It's a rare occasion that we see a Republican getting himself into trouble and digging the hole deeper, but apparently that's where we're at right now with the newly elected Congressman George Santos.
Federal law enforcement officials are reportedly investigating Rep. George Santos over his alleged involvement in a “GoFundMe scheme” that was set up for a disabled U.S. Navy veteran's dog. According to Politico, two FBI agents recently contacted Richard Osthoff, the disabled U.S. Navy veteran, as part of an investigation being conducted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York regarding the incident.
Osthoff claims that Santos setup a GoFundMe page to help pay for life-saving surgery for his pit bull, and raised $3,000 from generous donors, but then disappeared with the money without providing any updates on its use or whereabouts. As evidence of Santos' engagement in this suspicious GoFundMe campaign, Osthoff provided text message exchanges he had with Santos using an alias, Anthony Devolder, and claiming to be affiliated with a pet charity titled "Friends of Pets United", which the New York Times investigated and found to have no evidence of its existence or activity.
In light of this unfortunate incident and other recent investigations involving him including probes from federal and local authorities as well as congressional investigations into his personal and campaign financial activities, Rep. George Santos has requested to be temporarily recused from all committee assignments until he is cleared due to what he calls “the ongoing attention surrounding [his] financial investigations” while making sure he still serves the constituents of New York's Third Congressional District in the most effective way possible without distraction from media fanfare.
It was previously revealed that Santos admitted to lying about working for financial titans Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He also confessed to not having graduated college as well as having embellished some details about his personal life, religion, and sexuality throughout his career-spanning interviews with news outlets such as The New York Times.
Moreover, The New York Times reported earlier this month that law enforcement officials in Brazil plan on reviving fraud charges against him stemming from an incident back in 2008 involving a stolen checkbook belonging to him at one point during that time frame.
While we sure do want a Republican sitting in that seat, do we really want a lying conman to be the one sitting there? If the alternative is a Democrat, which is the same thing as a lying conman, then I don't think we have much choice. But if we could get a better Republican, I'd take it.