George Santos, the disgraced former Queens/Long Island Congressman who made it to Capitol Hill on a seemingly endless road of lies, appears ready to plead guilty to charges in his ongoing federal corruption case, according to multiple published reports.
Santos is due to appear in U.S. District Court in Central Islip on Aug. 19 for a hearing scheduled about a month before the start of his trial. While citing unnamed sources close to the case, numerous outlets reported Saturday that the former Congress member is expected to plead guilty to unspecified charges.
The freshman Republican lawmaker had been indicted back in May 2023, just five months into office as the 3rd Congressional District representative, for allegedly committing fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and lying to the House of Representatives on official paperwork. Santos was indicted again that October, this time on charges that he allegedly committed credit card and campaign finance fraud in the run-up to his win in the 2022 midterm elections.
Santos was one of five Republicans to win Congressional seats in New York in 2022, but a month after his victory, in December of that year, The New York Times published a damning exposé which found that Santos had extensively lied to voters about his background along the campaign trail — from his education; to running a nonprofit; to his personal wealth; to even his faith.
After the Times report, Santos publicly admitted to lying, but rebuffed calls from Democrats and Republicans alike to resign. During his brief stay in Congress, he would repeatedly ignore calls to resign and even slander the indictments against him, in Trumpian fashion, as “witch hunts.”
Santos took office in January 2023, and managed to play a role in helping to elect that year two Speakers of the House — Kevin McCarthy in January; and Mike Johnson in October, after McCarthy was ousted from the speaker’s chair. The October vote came after Santos had been indicted a second time.
Finally, after two indictments and a damning House Ethics Committee investigation report, in December 2023, the House voted to expel Santos from his Congressional seat. By then, Santos said he would not run for re-election in 2024 — though afterward, he flirted with a challenge to fellow Republican Nick LaLota in the 1st District after LaLota helped lead the expulsion effort. Santos abandoned that bid, however, after his fundraising efforts failed.
Tom Suozzi, who held the 3rd District seat before Santos, won the office back in a February 2024 special election, and is likely to retain it in November.
