George Santos Report Sparks Outrage at Democrats: 'Political Malpractice'

A report on an investigation released Monday sparked shock across the political world when it was revealed that Republican New York Representative-elect George Santos not only did not appear to be living at the address he was registered to vote, but that he potentially misled voters about nearly every facet of his life.

In a report in Monday's paper, The New York Times unearthed the portrait of a candidate with a troubled past who was arrested for check fraud, misled constituents about his net worth, and appeared to have fabricated his academic record as well as his work history.

The local Republican Party has already called on Santos, who has been silent since the story came out, to come clean about his record, while his future in Congress under potential Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who endorsed Santos, remains in question.

But amid the details, there were some who wondered why the truth didn't come out before the election in the newly drawn 3rd Congressional District that includes parts of Queens and Long Island.

Santos—a right-wing candidate who has parroted unfound claims of election fraud and attended former President Donald Trump's Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021—has long faced questions about his past, including hard-to-verify claims about his net worth and easily proven lies about owning a mansion on Long Island's gold coast.

However, many political consultants reacting to the story Monday expressed astonishment that many other facets of his life—his two past evictions, or even basic facts about his background—were not made public until The New York Times story, raising questions about whether his opponent, Robert Zimmerman, and his $3 million campaign did the basic work of unearthing who his opponent actually was.

"Democrat malpractice that this wasn't found out," talk show host Michelangelo Signorile tweeted in response to the story.

"Does Newsday still exist? Does the NYS Democratic party know how to run a resume check? Asking for a friend," tweeted Helaine Oden, a columnist for the Washington Post.

"One more reason @kathyhochul should fire @JayJacobs28," Monica Klein, a progressive political strategist and former staffer for Mayor Bill de Blasio and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said in reference to New York Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs and the state party's de facto leader, Governor Kathy Hochul. "A real State Dem Party would invest in basic oppo research. This should've come out 3 months ago."

The state party has no function in performing opposition research, Jacobs told Newsweek on Monday. And to some degree, the national party already had.

Shortly after Santos won his primary, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) released an 87-page opposition memo detailing a number of unsavory facts about Santos' beliefs and record which it, then, published online.

Included among them was a Daily Beast report detailing his close ties to Harbor City Capital, a Wall Street firm that was accused of "operating as a ponzi scheme that ripped off investors to the tune of $6 million" shortly after Santos announced his congressional bid.

Other details in The New York Times story, such as Santos' habit of satiating his expensive taste with campaign dollars, had been reported previously, while even local newspapers have described him as a likely "fake."

"This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican for US Congress in NY3 (Oyster Bay, N Hempstead, NE Queens)," Long Island's North Shore Leader wrote in an editorial endorsing Zimmerman. "But the GOP nominee—George Santos—is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot."

But Santos also had the baggage of harboring extreme stances on issues like abortion as well as a penchant for endorsing far-right conspiracy theories about a stolen election in 2020. All were topics Zimmerman, in a district that went for President Joe Biden by a margin of 8 points in the previous election, focused on during the campaign.

"This story is not a shock to me," Zimmerman told the Washington Post's Azi Paybarah Monday morning. "We always knew he was running a scam against the voters and we raised many of these issues but were drowned out in the gov's race where crime was the focus and the media had other priorities."

Newsweek reached out to Santos for comment. However, in a statement late Monday afternoon, his campaign described the allegations as "defamatory" in a vague statement posted on his social media.

However, it didn't seem that Zimmerman emphasized the "scam" enough on the campaign trail. In debates, he focused largely on Santos' past statements on issues like abortion, Social Security benefits and climate change.

On the campaign trail, Zimmerman struck a positive message, holding events with figures like Al Gore, Hochul and first lady Jill Biden, with little focus on the claims in the DCCC memo or any apparent knowledge of the claims detailed in The New York Times story.

While the DCCC report released months earlier outlined many of the basic facts of the New York Times story, political campaigns typically cannot run attacks on opponents in advertising without prior news coverage to back them up, political strategists told Newsweek.

That, the campaign and others noted, largely didn't happen.

"What most likely happened is that a DCCC researcher dug up this dirt, then their regional press secretary offered it to the NYT on deep background [or what's often called 'no prints' in the business] in hopes of them writing this very article. All of this happened months ago," Steve Pierce, an opposition researcher, wrote in a Twitter thread after the story was published.

"This reporting process can take MONTHS," he added. "The NYT isn't going to run a story like this until they feel it's airtight. There are lots of editors [and lawyers] involved. That takes time. And if they means the story isn't ready to run before Election Day, so be it."

Still, there was ample baggage against Santos that was already public. At the end of the day, even Zimmerman's own message—that his opponent was too extreme for D.C.—failed to move enough voters to win.

"On a Monday morning quarterback basis, you would take a look and say there's more digging that can be done, I guess," Jacobs told Newsweek. "But you know, it's not fair to do that at this point. When you're in the midst of the battle, he's got to deal with what the voters are interested in. And this year, the voters were interested in crime. That was what we were battling."

Update 12/19/22, 4:46 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.