George Santos can add another false statement to the long list of fictions he has spun about his life.
The freshman New York congressman-elect was among the new class of lawmakers who arrived on Capitol Hill on Tuesday eager to be sworn in and commence their duties as elected representatives for their various districts.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, the House of Representatives adjourned by voice vote before 6pm, with no speaker having been elected after a day of Republican infighting and anger resulting in Kevin McCarthy failing to secure enough votes to take on the role.
The House of Representatives therefore conducted no swearing-in ceremonies on Tuesday. That, however, did not stop Mr Santos from releasing a statement claiming otherwise.
A now-deleted press release on his official House website claimed that Mr Santos was “sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives by the speaker of the House on January 3, 2023,” even though there was no speaker of the House at all.
A second item in the “press releases” section contains a class picture of new members joining the 118th Congress, and still erroneously refers to them being sworn in on Tuesday.
“The newest Members of Congress are sworn in on January 3rd, 2023,” reads the photo caption on Mr Santos’s site.
It’s a pair of minor misstatements, but nevertheless embarrassing ones given the barrage of media criticism and backlash in Washington political circles that Mr Santos has faced in recent weeks over his largely fictionalised resume.
He has admitted since November to lying about attending two New York colleges as well as working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs — he also has faced both mockery and outrage over past statements in which he claimed to be Jewish, only to later admit that he is a practicing Catholic.
Democrats like his home state colleague Ritchie Torres are openly calling for his expulsion from Congress while Mr Santos has defiantly vowed to serve a full term.
He is thought to be under investigation by both state and federal authorities over the long list of lies he has told.
