Plus… Santos Envisions “A Career-Making Movie” (HBO Is On The Case)
On Friday, Tom Suozzi, the former and, likely, next congressman from NY-03, the Nassau County (with a smidge of Queens) district that George Santos no longer represents, said in a rare press release that “This is a much-needed step in our journey to repair a broken system. We must move beyond our petty, partisan, performative finger-pointing and address the real problems Americans face. Let’s fix this!” That’s pretty much the only public statement Suozzi has made during the entire Santos extravaganza. In 2020, Santos took his bow on the public stage by losing his first race to Suozzi, 208,555 (55.9%) to 161,931 (43.4%). Two years later, Suozzi ran for governor, the Democrats nominated a joke candidate and Santos lied his way into the seat. Suozzi lost his gubernatorial race and Long Island Democrats have persuaded him to run for his old seat again. The Republicans don’t have a consensus candidate to replace Santos yet and the contenders are a pretty sorry lot.
On Friday, 112 Republicans voted to keep Santos in office. 105 joined all but 4 Democrats to expel him. And Santos is pissed off; you don’t want to get a New York— or apparently Brazilian— drag queen angry at you. He’s looking for revenge against his tormentors now. For one thing, he plans to write a tell-all book, although it’s worth noting that New York State has a Son of Sam law that would prevent him from profiting from his crimes (which includes royalties from books, films, TV sitcoms, Broadway musicals…)
Poor thing hasn’t been invited to join the Association of Former Members of Congress because, they said, they don’t welcome members “who are not in good standing at the end of their Congressional tenure.” I don’t feel sorry for him; after all that publicity we’ve given him— over 100 posts— he blocked me a couple of days ago, just because our art made him look fat! Those Bridge and Tunnel queens have always been so touchy and vain.
Yesterday Daniel Kreps reported that Miss Thing "won’t be taking the high road out of Washington, D.C. as the now-former congressman has promised to rain hellfire and ethics complaints against some of the Republicans who voted to expel him from Congress." He used to have an unrequited crush on Max Miller (R-OH) and now he lives for the day he can crush him. Just when the GOP House leadership was trying to pull a last minute coup to keep Santos from being expelled, Miller released this understated but quite explosive letter to his colleagues that sealed Santos' fate:
Since they’re no longer available to me I have to take Kreps word for it that “In a series of Friday night tweets, Santos set his sights on four former colleagues in his adopted state of New York specifically: GOP members Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, Nicole Malliotakis, and Democratic Rep. Robert Menendez, the son of beleaguered New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. ‘Let’s talk about hypocrisy,’ Santos warned in the first of his X tirades. ‘Can someone ask Nicole MalioStockTips when did she become a savant in stock trading? The signature bank trades she did REEKS of insider trading much like Paul Pelosi’s every trade! Nicole is in it for herself! Just look at her record and it speaks for itself.’ He continued, ‘Nicole MalioStockTips is a dirty dishonorable swamp creature selling the American people down a river for her own benefit,’ and added he would be ‘filling an official complaint with the Office of congressional Ethics against Malliotakis’ on Monday.”
Shakespeare didn’t write “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” It comes from William Congreve's 1697 play The Mourning Bride, in which the character Almeria expresses her fear of the wrath of a scorned woman, saying, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”
Santos next called out [Mike] Lawler over “questionable campaign finance violations.” “Congressman Lawler owns portion of Checkmate Strategies and he uses the same firm that he is a beneficiary of to pay for services related to his campaign,” Santos tweeted.
“The concerning questions are; is Mr Lawler engaging in laundering money form his campaign to his firm then into his own pocket? I will let the Office of Congressional Ethics be the judge of that.”
The airing of dirty laundry continued as Santos questioned the “grave allegation” that LaLota “obtained his JD attending Hofstra in day school while he was supposed to be working at the Board of elections at the same time.”
“Did Rep Lalota no-show to his tax pay funded job while going to school and if so he can potential have stolen public funds form the tax payers of NY,” Santos wondered.
After a brief aside to further push his motion to expel New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Santos concluded a night’s worth of tweeting through it with an ethics complaint warning against Menendez for the crime of being Bob’s son.
“While congressman [Menendez] has not been invoked by the diligent investigation of the DOJ into his father, there remains a question of what did he know and when did he know it, the complaint is to seek clarification from the freshman congressman on his involvement with his fathers overseas dealing over the years and any potential compensation he received,” Santos wrote.
Meanwhile, the NY Times noted that, though Santos vows he has “no intention of returning to obscurity,” first up on his plate should probably be keeping himself out of prison. He faces 23 felony charges, some very serious and enough to put him behind bars for decades. Much to the discomfort of Long Island Republicans, his criminal trial will commence in September and likely generate headlines all during the height of the election campaigns of Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota, Andrew Garbarino, Marc Molinaro and Mike Lawler, 5 New York Republicans who Santos would like to see lose their reelection bids.
As for him personally… well, “Naysa Woomer,” reported The Times, “his former communications director who resigned in May, described him as ‘someone who was more interested in being a celebrity’ than a lawmaker.” No-one will be surprised to see him on Dancing With The Stars, The Masked Singer, doing a humiliating skit on Saturday Night Live… or worse.
Representative Anthony D’Esposito, a fellow New York Republican who reviles Santos, introduced a bill earlier this year aimed at foreclosing just that possibility. Called the “No Fame for Fraud Resolution,” the measure would bar any lawmaker convicted of a financial or campaign finance-related offense from making money off biographies, creative works or media appearances. Other New York Republicans signed on.
Santos called the bill a good idea at the time, but it stands little chance of ever becoming law.
On Thursday, he said that he had turned down several documentary filmmakers. But he did have casting guidance for anyone looking to make a biopic of his life.
“This is not something for somebody with a career,” he said. “This is a career-making movie.”
Last night, Nellie Andreeva reported that HBO Films has optioned the rights to Mark Chiusano’s new book The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, which was published last week. In charge, Frank Rich, best knows as the executive producer of Veep (of course) and Mike Makowsky (Bad Education). It’s already in development and “is described as a forensic and darkly comic look at the crazy, unprecedented congressional race on Long Island that led to Santos being elected to Congress.”
