By any objective measure, these are grim times for Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. After a damning House Ethics Committee investigation found evidence of wildly inappropriate campaign spending, he promised he wouldn’t run for re-election in 2024. More and more of his Republican colleagues are angling to expel him from Congress in the week after Thanksgiving. Over it all hangs his September court date in a 23-count federal indictment.
So why does it sometimes feel like the lying congressman from New York may still end up a winner? Or, at least, as much of one as he ever could have imagined?
Looked at from a certain angle, Santos isn’t just an indicted politician on the cusp of disaster. He’s a star. His antics have made him a frequent main character on social media. The Ethics Committee report earned him another round of shoutouts on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and the late-night shows. He is as viral as the stickiest contagion, his alleged usage of donor money for Botox and OnlyFans, a subscription-based site often used to host pornography, only making him seem funnier, eliciting reactions along the lines of “sorry but this classifies as a slay” after the news broke last week.
Looked at from a certain angle, Santos isn’t just an indicted politician on the cusp of disaster.
In much of his alleged fraudulent behavior, Santos has left a trail of financial victims behind him, including a once-homeless Navy veteran and dog owner, as well as a family friend, who is also a former roommate, who now lives in a Brazilian favela. (Santos has pleaded not guilty to all charges.) But the largely small-time nature of his hustles makes him seem closer to hilarious than hateful, at least from the distant perspective of the X user or TikToker. And though he is feeling the pinch of consequences now, he has also achieved a level of fame he has envied for many years.
One of the most striking aspects of the reporting for my book about Santos, “The Fabulist,” was…
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