Speaking to a prospective employee, George Santos acknowledged he had “lied to everyone else,” according to leaked audio that Talking Points Memo was able to get (TPM).
The House Republican is fending off calls to resign after it emerged that he had made up a significant portion of his resume, including claims that he had graduated from Baruch College, worked for prestigious Wall Street firms, and had lost four employees in the Orlando mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in 2016.
Derek Myers, a former journalist who was looking for work and spent a week volunteering in Santos’ congressional office, gave TPM secretly recorded audio that he said was of the congressman. Myers was also looking for a permanent post.
A voice Myers recognized as Santos confessed to lying on the video, especially to his chief of staff Charley Lovett.
“I’ve obviously f***** up and lied to him like I lied to everyone else,” he said. “And he still forgave me and gave me a second shot, unlike some other people.”
Santos warned Myers not to record him during the conversation even though he was not aware that he was being videotaped.
“From my understanding, recording in this building is a federal crime, and you get seven years. Have fun at your peril,” he said.
Myers told TPM that after learning about his past, the Santos team withdrew their first offer for him to join them as a staff assistant earning $50,000 year.
Myers was accused of wiretapping in Ohio in October 2022 when it was claimed that his website, the Scioto Valley Guardian, broadcast stolen audio from a murder trial.
The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded that authorities “immediately drop all charges” against Myers after the case incited fury among advocates for civil liberties.
TPM claims that the allegation alarmed Santos’ team, who summoned Myers for a meeting to discuss the matter, which he secretly taped.
“I’ve made bad judgment calls, and I’m reaping the consequences of those bad judgment calls,” Santos can be heard saying in the leaked video.
Referring to Myers he added that it is “bad enough that I have to answer for myself these days, I don’t want to have to answer, prospectively, for you.”
Lovett later got in touch with Myers and informed her that the employment offer had been withdrawn.
He expressed his frustration with the decision in a conversation with TPM, saying, “I’m thinking to myself, I’m a threat and concern to this institution—George Santos, you’re George Santos.
In order to wait for the results of an ethical probe, Santos declared on Tuesday that he would step down from the House science and small business committees, to which he had been nominated.
The Congressman is also under fire to explain his campaign funds after a Mother Jones investigation revealed that there is no actual evidence of “more than a dozen” of his donors.
