of the discrepancies in his claimed accomplishments.

George Santos also regularly claimed that his mother’s life was lost as a result of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. After more research was conducted into the validity of these claims, it was later discovered that not only was Santos’s mother not in New York City on 9/11, she was not even in the country at the time. While each of the aforementioned claims are misleading, and some downright false, they pale in comparison to what critics claim to be Santos’s greatest mistake, the misappropriation of campaign funds.

According to the House Ethics Committee’s report on Santos, he had misappropriated over $200,000 in campaign funds. Spread across transfers to his personal bank account, luxury vacations in the Hamptons, cosmetic enhancement, and other non-campaign related expenses, Santos used the money to benefit his personal life, rather than strengthen his congressional campaign.

George Santos hurriedly taking a call surrounding his expulsion proceedings from the United States House of Representatives. The labels seen represent some of Santos’s most famous deceptions. (Getty Images/TOM WILLIAMS/SPENCER MOORE)

Following his Dec. 1 expulsion, Santos created an account on the Website, Cameo.com. On this site, individuals can pay Santos $500 dollars to say whatever they ask him to. Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat, commissioned a video in which Santos actually encourages the indicted senator, Bob Menendez, an individual Fetterman has shared concerns over, with the words, “You make them put up, or shut up.”

To many observers, George Santos’s saga of lies and deception is representative of a greater problem in the American political system. Critics of Santos say that his election is an example of voter’s selection of representation based not on credibility or qualification, but instead party lines. To detractors of ideologically-based voting, the Santos saga has provided ample evidence to support their claim, that the representation of America should be its best and brightest, not necessarily its personal favorite.