George Santos – latest: GOP Rep Nick LaLota sides with Mitt Romney and brands Santos a ‘sociopath’

Scandal-plagued congressman George Santos is facing further criticism from members of his own party, with fellow New York Republican Nick LaLota branding him a “sociopath”.

On Wednesday, Mr LaLota weighed in on the spat between Mr Santos and Senator Mitt Romney after the two men had a heated exchange at Tuesday night’s State of the Union.

Mr Romney told Mr Santos “you don’t belong here” and criticised him for “trying to shake hands” with the president given “he’s under an ethics investigation”. Mr Santos fired back saying the senator’s snub was “not very Mormon of him”.

Mr LaLota sided with Mr Romney, telling CNN on Wednesday that Mr Santos “does not deserve to be in Congress” and saying that he is causing a distraction for his own party,

“Mitt Romney is right on this one. I’ve been clear on George Santos for months now. He does not deserve to be in Congress,” he said.

“He’s all about the rhetoric, he’s all about the drama, and he’s fallen far below the standard that we all should hold ourselves to.”

Mr LaLota said that Mr Santos is a “sociopathic” who thrives off the attention he is getting over his escalating controversies.

“He’s a sociopath, George Santos. He looks for that attention. Even the negative attention drives him. It’s become an embarrassment and a distraction to the Republicans in the House,” he said.

“And every time I have to come to something like this and talk about George Santos, I can’t talk about what Republicans ought to be doing instead.”

It can be difficult keeping up with the list of fictions that George Santos has been accused of telling, admitted telling, or merely been caught spinning red-handed following a contradictory statement.

But, do not fret: The Independent is here, and we’re keeping track of the whole list of lies even as it continues to grow — both in number and in the sheer scale of the humiliation that it presents for not just Mr Santos, who remains adamant that he will serve two years in office as representative for New York’s third district, but for the Republican House caucus as a whole.

Home state Republicans and Democrats alike are calling for his resignation from Congress while major conservative groups are vowing not to work with him. Still, he has found a niche for himself among the GOP’s far-right Maga caucus, among fellows like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.

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Jody Cass Finkel, the coordinator of the group Concerned Citizens of New York–03, said on Tuesday during a press conference at Capitol Hill that “we are an ad hoc group, nonpartisan residents from the district”.

“We have an extremely narrow scope, the organization was just created a few weeks ago, and we have only one goal and that is to have George George Santos removed from squatting in our seat in the House of Representatives,” she said.

“We are here because speaker McCarthy apparently cannot hear us when we speak from Long Island,” she added. “So we had to come to Washington to make sure he hears us.”

“You’re turning a deaf ear to our needs. But the country is beyond giving Santos the benefit of the doubt,” she said.

New York’s Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman said on Tuesday during a press conference that the ethics committee investigation into Mr Santos is a delay tactic.

“So now they’re going to punt to the Ethics Committee. Now they’re going to make the case ‘Oh, well, we have to wait to see what the ethics committee is going to do,’” he said.

“But let’s remember the ethics complaint and the ethics investigation is only going to focus on his financial disclosures and his campaign finance because the law to this point does not prohibit someone from lying about their education, from lying about their employment history, from lying about their military experience from lying about their ethnicity from lying up and down the level,” he added.

Republican Representative George Santos is facing backlash on social media after he hit out at president Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and called it “gaslighting.”

Mr Santos posted on Twitter: “SOTU category is: GASLIGHTING!”

Soon the New York lawmaker was called out for his own alleged gaslighting of voters – for embellishing parts of his resume. He is expected to face a probe by the House Ethics Committee.

Representative Ritchie Torres, representing New York’s 15th congressional district, said during a press conference on Tuesday that it’s time for Mr Santos to resign.

“I give him credit. He’s the greatest fiction writer in the history of Congress. I have trouble keeping track with his lies, but he has so far pretended to be a brain cancer survivor and a Broadway producer of spider man and a volleyball champion, and a survivor of an assassination attempt on Fifth Avenue,” he said.

“The Lies of George Santos are every bit as outrageous and outlandish as the man himself,” he added.

Conservative political commentator Charlie Sykes wrote on the Bulwark that the “moral universe” and the media of today’s right-wing political actors “offer liberation and redemption, where mediocrity and venality can shelter together under a pugnacious amorality” to individuals such as Mr Santos.

“What is the attraction of TrumpWorld for the worst people in the world?” Mr Sykes asked.

“In return for the requisite fawning and tribal signaling, MAGAworld created a moral free-fire zone, a force field against accountability. Too dumb, corrupt, or sleazy for the rest of world? Not a problem,” he added. “This is definitely a club that George Santos wants to belong to.”

Michael Weinstock, who was the guest of embattled New York Republican George Santos at Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, said in a statement that “I have travelled to Washington to bring attention to firefighters with neuropathy. This is an issue that transcends politics and speaks to my heart”.

“Michael’s story is one of many that have yet to be told to a wider audience,” Mr Santos said during a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on Monday, explaining his reason for extending the invitation.

However, the situation is complicated by the fact that one of the lies Mr Santos has been accused of telling concerns the death of his mother, Fatima Devolder, who he said was killed in the terror attacks while working as an executive for a financial firm at the Twin Towers.

“9/11 claimed my mother’s life,” Mr Santos said on Twitter on 21 July last year, only for The New York Times to debunk the story and report that she in fact died 15 years later in 2016 and may not even have been in the country at the time of the al-Qaeda attacks.

Mr McCarthy said that the House will take measures in accordance with the findings of the possible probe, CNN reported.

The speaker initially said “yes” to CNN when asked on Tuesday if Mr Santos was under investigation, but later added that he was simply the subject of complaints made to the ethics committee.

The speaker was asked about Mr Santos’s constituents asking him to resign.

“Ethics is moving through, and if ethics finds something, we’ll take action. Right now we’re not allowing him to be on committees from the standpoint of the questions that have arisen,” Mr McCarthy said earlier on Tuesday.

Mr Santos told CNN he’s “not concerned” by an ethics probe. He told reporters that he was looking forward to welcoming residents from his district who travelled to Capitol Hill to call on him to resign.

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Despite wave after wave of revelations surrounding his past and present fictions and lies, the embattled congressman has remained adamant that he will remain in office. Even in the face of members of his own party calling for his ouster, Mr Santos has stood firm.

But none of that may matter if the machinations of the US House of Representatives conspire against him.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has now confirmed that Santos is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

“Ethics is moving through, and if ethics finds something, we’ll take action. Right now we’re not allowing him to be on committees from the standpoint of the questions that have arisen,” he said.

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