It has been suggested that people get the leadership they deserve. A lot is happening in the world today that evokes that quote for me. The situation I have watched evolve with George Santos over the last few years is one such example.
I met George Santos in 2022 while he was running for Congress. Like many aspiring politicians, George needed to raise money for his campaign and was given my name as someone who donates money to such people.
Over the past 20 years, I have probably fielded thousands of such calls, taken hundreds of meetings with such candidates, and given money to a chunk of those.
Personally, I do this out of some romantic notion that I am helping to fix a country I love and that I owe so much to. It has been an interesting experience for me to get to know so many of these people from all over the country.
There are several from that group who I consider to be dear friends today. It is an interesting and eccentric selection of individuals who run for public office, and I feel fortunate that so many good people accept the public scrutiny that comes with that decision and push forward to help our nation.
I admire all of them for making that decision.
If you spend 20 years meeting first-time political candidates, a few things will surprise you. As an outsider, I believed that running the United States of America is very serious business, whether it be as the President, a legislator, or a judge.
Such a task must require high intellectual horsepower, some sense of how large organizations run and how to lead them, a strong moral compass given the public trust these offices embody, and a strong commitment to the cause.
It is often the case that the people seeking office have none of these qualities, and even those candidates who are well-intentioned when they first run for office, and virtually all of them are, the public spotlight and celebrity status quickly become the primary motivation once in office.
I have had numerous conversations with elected officials over the years about the fear of what might come of them if they were to lose the next election. Staying in office and staying in the spotlight is often an overwhelming motivating factor.
When I met George for the first time, I found him to be smart and engaging. In retrospect, it is quite likely that much of what he was telling me in that meeting was a lie, as has been well documented.
Having sat in that room with so many people like him, however, I was struck with his capacity to speak eloquently about our country, the issues it faces, and how one might try to address those issues from Washington.
This is my language. Those meetings, in my mind, are a job interview, and I want to hear how the candidate will best do the job. George scored well on that metric. I never bothered to check where George went to college or what his sexual orientation was, and frankly, none of that matters to me. More to the point, it isn’t at all relevant for the job he was applying for.
From my experience, I would say that integrity is a vastly underrated quality when it comes to evaluating partners. A partner is anyone with whom you have some functional dynamic with – certainly this includes your spouse, family, and friends, but it also includes your professional relationships, service vendors, and political leadership.
Having any of these people be of low integrity introduces enormous risk of terrible outcomes, and those outcomes often occur. That said, when I hire a plumber or a coach, I have never bothered to confirm whether their represented college or sexual orientation is accurate. I only care about whether they can do the job, which I will simply either take their word for or trust a referral.
Oddly, as it relates to Santos, if I surveyed people on who is more likely to lie to you, a plumber or a politician, I am guessing something like 100% of people would answer the politician, yet we are to feign outrage that this particular politician told lies. We all believe politicians are liars, and while that isn’t the preferred outcome, we simply accept it. We get the leaders we deserve.
Like everyone else, I watched George’s story unravel in the media after he was elected. It has been suggested that he lied about where he went to school, where he worked, and what his sexual orientation was, among other things.
Perhaps I have spent too much time around politicians, because while I was surprised and disappointed to hear these stories, I was much more interested in how George was doing his job as a Congressman: what votes he was taking and what issues he was advocating for.
These are critical functions that impact the world we live in.
On that basis, George was about as perfect a member of Congress as I could ask for, as a conservative America First voter, and I was satisfied with my financial support for George.
George went to a different college than he told me, but he was doing precisely what he said he would do as a member of Congress. George was a reliable fiscal conservative, voting against all CRs and proposing bills for things like reigning in USAID.
He was also a proponent for government transparency, including support for legislation to suspend security clearances for the 51 “intel” officers who manipulated facts related to the Hunter Biden laptop.
And on America First, he was a constant strong supporter for legislation relating to energy independence, immigration enforcement, and trade. In my experience, that is a pretty good outcome for someone you vote for, and we need more of that.
What happened next was alarming.
Members of the New York Congressional caucus, led by Republicans, began an effort to have George expelled from Congress.
To put that in perspective, only five members had ever been expelled in the history of the United States, and three of those were Confederate officers after the Civil War.
It was striking to me how aggressive the New York members acted to push the expulsion vote, given their relative quiet and back-bencher posture on most other matters.
As someone familiar with local politics, I was keenly aware of the local Long Island dynamic at play here, and some of the egos involved were eager to “settle scores” for what I would consider to be silly grievances.
The primary driver of the expulsion logic was “George lied,” which seemed like an odd reason to remove an elected official, as anyone who pays attention to politics knows, these guys lie all of the time. If we expelled all politicians who lie, Washington would be empty.
The tragic end to George spiraled from there.
The dynamics of modern American politics are eerily similar to the dynamics we have all seen in any prison movie.
There are plenty of rival gangs looking to harm you, so you need to stay loyal to your own group. Once you lose the support of your own, the rest will come to get you.
And in George’s case, that is precisely what happened.
The New York Republicans were vocal critics of George and the lies he told, and they worked vigorously to build support among Republicans for his expulsion.
Perhaps sensing blood in the water, the Biden DOJ then brought a criminal indictment against George in Federal court several months later.
The Democrats love the idea of indicting a sitting Republican as it creates endless fodder in the media, bolstering the narrative that Republicans are all liars and criminals, bent on destroying America.
Left with few friends on either side of the aisle, George was left alone trying to hold onto his seat in Congress, and more importantly, fighting a costly legal battle in NY against the Federal government.
He lost both of these fights (his vacated Congressional seat was filled by a Democrat, thus weakening an already thin Republican majority), ultimately waiving the white flag in his criminal indictment largely for having been bled out financially after a lengthy legal process.
Of note, the crimes George was accused of are somewhat trivial, if not commonplace, in my opinion. George was accused of lying about and misreporting his campaign finances, and misusing campaign funds for things like clothing and Botox.
Much like the Trump-Stormy Daniels case in New York City, the government spun a single crime into a many-count indictment, treating each instance as a combination of interstate wire fraud (because this was done on the internet), fraud against the United States, and other such crimes.
I know many Congressmen. The journey that many of these people find themselves on involves a radical change to their lifestyle.
As the Founders intended, the House of Representatives is staffed with normal people from around the country. Often, small business owners, bartenders, or lawyers in random local districts around the Country, these people often go from relative anonymity with limited financial means, and almost instantly they are thrown into near-celebrity status on TV and hosted as the main event at speaking engagements all over the place.
They also find themselves leading teams of political operatives running a campaign, funded with vast sums of campaign money, with limited guardrails and oversight.
The temptations these people are exposed to are vast. Misuse of funds is just the start of it. Honeypot sexual encounters trying to ensnare them in compromised predicaments, lobbyists trying to curry favor for their agenda item of choice, and sitting members of government offering favors in exchange for future loyalty to coalitions they are trying to build.
These are all commonplace and are only a small part of the temptation. If you search around the internet for instances of politicians being accused of misuse or misreporting of campaign funds, you will find many. What you will only find one example of is a politician being indicted and jailed for such behavior.
When you boil this all down, you have a political hit job orchestrated by local politicians looking to settle a score, combined with a weaponized justice department controlled by the opposition party, both of which combined to unfairly destroy a man’s life.
Make no mistake, George is guilty of both lying on the campaign trail and misusing campaign funds. There is little doubt about that. Where this has led is a precedent-shattering seven-year prison sentence in a medium security federal prison, with George astonishingly being denied special protection for his “celebrity status” and sexual orientation, both of which will make him a target for violence in prison.
This is highly unusual, and grossly unfair given the facts of his case.
When I talk to people on Long Island about George Santos, most people confuse matters by telling me George is getting what he deserves because he lied.
Very few people understand what he is actually going to prison for, or the unfortunate fact that lying is not illegal.
“Screw George Santos” is a common retort from people when I bring up his name. And I feel a personal obligation in those moments to stop to take the time to question that idea. Really? “Screw George?”
As though any consequence imaginable is justified because George lied as an aspiring politician. George lied. He lied directly to my face, so I am personally a victim of that crime.
But George’s life has now been destroyed, and he is days away from beginning a prison sentence in a place that would terrify any of us.
This is not a “settled score.”
This is sending a man to a death sentence for something that, at its core, all of us are guilty of to one extent or another.
George got caught up in his own ego and gave in to vices that were placed in front of him. He should face consequences for that, as we all should.
But his life shouldn’t be ended for that, and we should all ask ourselves whether we are in favor of this kind of weaponized justice train-wrecking people because of the whims of political foes taking advantage of the opportunity to remove an “enemy” from the map.
Because that is what just happened here. If we are in favor of that kind of justice, I say again, we get the leaders we deserve.
On a personal level, after George was indicted, I followed the situation from afar, growing more surprised and saddened with each passing step in the process.
I eventually reached out to George to understand what the details of this situation were.
I have spent several hours with George over the last 2 years, and my heart goes out to him. I can, and I think we should all be able to, simultaneously believe that someone has engaged in bad behavior, while also believing the consequences being levied against that person are unfair, and in this case are perverting a justice system that I hold dear.
I believe that is egregiously true here. In my interactions with George, I have found him to be humble, remorseful for his actions, introspective on what drove him to make these decisions, and willing to accept the consequences.
He is accountable, in a truly human version of that word. His sometimes eccentric behavior on social media, which has been mocked by those who believe they are George’s enemies, is nothing more than a quirky personality combined with his need to stay financially solvent after having been bankrupted by the system. I admire him for these things.
To those rooting for George’s demise, I ask that you stop for a moment to consider that.
There is little question that the fate George is about to serve is completely disproportionate to what he is guilty of.
He is, however, walking into a virtual death sentence in the coming days. If you are rooting for that outcome, I can assure you that that view is misguided. Just like all of us, George is a person with a family and friends, trying to do the best he can in this world, while often falling short of the bar. My own personal failures compel me to humbly find the humanity in George, which I have witnessed firsthand.
I pray that anyone contributing to this outcome for George can search internally to find the grace to look in the mirror and forgive. The world would be a better place if we found the strength to do so. And if not, perhaps we will get what we deserve.
Godspeed George. I hope to see you on the other side, sooner rather than later.