Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is one of the most scandal-plagued lawmakers in living memory — and resolutely refuses to step down in the face of all calls to resign.
His stubbornness is even shocking to disgraced former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, who himself was taken down by one of the most infamous sex scandals in recent history, as NPR detailed in an interview on Wednesday.
In the interview, Weiner detailed how Santos has gone beyond anything he's ever seen when it comes to shameless behavior.
"We seem to be in a national version of that schoolyard game, 'Top this' – that if you do want to get into the shame hall of fame, you have to do a lot more than you had to do even 10 years ago," Weiner said.
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Weiner was one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party's progressive wing in the beginning of President Barack Obama's first term. Then it emerged that the married family man had a secret online persona in which he sent lewd messages and pictures of himself to several women on the internet — a scandal compounded by his initial attempt to lie and pretend it wasn't him.
He resigned, then two years later attempted to make a comeback run for mayor of New York City, only to bow out when it emerged the behavior was still going on. He was sentenced to two years in prison in 2017 after it turned out one of his sext recipients was 15 years old.
His wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, ultimately left him, and his laptop ended up playing a role in the Clinton email investigation that dominated the 2016 presidential campaign cycle.
Weiner added that he never could have done what Santos did, and simply bucked all calls to resign.
"It's really hard to do that when quite literally no one wants to be seen with you," he said.
Santos, an immigrant from Brazil and one of the few prominent openly gay Republican elected officials has racked up his own massive list of scandals. Investigations revealed he lied about almost every aspect of his life to voters, including his education, work background, and supposed descent from Jewish Holocaust refugees. He faces a litany of investigations, including massive campaign finance irregularities, an FBI criminal probe into his "animal rescue charity" that allegedly ripped off a disabled veteran, and a Brazilian check fraud case from over a decade ago. He has also been accused of sexual harassment by an aide.
Many of his fellow New York Republicans are calling on him to resign, but Republican House leadership — facing an extremely narrow majority — have not done so.
