Santos website still claims his mother was in the Twin Towers on 9/11
Santos has claimed that his mother was at her office inside the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but records previously obtained by NBC News showed she was living in Brazil at the time.
Even after the charges were unsealed Wednesday, the claim was still on his campaign website.
The immigration records showed that Santos’ mother, Fatima Caruso Devolder, was admitted to the U.S. in April 2003 and had not been in the country since 1999. She had been living in Rio de Janeiro.
Devolder left New York in 1999 and claimed in 2001 when she was back in Brazil that her green card had been stolen, according to the records. She later applied for re-entry and was re-admitted into the U.S. in 2003, the records show. Devolder indicated that she was unemployed or retired and that she planned to live in Woodside, New York, a neighborhood in Queens, according to the documents. She died in 2016.
Even though the records show Devolder’s absence from the U.S. from 1999 to 2003, Santos’ congressional campaign website says: “George’s mother was in her office in the South Tower on Sept. 11, 2001, when the horrific events of that day unfolded. She survived the tragic events on September 11th, but she passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer."
Democratic Chief of Staff posts sarcastic tweet about office neighbor Santos
As Santos prepares to be arraigned, Hannah Spengler, chief of staff to Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., tweeted a photo of the closed door to Santos' office.
"Miss our neighbor already :(" Spengler wrote.
A delivered but not yet retrieved newspaper sits at the entrance.
GOP Rep. Steve Womack joins calls for Santos to resign
Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday that Santos should resign from Congress.
“Oh absolutely,” Womack said when asked if his GOP colleague should step down. “It’s a distraction and it’s a punch line for a lot of commentary regarding the Republican Party that we don’t need.”
Rep. George Santos charged with 13 federal counts
Santos newly accused of Covid unemployment fraud
One of the surprising components of the Santos indictment has to do with new allegations that he fraudulently applied for and received unemployment benefits even as he was drawing a $120,000 salary from an investment firm.
The federal grand jury charged that Santos, in an application sent through the New York State Department of Labor in June 2020 (a few months before he lost his first bid for Congress), falsely claimed that he was eligible for unemployment pay despite receiving a salary from an investment firm from February 2020 to April 2021.
Santos, the indictment states, "received approximately $24,744 in unemployment insurance benefits" from the U.S. Treasury from June 2020 to April 2021.
As congressional reporter Jamie Dupree first noted on Twitter, Santos is co-sponsoring a bill in the House this week aimed at helping states recover Covid unemployment funds that were fraudulently obtained.
"The story of George Santos is over," says NY GOP chair
New York's GOP Chair Ed Cox released a statement after the charges were made public, saying, "The writing has been on the wall for months: George Santos will not be a member of the next Congress."
'The story of George Santos is over," Cox wrote, pivoting to House Republicans' unveiling of more attacks against President Joe Biden and his family earlier in the day: "The story of the unraveling of the Biden family’s influence peddling scheme is just beginning."
This isn't the first time New York GOP leaders have blasted the lawmaker.
Shortly after the Santos scandal broke, Nassau County GOP officials and a handful of New York House Republicans called for him to step down as well.
Santos saga began in December with New York Times report
The New York Times published a bombshell investigation in December that said the newspaper couldn't verify many parts of Santos' resume, including his claim that he had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and had graduated from Baruch College. The report came a little over a month after his election to Congress.
Days later, he said in several interviews with New York news outlets that he was guilty of embellishing his qualifications, which were listed on his congressional campaign's website.
“A lot of people overstate in their resumes or twist a little bit,” he said in an interview with WABC radio. “I’m not saying I’m not guilty of that.”
In an interview with the New York Post, he said he did not graduate from Baruch College or any institution of higher learning. “I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume,” he said, according to the paper. “I own up to that. … We do stupid things in life.”
And he apologized in an interview with City and State New York. “Did I embellish my resume? Yes, I did. And I’m sorry, and it shouldn’t be done."
Republican Rep. Gonzales says Santos should be 'immediately expelled'
Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales — who has become a frequent thorn in the side of the GOP conference — is now calling for Rep. Santos to be “immediately expelled from Congress.”
While others have called for Santos to resign or expressed that he should no longer serve in Congress, Gonzales is the first Republican to call for his immediate expulsion from the House, which would require a two-thirds majority vote.
His call is notable in that it places the issue squarely at the feet of Speaker McCarthy, who ultimately decides what gets a vote on the floor. McCarthy has said that he will only call on Santos to resign if he is convicted.
Santos learned of charges on Tuesday
Santos learned about the federal charges against him on Tuesday. He was in Washington for House votes Tuesday evening and turned himself into federal authorities Wednesday morning and was in custody around 9 a.m. ET.
McCarthy says he'll call for Santos' resignation if convicted
Speaker McCarthy is rejecting some calls for Santos to resign before he goes to trial, saying he'll follow precedent and wait until the New York Republican has his day in court. “He will go through his time in trial and let’s find out how the outcome is," he said.
McCarthy said he'd been busy all morning and was informed of the 13 charges by reporters.
When asked about Santos on Tuesday night, McCarthy pointed to previous members of Congress who have faced federal charges, like former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb.
"We’ll just follow the same pattern we always have, right," the speaker said. "If a person is indicted, they’re not on committees, they have the right to vote, but they have to go to trial. Just like we had Jeff Fortenberry, he had the same ability, I removed him from committees, but he was found guilty and I told him he needed to resign. That is my policies and principles on this, and I’d follow the same pattern."
Fortenberry resigned from Congress last year after being convicted of lying about illegal campaign contributions.
Other members of House Republican leadership, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik also rejected calls for Santos to resign.
"In America, there’s a presumption of innocence," Scalise said Wednesday. "But they’re serious charges. He’s going to have to go through the legal process.”