George Santos Resign Calls Grow as Republicans Line Up Replacement

Pressure is growing on House Republican George Santos to resign his seat after it emerged he fabricated large parts of his resume, including his educational, employment and family background.

The Chair of the Nassau County Republican Party, which makes up much of Santos's New York 3^rd Congressional District, has said he will make a statement about the "disgraced" congressman at 11:30 a.m. ET today.

Chair Joseph G. Cairo, Jr. will be accompanied by "dozens of Nassau GOP elected officials," sparking online speculation they may call on Santos to resign.

According to Semafor reporter Kadia Goba, local Republicans have already discussed who to run instead of Santos, who flipped the formerly Democratic-controlled seat in November.

She tweeted: "Nassau County GOP will make a major announcement Wednesday regarding the "disgraced" George Santos.

"Hearing if this is a call for him to resign they'll back newly-elected NY State Sen. Jack Martins as the Republican nominee for NY-3."

Newsweek has contacted Martins for comment.

Washington Post reporter Azi Paybarah retweeted Goba's post, adding: "Support for Santos in NY-03 seems ... non-existent."

Martins represented New York's 7^th district in the State Senate between 2011 and 2016, and was re-elected to the post in November 2022 assuming office on January 1.

On December 31 the Washington Post quoted Gerard Kassar, chair of the Conservative Party of New York State, as saying Santos "clearly told me he had no intention of running again."

Citizens for Ethics, a campaign group that targets public officials it believes have sacrificed "the common good to special interests and personal gain," urged Santos to resign on Tuesday, adding he shouldn't get any intelligence information if he refused.

In a statement the group said: "George Santos should resign from Congress, but should he refuse, Kevin McCarthy must not seat Santos on any committee where he is given access to classified information, according to a letter sent today by CREW.

"Santos's misrepresentations of large swaths of his background have proven his tendency to lie for power and personal gain. It is clear that he has not demonstrated the trustworthiness necessary to guard our country's most closely guarded secrets."

Speaking to the New York Post in December, Santos admitted he hadn't worked at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, as he had claimed, or graduated from Baruch College.

Santos had claimed to be the "grandson of Holocaust refugees" who had fled from Ukraine then Belgium, but an investigation by The Forward concluded they had been born before the Second World War in Brazil.

In response Santos said: "I never claimed to be Jewish. I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was 'Jew-ish.'"

On Tuesday video of Santos being pursued through Congress by reporters, while refusing to answer their questions, went viral receiving more than 5.7 million views on Twitter.

George Santos has been contacted for comment.