George Santos says he’s running for Congress again
Just three months after being expelled from the House of Representatives and bitterly vowing never to return, George Santos went back on his word and declared his intention to run for office again.
Mr. Santos made the announcement Thursday evening after returning to Washington to attend the State of the Union address, where he took advantage of the lifetime floor privileges given to members of the House of Representatives. And as he had done during his brief tenure on Capitol Hill, he tried to grab the spotlight by posting the news on social media in the middle of President Biden’s speech.
The disgraced former representative, who was removed from office after an overwhelming vote and faces 23 felony charges in an unresolved criminal case, made his announcement on social media Thursday evening. He said the decision followed “much prayer” and consultation with friends and family members.
Mr. Santos will not run for his old seat in Long Island and Queens, for which Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, recently won a special election. Instead, Mr. Santos said he would try to unseat Representative Nick LaLota in New York’s First Congressional District, on the eastern side of Long Island.
Mr. Santos papers submitted Thursday with the Federal Election Commission appointing a campaign committee and stated that he planned to challenge Mr. LaLota in the Republican primary in June.
“I have made several personal sacrifices in the name of serving the American people,” Santos wrote in a post on X.com that made only vague allusions to his historic expulsion from Congress. “My promise is that I will never give in because of my love for this country.”
Mr. Santos also made clear that he would try to run to the right of Mr. LaLota, arguing that “New York has not had a true conservative representative since I arbitrarily left office,” a statement that misrepresents the circumstances under which he was driven from Capitol Hill.
It was not clear whether Mr. Santos planned to run a serious campaign; it will be difficult for him to raise money from donors, and he has lost all standing among local Republican leaders and most voters.
His attention may also be divided: His criminal trial is scheduled for September, if plea talks fail. And he has also proposed plans for involvement in one reality TV show.
More than two-thirds of the House of Representatives voted to expel Mr. Santos after a report by the House Ethics Committee concluded that there was “substantial evidence” that Mr. Santos had violated federal laws and damaged his political career portrayed as a sin he had used to enrich himself.
Mr. LaLota — who, like Mr. Santos, won the 2022 election — was one of the first Republicans in Congress to call for Mr. Santos’ resignation just days after they both came to power last year. He was one of the leaders of a group of New York Republicans who pushed their colleagues to expel Mr. Santos after he was indicted last May; The efforts accelerated after Mr. Santos faced additional charges in October.
“To raise the standard in Congress and hold accountable a pathological liar who stole an election, I led the charge to expel George Santos,” Mr. LaLota said in a statement released Thursday evening. “If completing the job requires beating him in the primaries, count me in.”
Mr. LaLota already has a significant war chest. He reported $1.2 million in cash at the end of the last reporting period.
Mr. Santos is charged with money laundering, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft, as prosecutors say he defrauded donors, filed false campaign reports and collected unemployment while actually employed, among other things. A House Ethics Committee report released last year found that he had also spent campaign money on Botox, designer goods and a website known for its explicit content.